PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA

April 7 - May 28, 2023

Granny’s old cultural adage of perfection and pristine presentation of self and stuff for public viewing is defied in Plastic Off the Sofa, opening Friday, April 7, 2023 6-9 p.m. (CST). This multi-dimensional exhibition hosts two staple artists of 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios, Kierston Ghaznavi (Milwaukee, WI) and Vitus Shell (Monroe, LA), and lets the audience in on their visual art conversation about metaphorically removing protective layers to reveal vulnerable and honest states of being.

Reintroducing, but with fresh approaches and lens from their previous solo shows at 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios—Birds Fly South (Shell, November 2020-January 2021) and Without A Stitch (Ghaznavi, March-June 2020)— Plastic Off the Sofa welcomes back, but anew, Kierston Ghaznavi’s large-scale acrylic-painted wooden articulated dolls now accompanied with self-designed textiles and furniture and Vitus Shell’s mixed-media hand-drawn and paper collaged paintings layered with semi-veiled Mylar and carved stamp imprints. Featuring displays of disjointedness, introspection, wholeness and moderated transparency, jointly, the artists and the subjects, revel in experimentation with the ideas of freedom, self-control, self- reflection, vulnerability, escapism and empowerment from loosening the restrictions that have been imposed by the external world and adopted by the self.

Shell and Ghaznavi’s conscious interplay with scale and materiality lends itself to a fine balance of hyper visibility and controlled vouyering into delicate moments within private environments captured by the subjects in the compositions. The works pose the additional concept of access and challenges whether and how much the viewer is capturing an authentic or protected performative scene by the women rendered in the artwork.

Guests are invited to the telling multi-media exposé of intimate moments in Plastic Off the Sofa until Sunday, May 28, 2023.

Missed the opening reception artist talk? View here.