YES
Maddie Reyna @ Julius Caesar
Opening February 17th, 4-7 PM
Julius Caesar presents "YES," a solo exhibition for one night only.
After
almost two years of keeping a private studio, Maddie Reyna returns to
Julius Caesar with a solo presentation of new paintings. The images that
become paintings are taken from the artist's rambling journey. A sumo
wrestler from a poster spotted in a closed Japanese restaurant, statues
of Horus from The Met, a seal hugging a dolphin's belly from an
Instagram image, and a recreation of a collaborative painting with
artist Jacob Goudreault all honor the inexplicable and irreducible "Yes"
that is whispered into the artist's ear upon seeing them. The studio is
an obsessive place of worship and transformation as the images become
moveable, holdable objects.
In
the gallery, Reyna gives into her re-discovered voice through a suite
of seven vignettes. Attempting to understand the paintings' meanings
either before or after their creation impedes their presence. For the
artist, it is enough that they affirmatively exist.
_______
Maddie Reyna (b. 1987, Raleigh, NC)
currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the
School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 2013, was a co-director of
Julius Caesar from 2013 - 2016 and in 2018 hosted the live art review
radio podcast, Wang, on KPISS.fm.