It’s hard to imagine another time in my life when the word “home” will carry so much weight. The past year has redefined it for all of us. Home has become more vital than ever, yet home is more unstable than ever. Home is where we were told to stay, but home has been found in the most far-flung places. Home is safe and home is scary. It’s jamais vu: that which has always been intimately familiar is now strangely foreign. This derealization of our interior world – of our homes, of our society, of ourselves —  is the focus of the current group exhibition at Maddox Gallery, “Dysmorphia,” on through August 31st.

The concept of the interior space is most readily explored with its most basic interpretation: the physical space which surrounds us. This interpretation is found in “Dysmorphia” through the works of Andrew Cooper and Nevena Prijic. Cooper’s paintings, such as Breakfast is Ready (2021), are pictorially-flattened, brightly colored illustrations of unpeopled spaces, reminiscent of early Matisse works like Harmony in Red, where the elements of the room themselves become decorative. Prijic, by contrast, inserts herself into the interior spaces – sprawled on a couch or sat tucked into herself. This highlights the solitude of the literal interior space, closed off both physically and emotionally.

But we also find society itself as an internalizing and unreal force on display, particularly with the expansive works of James Verbicky and Wyatt Mills. Mills’ Vague Traditions (2020) draws upon the art historical motif of the Madonna and Child, creating a wildly expressive yet recognizable representation of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. As the name implies, it asks us to consider the impact of Christianity and Christian symbols on our society, how the traditions are twisted and reformed to fit new purposes with familiar faces.

Finally, we are confronted with the most interior space of all: the self. All of the artists in this show – and most art today – deal in some way with our conceptions of self, but Sol Summers, Jahlil Nzinga, Sean Crim, and Justin Bower are notable for their directness. Their works, in particular Summers and Nzinga’s collaborative work Did You Find What You Were Looking For? (2020), question the ways we view ourselves, harmonizing the intense complexity of the inner world and the stark simplicity of our exterior actions. A sense of home may be difficult to find again, but perhaps it’s plainer to recognize than we imagine.

Maddox Gallery
8811 Beverly Blvd.
West Hollywood, California 90048
Thru Aug 31st, 2021