Local Project
45-10 Davis Street, 646-298-0969
Long Island City
June 16 - June 30, 2012
Reception: Saturday, June 16, 6 - 9 PM
Web Site
Gallery hours Thursday through Sunday: 1-6pm
Take the E,M,G, or 7 train to Court Square Station near P.S.1 and 5 Pointz Amy Mascena has exhibited her work in galleries in NYC and LA, recently including The 2011 Governor’s Island Art Fair. She has designed set pieces and drawings for the performance Keep Your Electric Eye on Me, February 2012 at HERE Arts Center and the installation/performance Revolving Twilight at The Chocolate Factory in LIC in January 2010.
My collages and drawings are like excavations, revealing layers of narratives, personal and fabricated. Usually drawn on old books or found paper, my characters reveal themselves like ghosts of forgotten novels. The words on the book pages sometimes inform the actions, although somewhat subliminally. These pieces are then hung in groups, sometimes overlapping, the characters then creating their own narratives of mystery, absurdity, loneliness, erotic longings and as always, ennui. The drawings are the starting point for installations of furniture, lighting and objects.
The installation becomes like a set, on a stage in a dark theatre after the players and the audiences have left, the scene may be a murder, a work shop, a lovers’ trysting place… clues are given but always remain mysterious.
In this installation, The Unemployed Fortune Teller (Lady Luck meets her match in a rogue game of cards), I am fascinated by the idea of luck and chance, the cross connections of people and moments…. the small, nearly invisible occurrences that may change a moment of bad fortune to good or good fortune to bad. Collages of time and place influence the draw of the cards. The moments that begin a love affair, make one lose a fortune or save a life… moments that put a gun in your face.
Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty are Brooklyn based media artists who make multiple-screen installations, single-channel works, documentaries and video scores for live performance. Their work has been exhibited in diverse locations in New York and internationally and was recently seen at the Abrons Arts Center, The Chocolate Factory and Governors Island Arts Fair in New York City, and the Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM. Irons and Petty have received numerous awards and residencies in support of their work including grants from the NEA, NYSCA, Jerome Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Experimental TV Center, and the Asian Cultural Council Currently, they are beginning a new installation performance work called “Keep Your Electric Eye One Me”, which is being developed through the HERE Artist in Residence Program (NYC). www.automaticrelease.org