Alexa Guariglia
works exhibitions news about
reading in the dark
June 24 - August 19, 2017
Opening Reception: June 24, 6 - 9 PM
press release
Moskowitz Bayse is pleased to present Reading in the Dark, an exhibition of new paintings by Alexa Guariglia. The occasion marks the artist’s fourth solo presentation with the gallery.
In Reading in the Dark, Guariglia unpacks her “crowd paintings”. Dense blocks of color undulate between atmospheric abstractions and articulately rendered forms, coalescing into frenzied orgies of human interaction.
The wildly discursive narratives in each work are derived from the physical act of painting itself. Through relentless practice the artist’s hand gains a memory of its own, affording a certain level of detachment from cognitive reality while simultaneously retaining exacting compositional acuity; a type of Freudian-like free association with our tumultuous, over-stimulated present. In turn, this technique affords the opportunity to confront and wrestle with information overload, brilliantly playing with our uncontrollable human instinct to connect the dots.
Alexa Guariglia (b. 1990, Brooklyn, New York) studied painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her works have been the subject of three previous solo exhibitions at Moskowitz Bayse in Los Angeles, and have been included in group presentations at galleries in Boston, New York, and Beijing. She lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.