Monya Rowe Gallery
34 Orchard Street, Ground Floor
Amy Longenecker-Brown
Monya Rowe Gallery, New York
Miracle House Ruminations. The artist presents us with a catalog and calendar of desires, a pictorial sequence of 'what if' scenarios. With religious roots taking a backseat, the artist explores the biological human characteristic of longing and the existential effect of the act of indulgence.
Miracle House Ruminations
Monya Rowe is excited to announce the first solo exhibition of paintings by Amy Longenecker-Brown titled Miracle House Ruminations.
Longenecker-Brown presents us with a catalog and calendar of desires, a pictorial sequence of 'what if' scenarios. The series, Birthday Wish List, depicts objects of desire: an 18th Century country estate; a cow, horse and chicken for self-sufficient farming; a pug for a comfort creature; the classic male in the form of George Clooney; an extravagant dinner with martinis and cake. Longenecker-Brown glorifies her personal obsessions and desires by framing them against a false landscape backdrop creating a spatial dislocation that sets the scene for an imagined narrative. Raised in a Mennonite (Anabaptist) community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Longenecker-Brown's confession for decadence in turn forces the artist to inwardly examine what it means to embrace personal desires in an environment where want and need are linked to a religious ideology. With religious roots taking a backseat, the artist explores the biological human characteristic of longing and the existential effect of the act of indulgence, or want, and how this leads to self-examination and even self-doubt; are these decadent thoughts a sin?
In another group of paintings, titled The Companion Series, the artist ruminates over potential companions as a means of philosophical or spiritual enlightenment: Monday with Jesus, Tuesday with Clooney, Wednesday with Kierkegaard, Thursday with Praying man, Friday with Pets, Saturday With Guston, and Sunday, deliberately void of a companion, is open for interpretation. Conceptually exploring spiritual disillusionment with theoretical thought, the paintings of Longenecker-Brown provide a platform to search for complacency, community, a sanctuary and even a companion for the dispirited individual.
Amy Longenecker-Brown received a MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Jersey; a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island including a summer study abroad in Rome, Italy. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
526 West 26th Street - New York
IN ARCHIVIO [4]
Jake Longstreth