Melissa Brown's work is an equally refreshing and dystopian take on the year of severe global chaos.
Zoom, New York’s subway system and famous art museums are subjects shown glorified throughout Derek Eller Gallery’s latest show. It was the first space I had visited that had more than two people in it. All wearing masks of course, but the irony of the work's commentary rang true during my physical encounter at the gallery.
How do we safely look at art anymore? Especially when these seemingly cheerful paintings take a while to figure out.
Brown’s distortional collages are created with layers of oil paint, stencil, airbrush and screen printed digital photography that undulate with reflective mark makings and contrasting textures. Brown’s use of light is also unique as it ranges from natural to digital, illustrating how ubiquitous the glare of a screen has become for us as our world turns increasingly virtual.
Another interesting feature of the work is that it occasionally involves a human hand, suggesting that this work is in fact about us. Our consumption, our surveillance, our addiction to our cellular devices. The world is still in our hands during this pandemic, but the way in which we see and control it will be altered tremendously ... and forever.
This show is so uncomfortably relevant that it is almost scary to think how else 2020 in New York City will be depicted in the future. Melissa Brown’s work forces you to slow down, to stop and think about this year and to understand our home with an entirely different appreciation.
NYNY2020 by Melissa Brown is showing at Derek Eller Gallery until Dec. 19