The opening salvo of Sin Fatigue, Nadine Sarriedine gallery’s inaugural present, is a fortune cookie message rendered in textile by Erin M. Riley: “You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems,” together with a choice of fortunate numbers. The message serves as an apt mission assertion for a gallery making an attempt to carve out its digital and bodily footprint within the downtown artwork scene, in addition to this present particularly, which explores the creation and efficiency of selfhood throughout the motley work of 13 artists. (“13,” curiously, isn’t considered one of Riley’s fortunate numbers.)
Quite a lot of the works within the exhibition relate to expertise. Damon Zucconi’s digital work deploy algorithms to weave collectively sundry disarticulated and abstracted authorities doc pictures to create 4 portraits of spectral feminine faces shrouded in mild. The works confront how human likeness was traditionally acknowledged as facsimile, a composite of the topic’s idealized self and the painter’s sympathy or honesty, and has since turn into concurrently a much more inflexible authorized class and likewise a web site of company as a consequence of digital instruments and the web. Alex Ito’s “witness” (2024), wherein a dynamic central panel of silver nitrate chrome and oxidized iron powder shifts and adjustments with time and its environment, additionally speaks to the social media age. This reflective core attracts viewers in, whereas darkish panels flanking it bear the imprints of neon fingers that recall the best way flesh would possibly seem on a heatmap, the mark of somebody making an attempt to however unable to enter. Whereas we’re drawn to those reflections of ourselves, believing they join us, it suggests, digital imagery usually masks real-world battle and division quite than bridging it.
Damon Zucconi, “dovefis_ei_nd_ne_er__i__u__s__” (2023), UV curing ink on dibond, 18 1/2 x 16 inches (~47 x 40.6 cm)
Different works foreground identification and efficiency. “Ricochet” (2024) by Jesus Hilario-Reyes merges his twin identities as artist and DJ. The lightbox set up, draped in black electrical cables, homes lots of of miniature black Jab Jab figures from Latin American carnival custom. These figures face a stage the place strobe lights pulse in sync with a 15-minute soundtrack, translating Hilario-Reyes’s perspective from behind the DJ sales space, the place particular person dancers progressively blur into one pulsing mass of vitality.
Laura Anderson Barbata’s “King Olokun, (Intervention: Ocean Blues)” (2018), in the meantime, interprets the facility of a sea deity into what remembers a drag efficiency costume. Named for the Yoruba ruler of the ocean, the ensemble gleams like bioluminescent ocean life: A crown of blue fronds rises like seaweed towards the sky, topped by a fringed blue lampshade-like headpiece, whereas a blue satin cape sparkles with iridescent round and talon-shaped sequins and balloon string fringe. Simply as bioluminescence illuminates the ocean’s hidden depths, the costume spotlights the rising disaster of local weather change very similar to a drag efficiency would possibly satirize social points.
Relatedly, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter’s “A Protective Style (A Spell Cast on The Ocean floor)” (2023) rests on the entry ground, presenting a circle of braided hair that appears to drift in both deep ocean waters or a swirling evening sky. Utilizing a fancy mixture of supplies — acrylic, paper, gouache, glitter, black Tourmaline, obsidian, crochet field braids, LED lights, and vinyl cuts — the piece attracts parallels between hair’s protecting function and a non secular defend, suggesting each adornment and armor.
Sin Fatigue brings collectively artists whose works converse from society’s edges, discovering surprising connections of their numerous views. From Ito’s shifting mirrors to Hilario-Reyes’s pulsing crowds, from Anderson Barbata’s oceanic drag to Sikelianos-Carter’s protecting hair spells, every bit weaves collectively themes of identification, safety, and transformation — suggesting that energy usually flows from society’s margins to its heart.
Erin M. Riley, “Problems” (2024), wool, cotton sewn to stretched linen, 10 x 33 inches (~25.4 x 83.8 cm)
Set up views of Laura Anderson Barbata, “King Olokun (Intervention: Ocean Blues)” (2018), assorted textiles, fiberglass, cardboard, sequins, LED lights, 84 x 54 x 54 inches (~213.4 x 137.2 x 137.2 cm)
Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, “A Protective Style (A Spell Cast on The Ocean floor)” (2023), acrylic, paper, gouache, glass, glitter, Black Tourmaline, obsidian, and crochet field braids on panel, dimensions variable
Set up view of Sin Fatigue at Salma Sarriedine gallery with Jesus Hilario-Reyes’s “Ricochet” (2024) within the foreground
Sin Fatigue continues at Salma Sarriedine gallery (116 Elizabeth Avenue Ground 3, Decrease East Aspect, Manhattan), by February 22. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
