I am happy to announce the newest addition to Mike Weiss Gallery’s program; Valerie Hegarty. I think you’ll find that her work perfectly articulates the gallery’s mission of showing artists with active and engaging voices.
Valerie’s work presents a captivating, dystopian vision of what Paul Laster in Time Out called, ‘poetic possibilities,’ with each possibility commenting on the deteriorating state of society using painting, sculpture, and installation as her vocabulary. She first creates canvases or sculptures that replicate paintings or antiques from early American history, then puts them to the tests of fire, water, earthquakes, guns, woodpeckers, and more, revealing that we can be defeated when faced with the uncontrollable forces of nature.
Each painting or sculpture is reimagined using devices associated with the historical or cultural significance the original object inherently contains. Process and transformation are at the core of her practice, resulting in a ‘re-seeing’ of past, present, and perhaps the not-so-distant future. After entering one of Valerie’s exhibitions, such as 2013’s Alternative Histories at the Brooklyn Museum, one cannot help but have a heightened awareness of the new or impending ‘reality’ she constructs using trompe l’oeil techniques. Upon further inspection, it is revealed that every single element is fabricated, which makes you question reality even long after you leave.
Keep an eye out for more news from us. If you haven’t been to the gallery to see Color Study, Tom Fruin’s current solo show, please join us to usher in the start of the season and to see Tom Fruins’ illuminated mementos and icons of overlooked urbanity.
520 W 24 NYC
212 691 6899
mikeweissgallery.com