Paper, pen, map in a pocket and
Brief Histories, NYC.
4.5 Billion Years
Ali Eyal, Himali Singh Soin, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Leila Seyedzadeh, Matthew Schrader, Sarah Anderson, Simon Benjamin
June 7 - July 1, 2023
Do you see this sun there, the doves, the dog, the bullet, the map and my hand? Watch carefully; we will arrive in a minute. And I fold my hand, and all this papery silence.
Ali Eyal is an artist working with painting, drawing, and video to explore the relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics, and identity. Eyal’s paintings are characterized by their intense subjectivity that bring forth fragmented narratives and surreal visual scenes and compositions. Retrieved in tangled strands of hair or found on the path illuminated by the headlights of a pick-up truck, figures appear on a search, and on a hunt for something. In 𝑷𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒓, 𝒑𝒆𝒏, 𝒎𝒂𝒑 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒑𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 (2023), the life size painting leans against the wall, its canvas draping down the frame to the floor. The figures here hold maps of a farm, their composition across the surface of the canvas transforms dynamically as the eye travels across the surface, finding sunsets and sunrises, and other landscapes between the swirls and strands of hair. Beyond the horizon, Eyal paints in a classical landscape style, rendering every tree, branch, cloud, and waterfall in a timeless balance. In the bottom right corner, the hand of the artist holds the entire scene. After all, it is an image, and in this chapter, Eyal tries to fit it all on one surface, to find the farm, to mend the split or let it tear at the seam. Fawz Kabra
Paper, pen, map in a pocket and, 2023
Oil and conté on canvas
84 x 132 inches (213 x 335 cm)
Oil and conté on canvas
84 x 132 inches (213 x 335 cm)
Photo by Isak Berbic.