Emilie Stark-Menneg – Strawberry Moon

Morgan Lehman Gallery and Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects are pleased to present “Strawberry Moon”, a double picture show of recent paintings by Emilie Stark-Menneg.

In Wim Wenders’ documentary “Pina”, one of the dancers recalls the time when the choreographer Pina Bausch asked him to “dance the moon.” Stark-Menneg uses this prompt in a series of new paintings that explore singular moments of metamorphosis. The two shows are comprised of portraits of the artist and loved ones all caught in moments of ecstatic creativity.

Each painting asks the viewer to enter a supernatural world brought to life through incandescent brushwork and painterly power. Stark-Menneg’s process is exploratory, whereby a conceptual seed or wash of color kicks off a sequence of events; the artist reacts to each earlier “move” with empathy, openness, and verve. The results are alchemic, a fusion of painterly languages and techniques.

The shows are interconnected, conceived as a filmic experience that invites the viewer to travel from one location to another. The exhibition at SHFAP focuses on a series of paintings that depict the artist in intimate states of transformation. The show then continues to Morgan Lehman where the artist depicts both herself and other creative beings becoming landscapes—liminal and fluid spaces of transfiguration. Stark-Menneg’s vision is cinematic in its storytelling and plastic movement.

Emilie Stark-Menneg is a painter with a background in video, sculpture, and performance. She’s lived in Maine for a decade, sharing a studio with her partner the artist, John Bisbee and a rotating crew of young makers. She received a BFA in combined media from Cornell University in 2007 and a MFA in painting from RISD in 2019. Stark-Menneg collaborated with the American poet Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon on a performance for the Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial 2019 at Cornell University and presented a painting and video installation in collaboration with Van Clief-Stefanon in the deCordova Museum’s 2019 Biennial. Solo exhibitions include Field Projects Gallery, NYC; Allouche Gallery, NYC; Makebish Gallery, NYC; Kijidome, Boston, MA; the Nesto Gallery of Milton Academy, Milton, MA; Elizabeth Moss Gallery, Falmouth, ME; Leonard R. Craig Gallery, Unity, ME; and the Coleman Burke Gallery, Brunswick, ME. Stark-Menneg’s installation “Sing Me to Another Sound” was included in the 2015 Portland Museum of Art Biennial.

Gallery hours Wed-Sat 11 am – 6 pm, and by appointment

www.morganlehmangallery.com

Location:
Morgan Lehman Gallery
526 West 26th Street, 4th Floor
10001 New York, NY
United States