Gabrielle Garland, I'll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too

 

Gabrielle Garland’s first solo exhibition,  I’ll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too, on view 4 September - 25 October at 511 West 22nd Street, is a collection of wall-mounted paintings depicting a series of architectural portraits. Using the homes illustrated to depict the personality of the people who live inside, rather than the actual people. Her impressionistic depiction of neighborhoods and street views of homes is done with affection and distortion, with fragments of details. Mailboxes, flower boxes, and more stretch, shrink, or lean at angles, capturing the emotional memory that blurs structural accuracy.

Using paint and glitter on canvas, she depicts homes in distorted, illustrative ways that push a personality and liveliness to the inanimate objects that are the homes and the objects that adorn them. Rendered in bright colors and uneven warped perspective, Garland's homes take on their own humanlike expressions. Focusing more on the feeling and memory the artist had of the homes rather than what is real in life. 

 The show space itself remains open with bright lights from the floor to the ceiling windows, along with the bright LED lights. The space itself feels a little too sterile, but allows the pieces to keep the spotlight on the plain white walls. The space allows the viewer to slow down and pick at every small detail meticulously painted within each home. Overall, the space feels too clean and too bright, in addition to the bright paintings; perhaps a warmer light would help with the human feel of the gallery.