Moray Hillary “Instability, Inc.”
Galerie Protégé
This event has ended.
Moray Hillary is an artist and a nomad. The resultant point of view stemming from these conditions is an acute sensitivity to the instability of the human condition; instability of both the individual psyche and the larger environment we’ve constructed as creatures on this planet.
Instability, Inc. is a new body of work created for Galerie Protégé and an extension of a project begun during his working residency in Brooklyn last year. This installation of large and small paintings describes a drama of displacement, change, transformation, and of a seeking to belong. The artist contemplates:
“…the hindrance of carrying cultural baggage and where indeed to place this baggage: what if you were to pick up someone else’s cultural baggage and how would this affect you? It purveys an aesthetic of searching, clinging to fragments and elements of chance which in turn entropically always dissolve, unravel and ultimately slip away.”
The exhibition transforms the white-walled gallery into an immersive environment and travelogue that consists of miniature paintings on found rearview mirrors and large shaped vinyl works. Some of the mirrors reflect a distant scene, the fragments of cityscapes, quiet pathways and undefined spaces. Others reflect solitary objects such as a broken lipstick, a damaged doll, burnt paper ashes, an apple core…. All of the objects are in a state of flux or transformation. Some are broken, used or discarded; others transform and grow.
While the mirror paintings cause the viewer to move in and peer closely, the larger works invite a stepping back into the room where the viewer is confronted by alternate spaces. A trompe l’oeil hole in the wall suggests a break in the architecture; Alice’s rabbit hole into which one could climb in and tumble down toward adventure. Other large paintings sprout from the ground on natural tree branches and contribute to a startling, yet magical dreamscape.
The viewer is transported into an atmosphere tinged with menace, yet tempered by a sense of playful humor. The artist notes, “The work veers between depicting the paralyzing restrictions of life and an unhinged exuberance for it.”
- Alison Pierz, Curator
Media
Schedule
from February 19, 2015 to March 19, 2015