Chelsey Pettyjohn, Water in the Canyon
Thomas Hunter Project Space
930 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY
October 4 – 26
Opening Reception: October 4, 6:30pm – 9pm
Pettyjohn’s work engages a specific collection of self-made archetypes and iconography. The themes that present themselves reveal personal history: childhood fragility, sexuality, the fragmentation of dreams. Working in large scale paintings and ceramic sculptures, her solitary figures are twisted in their physicality, sometimes violent in their pose. Yet they appear discerning; purposeful or even gleeful in their isolation. What translates is a type of ‘lonerism’, a wariness paired with conflicting desire. Pettyjohns figures study the juxtaposition of the delicate and grotesque – how indeed, a smile can bite. She is interested in articulating the human experience in all its innocence and brutality.
Chelsey Pettyjohn (b. 1989, Overland Park, KS) holds a BFA from Parsons the New School for Design and a BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. She has shown her work locally and internationally; recent exhibitions include a solo show at Tennis Elbow (Brooklyn, NY) as well as group shows at Kapp Kapp (Philadelphia, PA), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Brooklyn, NY), and Foxy Production (New York, NY). She lives and works in New York.
