Opening: Sat, July 24th 6-11pm
Info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/163115838865
Beginning July 24, 2021, Synesthesia Gallery will present Schillaci’s : The Labour We Delight In Physics Pain, the first New York solo exhibition from the Brooklyn-based artist. TLWDIPP will debut a new series of paintings and a video installation devoted to the psyche of the human mind during extreme moments of violence and pleasure. The exhibition grapples with wether one is fully conscious during these acts or if a persons being removes itself in a sort of disassociated state.
The figures in Schillaci’s work are often vague, hollow and without definitive gender offering the viewer to place themselves within the work or gaze upon the figures with a numbness similar to the way in which images of pornography and violence are consumed in today’s world, briefly and often scrolled through.
Schillaci imagines the works as theatrical stagings with an intentional feeling of menace threaded through the narrative of each piece. Drawing inspiration from the Pinteresque “Comedy of Menace” a play on the Comedy of Manners style, the work is suspended in the pauses between dialogue and action. This creates a form of forbidden humor stemming from the uneasiness of the pause itself.
Confronting these themes Schillaci exhibits paintings titled SHH 1, SHH 2, SHH 3 and SHH (ROUGH EDIT) with the video respectively SHH 4.
SHH 1, SHH 2 and SHH 3 are plagued in darkness, the light from an open door illuminates only a partial area of the room in which we see a body confined by rope. In the doorway we see another figure making its final step before disappearing completely from view. The viewer must decide if these bodies are separate entities or one and the same and if the acts committed are consensual or not.
If SSH 1-3 are concrete events happening in present time and space SHH (ROUGH EDIT) is the idea of such events not yet come into fruition. Large portions of the canvas is left untouched, like an idea not fully fleshed out, beneath the paint we see graphite scribbles alluding to scrambled thought. The borders of SHH (ROUGH EDIT) are white, as opposed to bathed in black, signifying the thought not entirely constructed and we see the body here not bound by rope but by reflective duct tape allowing the viewer to see their reflection within the painting.
SHH 4 follows the same concept as the paintings but shot on 8mm film. If the paintings dealt with the present and future, the film explores memory and past. The bodies are static and hold their position for the entire roll of film, this suspension of movement creates a build up of energy which is expelled in subtle wavering movements showing the precariousness and fickle nature of memory.
Schillaci was born in Limerick, Ireland and is a self taught artist and filmmaker working in Brooklyn, NY.
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