PRECARITY & POSSIBILITY
July 2024

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Precarity & Possibility,” an exhibition of work by 6 students in their second year of the MFA Art Practice program, curated by Jacquelyn Strycker, faculty and Director of Operations. The exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, July 10th through Monday, July 29th, at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, New York City.

The works in this show grapple with what it means to find resilience, beauty, and possibility in an uncertain world. The artists explore themes of addiction, truth, the body, the environment, and our relationship to consumer objects and detritus.

DW Zinnser's "Dunkin Ghosts" depicts the chaos and visceral anguish of addiction through contorted, tumor-laden figures festooned with offerings like traffic cones and syringe caps. Their agonized faces cry out from the confinement of late capitalism's glossy purgatory.

Casey Correa's assemblage lays bare the back of the canvas, adorning it with found objects like mousetraps and a stuffed Shamu. She plays with colors, images, and words in an anthropological exploration of the detritus of contemporary life.

Frank Rapant's photo series with handwritten texts explores the tenuous line between truth and fiction in our current age of deluge. Does it ultimately matter what is "real?” The works pose this question while holding space for both fact and myth. Can emotional truths be fabricated from lies?

Jacqueline Ehle-Inglefield's “Horses,” is an installation of large, semi-abstracted equine forms made from wire, lace, and found plastic, referencing modernity’s plastic flotsam and jetsam. The work evokes the complex role of horses in the colonization of North America, while embracing their symbolism of freedom and wild spirit, twisting together conflicting histories and possible futures.

Natasha K. De Armas's video, "Manto Remoto" shows a solitary, shrouded specter on a windswept Long Island beach, the textile cocoon billowing around an anonymous form. The imagery evokes emergencies, displacement, and the fragile, ephemeral nature of shelter in an overexposed world.

Beckett Sky's sculptural installation integrates plants, vibrant gestural painting, and textiles, bringing the outside world into conversation with traditional artistic media. Painted colors swirl around mossy patches, nourishing a sense of softness and vulnerability.

The works in Precarity & Possibility build a home with ambivalence and hope on uncertain terrain.

Curated by Jacquelyn Strycker.