Amy Mahnick: Through The Vessel

Exhibition Dates: october 2 - october 27, 2018

Reception: Thursday, october 4, 6 - 8 pm

The Painting Center presents Through The Vessel, a selection of paintings by Amy Mahnick in the Project Room. This group of small to medium-sized oil paintings are often titled Aggregates, as each painting contains a partial compression of at least three different, carefully observed still life arrangements.  Mahnick begins each of her compositions objectively painting what she sees before her, but at some point intentionally interrupts that process through various means. She will sometimes change the direction or type of lighting, switch out one object for another from her original set up, or rearrange them altogether, for a few examples. In doing this, she is forced to find a way to make the new tableau work with the previous one, and without obliterating everything and beginning over. The results are canvases where moments of illusionistic space and forms collide with one another and break open, creating dynamic, sometimes chaotic, and often beautiful abstract rhythms not traditionally associated with still life painting, but absolutely dependent on it for its foundation. Amy Mahnick grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her BFA in sculpture from Michigan State University, and her MFA in painting from The New York Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited in the United States with Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles, and Flowers Gallery and Nancy Margolis Gallery in NY, in addition to the Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul. She is one of eleven women interviewed in the short documentary film: “Women Painting,” produced by Girls’ Club.