Exhibition
in New York, NY / United States
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- Amanda Baldwin: A September Sweater, 2019, oil on canvas, 30 x 36 in
“These artworks are not just beautiful or realistic renderings of static objects. The still life, rather, is an evolving system of representation and of meaning, directly related to the transformations of society and of artistic discourse.” (Margit Rowell, “Objects of desire: the modern still life”, Museum of Modern Art, 1997)
Thierry Goldberg is pleased to present “Last Weekend’s Lemon,” a solo exhibition of new paintings by Amanda Baldwin.
Amanda Baldwin’s paintings carefully tow the line between regular order and total discombobulation. Her newest arrangements are grounded with recognizable imagery – plants and vases, fruits, both halved and whole, standard fare for traditional still lifes – but those perceived securities are almost immediately unmoored by visual manipulations that turn simple scenes into panoptic pandemoniums.
At first glance, the paintings seem relatively straightforward, but slowly begin to disintegrate upon closer examination, toying with the viewer’s assumptions. Each object holds equal weight, creating messy yet meritocratic menageries, where reflections compete with shadows, grounds with supports. That which appears flat suddenly takes on an uncanny depth. An altered light source, like that in “Double Orange Palm”, quietly disrupts a scene, casting neon shadows behind delicately rendered fronds. Outlines of what appear to be windows add another layer to the illusionistic space.
Human figures, manifest a natural extensions of her still lifes. While adjustments in scale enhance the already anthropomorphic qualities of her objects, people enter scenes as equal participants, with their visages, like the surrounding skins, flattened or distilled to component parts, or sometime appearing merely as reflections of their surroundings.
Amanda Baldwin (b. 1984, Seattle, WA) lives and works in Queens, NY. She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA from the University of Washington, Seattle. Baldwin has had solo shows at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA) and at 106 Green Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), and participated in group shows at Thierry Goldberg Gallery (New York, NY), Brennan & Griffin (New York, NY), Crush Curatorial (New York, NY), Underdonk Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), and Essex Flowers (New York, NY), among others. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, The New Yorker, New American Paintings, and The Coasta Post, among others.
Gallery hours Wed-Sun, 11 am – 6 pm
Location:
Thierry Goldberg Gallery
103 Norfolk Street
10002 New York, NY
United States
