Woman on Top by Emily Mullin

Emily is an artist works and live in Brooklyn, New York. Her work ‘Woman on the top’ is a series of wall-mounted reliefs of ceramic vessels and flowers on hand painted steel shelves. Each individual sets are showing different style and they are constructed by 3-4 elements: a bent metal sheet, vessel, real flower and patterns. The work attracts me the most is a set which has 4 vessels in dot background. When the audience face to the front side of this piece, the metal sheet and vessels are all blend in to the environment, which all contributed to the dot repetition among the vessel that expand to the sheet and indistinct the boundaries between them. Every subject is uniquely shaped with crazy structure expanding out from the body of the vase and having the repetition going on. The use of color for the sheets are really vibrant and brave, making a big contrast to color of vases with either white or black the the natural color of the clay and ceramics exposed to the air. Looking through the whole exhibition, I feel that Mullin bring a strong sense of graphic into both of her ceramics work and her way of display them. Even the flowers placed inside the vessels show how she deliberates everything, even the height of each plant to make her work a harmony as a whole.

Woman On Top - Emily Mulin

Emily Mulin’s, Woman on Top exhibition at John Hanley Gallery immediately draws the eye in with bold patterns, beautiful plants, and unique ceramics. It strays from being perceived as nice wall art at a trendy restaurant in Nolita by its intricate craftsmanship and clever display techniques. The series of wall-mounted reliefs of ceramic vessels and flowers on hand-painted steel shelves come across as three dimensional still lives. By putting real plants in the works, Mulin may be playing with temporal reality in a more observable sense than typical still life. The viewer must contemplate both what happens when these plants wilt.




Currently, there is a boom in digital art with the new capabilities artists have access to, and these works often take to moving much faster than Mulin’s work. A painted still life is a preservation of a moment, whereas the Woman On Top exhibition consists of continuously transforming pieces, too slow to be perceived in the average 10 second glance from passers by. Though the works are three dimensional, they hold a beauty which would translate to a flat page easily, the aesthetics are memorable due to the bright colors and intriguing patterns that help draw the onlooker.




Woman On Top. Is this title alluding to women’s power, or maybe in a sexual context? Both interpretations seem far fetched. The pieces do appear feminine but the title doesn’t fit. The title is bold, and grabs attention like a magazine headline, but the three dimensional still lifes don’t feel as charged.




While the depth of the work is questionable, the visual decisions are staged, simple, and elegant with cohesive color choices. Either way, to view Mulin’s work was simple and beautiful.

Nathaniel Mary Quinn at the Drawing Center

Working in black charcoal, gouache, soft pastel, and oil, then cut, collaged and pasted on Vellum, Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s work at the Drawing Center is a testament to anguish. He is a butcher of the traditional portrait, through a chopped, shattered and reassembled composition. He imbues his work with a childlike loneliness and the search to resolve a fractured identity.

I’d read about his life in a vogue article here before seeing his work in person and was impressed by his life, overcoming tragedy and finding international success as an artist.

Essentially, as a child in Chicago, he survived major trauma, including violence, poverty, and sudden abandonment by his family upon the death of his mother. His work feels cathartic, as though through collaging rendered images from iconic imagery, including JZ and the girl with the pearl earring, he is working through this trauma.

A child under pressure, almost crushed by the tension of truncated and chopped features, is a theme in his work. One striking piece, Elephant Feet, shows a sort of monster child. The face has been cut and reassembled, with fractals of eyes, a pig nose, accentuated lips. This drawing solicits both tenderness and a recoiling at the horror of this lonely, tortured elephant- pig-child, the other. It also speaks to the duality in all of us: the primal, the animal, the impolite shadow side, as well as the innocent child, tender with a red satin bow tied around the child’s neck.

Unlike light handed touch of Elijah Burgher, also in this three person show, Quinn’s mark making is fierce. The charcoal and soft pastel are saturated, the material rubbed into vellum repeatedly, polishing and condensing the material into deep, waxy blacks, greys, whites. This is indeed a drawing show, showing a wide range of three masterful hands (Toyin Ojih Odutola and Elijah Bergher as well), and Nathaniel Mary Quinn truly imbues his dark, fractured drawings with a sense of soulful tragedy.

Body Double by Bianca Beck at Rachel Uffner

When I walked into Bianca Becks’s Body Double at Rachel Uffner Gallery I was intrigued by many colorful abstract paintings. I thought they were beautiful but as I  continued I found the true showstoppers to be the "body double" sculptures. I was instantly mesmerized by these giant, colorful sculptures towering above me. They captured my eye as soon as I saw them because of the presence they demand in the room. The experience of wandering this room was incredible. The forms all stand approximately seven feet, and are arranged in a small room. Being in the room gave me an up close experience and as I walked through I saw the works from different perspectives and in relation to the other sculptures. I was close enough to see every detail and be able to walk all the way around them. The fact that they were free standing and in open air gave them a more authenticity and created an up close and personal experience. 

The sculptures are inspired by political protests and the enormity of them. It’s also representative of Plato’s concept that humans were once two bodies in one. The size of the sculpture indicates the size and power two bodies combined might have. The mass of them also reflects the political protests.

The paintings together with the sculptures imagine the future and allude to radical thinking. The form and color are so abstract and show a new way of art not seen before. For me it is an exploration of a more perfect world. Beck’s vibrant colors and beautiful shapes are imbued with optimism that allows me to see this positive future Beck is alluding to. The colors throughout the sculptures create a happy feelings.

While all the works are beautiful and important, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the paintings. They are beautiful and deserve a better installation. The paintings were outshone by the sculptures, and because of this can seem forgettable. The display of the sculptures was perfect, and the paintings deserve a more well thought out and intentional display. They should be as memorable to a viewer as the sculptures. Beck's "body double" sculptures are extremely beautiful and have me an amazing feeling, however, the paintings were somewhat disappointing in comparison.