Hypebeast | Artists Capture Moments of Stillness Amid COVID-19 in Group Exhibition

January 12, 2021

BY KEITH ESTILER

 

New York City’s Marianne Boesky Gallery is hosting a group exhibition featuring new and recent paintings by a diverse troupe of visual artists. Participants include Cecily Brown, Olivia Erlanger, Barnaby Furnas, Jammie Holmes, Forrest Kirk, YoYo Lander, Maud Madsen, Chidinma Nnoli, Collins Obijiaku, Celeste Rapone, Lorna Robertson, Eleanor Swordy and Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Entitled “In Situ,” the sprawling presentation centers upon Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal 1892 text The Yellow Wallpaper, with the artists exploring moments of stillness amid the COVID-19 in each of their works.

 

“In ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ the unnamed narrator is confined to a room in her house as part of a rest cure, a nineteenth century medical treatment that strictly enforced a regimen of bed rest and social isolation. During her weeks in confinement, the narrator’s thoughts are slowly monopolized by the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her,” described the gallery in a statement.

 

Highlighted pieces include figurative paintings of Black and Brown communities by Jammie Holmes and pieces by Los Angeles-based painter YoYo Lander that celebrates the vulnerability of the human form in various scenarios. “The subjects and scenes of the works are not confined by the architecture of their interiors, but rather expand on imagination and the passage of time, offering meaningful depictions of isolation,” added the gallery.