Morgan Blair, David Pappaceno and Jason Silva, “Hunting for Punchlines”

Greenpoint Terminal Gallery

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Greenpoint Terminal Gallery presents Hunting for Punchlines. The exhibition brings together new work by three artists: Morgan Blair, David Pappaceno, and Jason Silva. The artists are mismated through medium, but share a similar lexicon characterized by sudden moments of disjointment and replacement. The artwork in the show explores abstraction through fragmentation, and reflects on how patch-working and reconfiguring moments can heighten allegory. The title, Hunting for Punchlines, acknowledges that even though the stories jump around, they also find their right endings.

Morgan Blair’s paintings are characterized by digital palettes and artificial textures similarly associated with design software. The work originates from online memorabilia, drawing from Youtube, tutorial videos, Seinfeld episodes, Craigslist finds, elementary blogs, and miscellaneous net trash. She chooses stills that move from recognizable images to abstractions. Her paintings reflect similar stylistic jolts, jumping from renderings of regular to irregular shapes and oscillating flat to three dimensional spaces. Equivalently, David Pappaceno’s sculptures cut & paste. Playing with pattern and texture, Pappaceno transplants body parts onto geometric and organic forms resulting in sculptures that double as tantalizing mythic idols. Pulling inspiration from art history (specifically the seductive Venus of Willendorf) the works, futuristic in form, are simultaneous reminders of the past. The graphite drawings by Jason Silva exist as patterns, narratives, and surrealist landscapes. The subjects in his work each carry their own relationship to light and shadow, making it seem like, although they co-exist in one drawing, they might have pulled been from different worlds. As a whole, this exhibition collects work that is inspired by a cross section of pop culture and historical references; all of which are restructured by the art making process.

[Image: Morgan Blair “14 Real Life Billionaires You Won’t Believe Really Exist and Decide the Fate of the Free World on Behalf of the Cast of ‘The Real World: Middle Earth,’ Including Fashion Santa, Big Pharma, Whoever Starred In ‘Maniac Cop 3,’ an Actual Ghoul, and a Cartoon Evangelical Kangaroo! Click Here and Comment AMEN to Live out the Rest of Your Life as a Golden Retriever!” (2017) Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in. ]