Cynthia Madansky’s exhibition consists of work from three separate series. The series entitled Torture depicts instruments used during the Spanish Inquisition. These bold graphic depictions resulted from the artist’s fascination with these intricately designed and detailed instruments. Their jewel-like quality both fascinates and repels: the seductive coloration and bold line quality contrasting with the disturbing quality of the content. These devices were used on anyone deemed a heretic during that period. This religious connection as well as the theme of torture seems to resonate once again as we find ourselves in the midst of a war between west and east, religions and regions. The Wyoming series of unframed drawings map out land being usurped for oil drilling by the major corporations. These lyrical drawings tell the story of land and its appropriation, tracing the vestiges of places that people have come to call home. These ‘maps’ have less to do with cartography and more to do with the tracing of histories through line and form, interpreting the land through their geopolitical histories. The third series of drawings explores the effect on our bodies of destroying “the other.” These are drawings in a storyboard format from the artist’s Public Service Announcement (PSA) film no. 15 entitled Skin. The PSA project is an ongoing series of short films which protest the American occupation of Iraq and the act of war. Also included is a video projection of PSA No. 7: Anthem, whichwas made in collaboration with Brad Wolfley and Elle Flanders, music composed by Zeena Parkins.

Cynthia Madansky’s films have shown at the Museum of Modern Art and at international art spaces and festivals. Her drawings and paintings have been exhibited in New York, Caracas, Copenhagen and Toronto. She currently resides in New York and is working on the script for a feature film called A Death In Chinatown, a short dance film titled Quartet and an experimental documentary about the Center for Free Thought in Khan Younis, Gaza. She received an MFA from the Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers, New Jersey, attended the Cooper School of Art and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, and attended the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem.

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