Mira Dancy, feat. Amelia Saddington and Miles Huston: “Is She Is She Psychic”
Night Gallery, 2276 East 16th Street, LA
January 17 – February 21, 2015
Night Gallery is presenting a three-artist exhibition; “Is She Is She Psychic,” an exhibition of new work by Mira Dancy, also featuring exhibits by Miles Huston and Amelia Saddington.
In “Is She Is She Psychic,” Mira Dancy begins by imagining an ad campaign for a fictional fragrance Herfume Perfume. As soon as the name is spoken it unravels, however, and the riddle intrinsic to the name interrupts the product paradigm. Fumes are characteristically pungent, dangerous, and decidedly not fragrant… so perhaps Herfume suggests no perfume at all, but the scent of a woman “as-is”. A billboard-like image emblazons the gallery wall, and neons evoke images of storefronts and commercial signage. While these gestures conjure a physical feeling of the street and how the image of a woman is still so often reduced to a symbolic currency, the paintings describe a psychological and linguistic realm that resists quick narrative summation.
The paintings take cues from our daily digital experience, and every image incorporates some degree of distortion, overlay, or cancelation. Competing bold, graphic gestures race to be viewed first. Certain images repeat or transform from one painting to the next, sometimes creating the feeling of a cinematic flashback, other times simulating the iconographic logic of advertising. The feeling of satisfaction associated with the act of recognizing a shape or an image gets compounded by the follow-up sensation of seeing the same image polluted, retracted, or negated. Color is used as a means to saturate the images, and blues, purples, and reds are deployed specifically to call up the look of neon in a darkened window at night…
Amelia Saddington’s paintings exhibit is titled “A.S., Awkward Silence.” An awkward silence grows in between thoughts and gaps in conversation. Like a mushroom after rain it suddenly appears, fully developed, strangely both alien and familiar. If language is all consuming, these paintings can be said to exist within the awkward silence of communication. Where illusions lays bare the hand that construct them and images propped up like proof unravels before the eye. The contract of the exchange evokes too much content but a desire to make connections persists. The awkward silence provides fertile ground.
Miles Huston lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, where he is co-founder of the exhibition space KNOWMOREGAMES. To create the works in “There’s No One Around You,” the artist gave himself time in Los Angeles prior to the exhibition to walk and observe the pattern languages of various local neighborhoods. Walking becomes a necessary process in locating particular architectural motifs to create representational “mock-ups.”
