Jenna Gribbon: re: The Mirrored Veil

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present re: The Mirrored Veil, Jenna Gribbon�s second solo exhibition at the gallery, a collection of meticulously and delicately constructed paintings�engaging the viewer in a revealing dichotomy between the Apollonian ideal and the Dionysian struggle, between the Imaginary and the Real. re: The Mirrored Veil illuminates the moment of the split between the reflected wholeness of the external body�as in Lacan�s Mirror Stage�and the real, internal, fragmented nature of the individual experience.

At first sight, Gribbon�s works startle with visual riddles�seemingly open and inconclusive narratives, interwoven with letters and symbols�propelling their audience into a world of phantasmagories and ambiguity. Their titles, Idyll vs. the World, Allegory of Painting as Humpty Dumpty, Still Life with Tome and Time, and Unicursal, point to a state of prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder�leaving the individual in a mental state of peripheral, intuitive recognition.

As �veiling� or �glossing over� becomes an integral part of concealing the truth�Idyll vs. the World, portrays an idyll landscape draped by a painted black curtain on its right�it also refers to the duplicity of covering up while simultaneously unveiling what lies beneath or beyond. According to Saussure, whereas a sign is composed of the signifier and the signified, Gribbon�s foremost �symbolic� use of the medium painting becomes more than an obvious representation (signifier) of an object�s primarily assumed meaning (signified)�applying a dyadic system in her practice and conjuring multiple levels of interpretation. Gribbon�s painting Unicursal depicts the back of a person with a long braid, suggesting a young woman, wearing a sweater inscribed with multiple patterns of straight edges meeting at four vertices. The real becomes that which resists representation�what is pre-mirror, pre-imaginary, pre-symbolic and cannot be symbolized, and, ultimately, loses its �reality� once it is signified. Using symbols in visual language with application of paint, Gribbon leads us into a terrain of archetypal imagery, seductive cryptograms and a constantly revolving enigmatic world.

Jenna Gribbon was born in Knoxville, TN and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been the subject of several solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, including shows at the Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta, GA; the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts in New York, NY; Kunsthalle Emden in Emden, Germany; the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland; and most recently, at the National Arts Club in New York, NY. She was also commissioned to paint three works for Sofia Coppola�s film, Marie Antoinette, which premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2006.

Debra Hampton: Twenty Paces

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Twenty Paces, Debra Hampton�s third solo exhibition at the gallery. With reference to the practice of pistol dueling, and the distance at which craftsmen once tested the impregnability of bodily armor, Twenty Paces reflects on identity formation�the protective guard and the multiple layers of gender-based persona, shaped by social perception amid a disparaging world of distress, desire and consumption.

Hampton guides us into a universe, inhabited by seemingly fragmentized, luxurious creatures, using magazine cut-outs to collage complexly woven female figures created equally by mechanical and organic elements such as car parts, weapons, jewelry and human anatomy over an initially automatic abstract ink drawing, an amalgam of drips and splashes, to develop intricate compositions, miraculously assembling in front of the viewer. Introducing life-size, hollow suits of armor, constructed of post-consumer waste, recycled plastic, Hampton, explores further the discourse between a charged sexualized identity and its mechanism of defense.

Hampton�s striking heroines, part goddess, part warrior, adorned with corsets and armor, hover conceptually between the historic and the utopian, captured in an ambiguous moment of creation and obliteration, ultimately portraying the fragile equilibrium of a world threatened by ecological catastrophe and economical excess at the brink of disaster.

Debra Hampton was born in Fullerton, CA and currently lives and works in New York, NY. Her work has been the subject of several solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, including shows at the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts in New York, NY; and the Queens Museum of Art in Queens, NY. Her work belongs to several collections including the Permanent Drawing Collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY; and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles, CA.

Priska Juschka Fine Art

Jenna Gribbon: re: The Mirrored Veil

Debra Hampton: Twenty Paces