Thierry Goldberg is pleased to present “A Night In June”, an online solo exhibition of works by Alannah Farrell.
Farrell’s paintings offer insight into the day-to-day lives and relationships of an underrepresented social strata, lending a beauty to complicated dynamics while simultaneously confronting societal norms around gender. Depicting friends and peers from their community in quiet, interior scenes, Farrell welcomes the viewer to witness the personal and lovingly ordinary settings of her sitters.
Invited in as we may be to explore, Farrell is careful to steer our eyes around the canvases, which are populated with all manner of telling visual touchstones. Even the subjects themselves don’t shy from the viewer, often confidently making direct eye contact in the midst of their goings on. Farrell’s figures are delicately rendered with muted palettes, operating within an ethereal haze where motives and stakes remain slightly uncertain. Despite these intensely intimate moments, there is an air of observational detachment that allows open-ended interpretations to blossom and evolve and change at their own rate.
In addition to specific references to the world outside of the rooms of the portrait sitters—an Empire State Building or the L.E.S. (Lower East Side)—this new body of work includes paintings that stem from Farrell’s own physical experiences, touching on their issues as an individual grappling with body and gender dysmorphia. Farrell bravely and powerfully expands the scope of the conversation around their work by including themself as a subject in their own paintings, lending a singular perspective to challenge reductive and outmoded notions of identity.
Alannah Farrell (b.1988, Kingston, NY) lives and works in the East Village, New York, NY. They hold a BFA from The Cooper Union, New York, NY. Their work was previously exhibited at The Painting Center, New York, NY (solo); Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY; Ghost Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Brilliant Champions, Brooklyn, NY, among others. Their work has been written about in Artforum, Elephant, Creative Boom, and Widewalls, among many others.
For more information please contact the gallery at info@thierrygoldberg.com
Alannah FarrellA Night in June
Past Exhibitions exhibition