Getting Personal

SFA Projects is proud to present Getting Personal at 131 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002. The exhibition will open with a reception on Wednesday, May 23rd (7pm-9pm) and will remain on view through June 17th.

The group exhibition puts forward ten female artists whose artwork express deeply personal thoughts, emotional energies, and societal commentary. Through a variety of works the show examines the role and representation of women in contemporary society. Viewed as a whole, the exhibition exemplifies how various forms of art making allow for nonverbal communication on a deeply personal level, communications that are often more powerful or truthful than the verbal or the written. The works create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork that is filtered through uniquely female experiences and perspectives, inviting viewers to question modern social and political landscapes.

Elena Chestnykh‘s works explore power dynamics within heterosexual relationships arising from the intersection of sexual desire and patriarchal oppressive mind-sets by examining traditional myths, stereotypes, autobiographical, and fictional narratives related to gender.

Patricia Fabricant began making self portraits in response to the current political climate. This series records of the range of intense emotions she feels daily. Sometimes she weaves them together as a way of abstracting her gaze and attempting to reveal a variegated expression of her inner life. “This is a time of deep introspection for me, and for my country, and this is my way of confronting myself and trying to assert my place in the world.” says Fabricant. “They are direct and confrontational.”

Anki King paints and sculpts life-sized figures that act as symbols for feelings that can’t accurately be described in words. They are characterized by the object symbols with which they share space. Each figure, or fragment of a figure, stands still in readiness for a charged meeting with the viewer. The viewing activates a series of responses, where identity is projected onto the faceless figure, similar to a reflection that offers the gazer another view of him/herself. This frees the narrative from being contained within the subject matter of the artwork and allows it to exist in the viewing space.

Monique Mantell‘s life and work revolve around the themes of identity, vulnerability, self discovery, sexuality, defying social conditioning and norms, rising through adversity, and finding light in darkness, hidden beauty and magic, and strength above all. Monique is known as a bold brave free spirited independent woman. Her work manifests in different mediums depending on her journey.

Sirikul Pattachote‘s paintings depict flowers. “I respect the lives of flowers and believe that flowers and plants are ingrained within my soul. Whatever mood or sentiment I can imagine, I can use a flower to articulate it. To all of my memories, in each stage of my life, there is a flower that I associate, containing my remembered experience. When I was young, my father taught me to draw, and my mother taught me to sew. I recently began to introduce sewing into my work as a reminder of my love for my mother. Then I found my emotions in the stitches; each individual stitch told me the stage of my mind. The empty space in my work is peace that I seek for, and believe in.”

Kamonchanok Phon-ngam is a Thai artist living in New York City. As an enthusiast of both eastern and western artistic cultures, Kamonchanok creates her artwork with a combination of traditional drawing and collage of indigenous materials. She is interested in how our self-identity is at odds with the motivations presented in today’s consumer-driven materialistic society. She says if “you lose your self identity, you will become the victim of this dominating power. Above all, the nonmaterial thing that we need to comprehend and be grateful for is ‘the world in our mind’.”

Hazel Lee Santino investigates symbols that reemerge throughout mythology. Collecting and reinterpreting (misremembering) stories, she connects common motifs to the contemporary and to personal experience. She uses a variety of techniques, including painting, carving, and papier-mâché, to create objects that loosely document her findings.

Prang Vejjajiva looks at herself as a woman who is an artist, an introvert, and a self-described “crazy cat lady.” In describing her work in this exhibition, Vejjajiva says “I always use my art to express my feelings and emotions by converting them into images, both objective and abstract. I normally paint cats to represent myself because of our related personalities. I created these pieces to express my personal feelings during alone time, which I found a pleasure, enjoyable moments when I have time for myself to be independent and free. I want to show the honest feeling of my experience as a woman who lives alone.”

Melanie Vote‘s painting in the show, Other, is “a culmination of experiences,” says Vote. “In the spring of 2016 a friend, at the time 8 months pregnant, offered to pose for me. After many sketches and photos I chose to concentrate on this one because I loved the way the shadow of the large money tree cascaded across her body and obscured her portrait. I began the piece in early 2017 while in residency in the Grand Canyon I was on the look out for a suitable landscape that might serve for the back drop. While there I began to realize just how much the land is entrenched in politics; a historical and contemporary battleground between preserving natural lands versus using them. This piece intends to question whether the human relationship with Earth is a symbiotic or parasitic one.”

Jayoung Yoon uses the hair sheared from her own head, then transforms the hair into artwork. Her work draws upon the mind-matter phenomenon, exploring our thought systems, perception and body sensations. Human hair, at once corporeal and a symbol of remembrance, has become her visual nexus for the intersection between the body and mind. Each strand of hair is hand knotted or woven into forms, which can be seen through, conjuring invisible thoughts and memories. Such forms are often used in her video and performance works