Ezra Gray
Brown Space19 February—24 March 2017
Opening: 18 February, 7pm
Almanac Inn is thrilled to present Brown Space, a solo exhibition by Canadian artist Ezra Gray.
Intertwined and dispersed fragments define disavowed and displaced meanings in a series of vying intensities. Set as a display of differences, a discourse is developed with the pinch and the ouch. A transportation demarks relationships between a given stimulus and its emotional response. Regulated by desire, the tension between bodies invents architectures, narratives, connections, bridges, abysses, ways to different realities. A persistent imagery materializes, finding unexpected conclusions through fracturings and mismatches. Their presence opens our gaze to a romantic reverie. A fragmentary form of representation portrays ruins of modernity and collective subconscious. Cuts between scale, temporal dislocations and mutable characters frame a condition of becoming — timeless imagery connected to the present moment. A flow from social/collective imaginary to individual desire results in the grotesque and the sentimental — a romance of alterities and the materialization of promiscuous possibilities, shifting, dissonant realities. Their hybrid identities, flexible semiotic hierarchies and plural exchanges through associations define a surreal scenario redirecting meanings toward new ends — willing to designate molten or shifting parts, a means of asserting while also giving the slip.
Schizophrenic desire, idiosyncrasy and isolations define this movement built through contradictions as the title of the show — Beckett would say you would find yourself in a brown space when you’re alone but you feel that you have company.
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Installation view
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Installation view
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Installation view
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from the left: Hoover Dam 2, 2016, oil on canvas, 90x70cm; Hoover Dam 1, 2016, oil on canvas, 90x70cm
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Installation view
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Sweetheart, 2016, oil on canvas, 90x70cm
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Installation view
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Swiss Knife, 2017, oil on canvas, 90x70cm
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Untitled, 2017, oil on canvas, 90x70cm
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Fugitive Thoughts, 2016, oil on canvas, 90x70cm
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Hoover Dam from Above, 2016, oil on canvas, 90x70cm
All photos by Sebastiano Pellion.