Morgan Lehman Gallery and Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects are pleased to present Strawberry Moon, a double picture show of recent paintings by Emilie Stark-Menneg.
In Wim Wender’s documentary Pina, one of the dancers recalls the time when the choreographer Pina Bausch asked him to “dance the moon.” Stark-Menneg uses this prompt in a series of new paintings that explore singular moments of metamorphosis. The two shows are comprised of portraits of the artist and loved ones all caught in moments of ecstatic creativity.
Each painting asks the viewer to enter a supernatural world brought to life through incandescent brushwork and painterly power. Stark-Menneg’s process is exploratory, whereby a conceptual seed or wash of color kicks off a sequence of events; the artist reacts to each earlier “move” with empathy, openness, and verve. The results are alchemic, a fusion of painterly languages and techniques.
The shows are interconnected, conceived as a filmic experience that invites the viewer to travel from one location to another. The exhibition at SHFAP focuses on a series of paintings that depict the artist in intimate states of transformation. The show then continues to Morgan Lehman where the artist depicts both herself and other creative beings becoming landscapes—liminal and fluid spaces of transfiguration. Stark-Menneg’s vision is cinematic in its storytelling and plastic movement.