Momenta Art is pleased to present new work by Rochelle Feinstein. This is her first solo exhibition in five years.

Rochelle Feinstein focuses on creating beautiful, uncanny paintings that employ light as a medium both literally and metaphorically, connecting subject matter from vastly different realms of experience. Her recent Hotspot paintings present images that reference both reflective mirror balls and globes, commemorating each year of U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether the “Hotspot” signifies a lens flare, WiFi access, a whiteout, a point of intense heat or radiation, or a site of political upheaval, its virtuality is offset by the visual slowness of dutifully hand-made, old-media halftone dots – effectively grounding the technological, social and political in the physicality of paint.

These Hotspot paintings connect to another series; this one painted or printed directly onto mirrored tiles. These works reference Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s “War is Over” anti-Vietnam War campaign, as well as the earlier WWII newspaper headline that Ono and Lennon appropriated. Feinstein adapts this highly politicized historical declaration by adding another subjective layer – turning the phrase into “Love is Over!” and referencing the languages of twelve ex-lovers. She then disempowers her own words’ negativity by physically turning the works on their sides.

In other recent paintings, made on outdated TV screens, televised light from the news, soap operas, and talk shows is filtered through a still image, altering perceptions of the barrage of commentary. In these and the above mentioned works, the one-way channel of media information begins to flow in reverse, re-inserting the interpretive (and revolutionary) act of dialogue into a top-down world of consumption. This reversal ultimately provides the viewer with a sense of hope, made possible through the filter of one life and the imperfections of the painted world.

Rochelle Feinstein lives and works in New York. She has exhibited her works nationally and internationally and has been a professor of painting at the School of Art, Yale University, since 1995. She will be having two solo exhibitions in January 2008; at Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY, and at The Suburban, Chicago. Feinstein has had solo exhibitions at Ten in One Gallery, 2002, Max Protetch Gallery, 1997, Bill Maynes Gallery, 1996, , in New York, among many others. Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, TimeOut, Tema Celeste, Artnews, Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker Magazine, and other publications.