press release

(New Orleans, LA) FERRARA SHOWMAN GALLERY is proud to present Okay with the distortion, the third solo exhibition of Santa Fe-based artist Jenny Day. Following the introduction of her first experimentation in ceramics in her previous exhibition at the gallery (2021) and two solo exhibitions at Alabama Contemporary Arts Center in Mobile (2021 & 2023/24), the trained painter further expands her oeuvre in this exhibition in both formal qualities and subject matter. The artist has once again positioned her paintings in conversation with her ceramics, with the addition of mixed media sculpture and functional works of fine art. Furthermore, the presence of her characteristically personified creatures and everyday objects now include the presence of human figures; bringing an ever more critical lens to human impact on the environment and response to adversity. The culmination of the various protagonists in the resulting narrative which Day weaves throughout the diverse range of media in the exhibition posits a whimsical, post-apocalyptic diorama.

 

Day discusses this latest body of work . . . 

 

Time has been a persistent concern in my work. Time and biophilia, a lifelong love for the natural, a drive to explore the human relationship to the encompassing world.  Time is spiraled in on itself, a snail’s shell, a multilinear matrix. We ride one strand, careening between disasters. These works are memories from an adjunct future, post-apocalyptic, triumphant, celebrating what remains, what survives.  Like all memories they’re distorted, by transmission, by storage, by replication.  A story changed by the telling.  

 

Sometimes I feel like I might slip under and it’s okay. Abandon myself piece by piece. A hand.  A strand of memory. A favorite slice of pie. A long-forgotten pattern. Sink into another reality. The veil between here and there soporific and bejeweled. 

 

I like it here. I remember I am an animal. I am soft. Bent and pliable. I could be small. With enough room for more. The world electric. A version of the moon ever present. The one with the cat.   Deer shroud themselves in wool and crystals. The Last Unicorn is never discovered. Beaded mold rules supreme, a barnacle, a form of rust. Manmade decay is subsumed by stone, by the prolific need for anything that resembles water. 

 

A settling into the aftermath. The persistent rush has been turned down a notch. Time crawls by on mirrored hooves. Lungs bursting andripe, the typewriter has melted. Someone lost a shoe. All those who keep track have gone to bed. A mist hangs low, shimmers, recedes.  I watch, augur, play, remember, make. Okay with the distortion.

 

JENNY DAY earned an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Arizona, a BFA in Painting from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of California Santa Cruz. Her exhibition record most recently includes the Phoenix Art Museum, Blue Star Art Museum, in San Antonio, TX, Arte Laguna in Venice, Italy, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Korea, and Elmhurst Museum in Chicago, IL. Day's work has been supported by an Elizabeth Greenshields Grant in 2018, Contemporary Forum Artist Grant from the Phoenix Art Museum in 2017, a Barron Purchase Award in 2016 and through participation at the Ucross Foundation, the Jentel Foundation, Playa Foundation For The Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Art Center, and the Armory Art Center. Jenny Day lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is represented by Ferrara Showman Gallery.

 

The exhibition will be on view from 21 February through 6 April 2024 with an opening reception on Saturday 2 March and a closing reception on Saturday 6 April coinciding with the Arts District of New Orleans’ (ADNO) monthly First Saturday Gallery Openings from 5 – 9 PM.

 

For more information, press or sales inquiries please contact Gallery Director Matthew Weldon Showman at 504.343.6827 or matthew@ferrarashowman.com. Please join the conversation with FSG on Facebook (@FerraraShowmanGallery), Twitter (@FerraraShowman), and Instagram (@JonathanFerraraGallery) via the hashtags: #JennyDay, #FerraraShowmanGallery, and #ArtsDistrictNewOrleans.