INTERIOR WORLDS, ONLINE GROUP SHOW

Taymour Grahne Projects is pleased to present 'Interior Worlds' - an online group show opening virtually on June 3 and exploring domesticity. The show features 11 international artists, including: Ali Eyal, Emil Robinson, Enzo Meglio, Evie O'Connor, Flora Temnouche, Gail Spaien, Kyle Coniglio, Louise Janet, Mikey Yates, Sarah McEneaney and Stipan Tadić.

Flora Temnouche (b.1995) paints serene interior scenes in earthy palettes, with a specific attention to the ways natural light fills our living spaces. Exploring the themes of isolation and disconnection in our society, Temnouche captures moments in time that feel intimate and private.

For Gail Spaien (b. 1958), a painting is a site of connection; an object that transmits emotion from one person to another. Spaien is of a lineage of artists who think craft and beauty shape and build a more relational world. The images in her paintings are of observed and imagined places where one can be in relationship with others and the world and the self. ‘Visitation with Embers’ and ‘Ucross Entryway’ were created during her month-long residency at Ucross Foundation, Wyoming, in which the mirage-like effect of the disappearing and reappearing pheasants, captured her attention.

For decades, the life and art of Philadelphia based painter Sarah McEneaney (b. 1955) have been symbiotic. Her autobiographical subject matter presents an unpretentious approach to rendering people, places and things with vibrant, meticulous and detailed brushwork. The paintings featured in this show were made during a residency in the summer of 2023 at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland, inviting the viewer into the artist’s world. The paintings are full of clues that detail her time there, whilst the titular name of Ariel refers to the residing cat, offering the viewer an alternative, playful perspective of McEneaney’s experience.

Mikey Yates' (b. 1992) works are wrought with careful observations, pauses, and quiet deliberations. Yates invokes the reflections, shadows, and artifacts that haunt the physical and mental terrain of the places we call home. Reminding us that though families and loved ones may move or grow apart, the true construction of home supersedes physical structure. Yates explains: 'This painting was started from a drawing of my uncle who lives in Berlin, during a visit in November 2023. I collaged his paintings into the composition behind him. Into the paintings and walls are hints of relatives from the Philippines he was telling me stories about while we drew pictures together. I was thinking about family stories, longing, and the contrast between the Philippines and Germany.' 

Enzo Meglio’s works are inspired by literature, both classical and contemporary, offering a reinvented narrative. He combines these sources with observations from his everyday environment, willingly embracing the strangeness that stems from this eclecticism. His painting ‘Gennaro Tenderly Reads a Letter from his Mother’ is informed by Victor Hugo’s 19th century play, ‘Lucrèce Borgia’; the borrowed narrative concerning the character’s relationship with his long-lost mother is contextualized into Meglio’s own surroundings, evident in the presence of the modernistic red stool, juxtaposing the Victorian chair adjacent.

Evie O’Connor (b. 1993) recently transitioned to depicting scenes in North West England that put working class identity at the forefront, providing essential representation and an updated view on a place that has been vastly overlooked or misrepresented. Her focus is placed on people’s history, specifically how people choose to spend the time they call their own - to experience leisure, relaxation, celebration and connection. For this exhibition, O'Connor chooses to paint the view from her spare room in Glossop, Derbyshire. The landscape is interrupted by a pre-fabricated school building, old sheds and a telephone pole, elements that have historically been erased out of landscape painting or disregarded.

Louise Janet (b. 1999) is an artist based in Paris, who sees in painting the power to reveal the infinite enigma of the arbitrary and to offer a different dimension to this blurred temporality. It is the very condition of the painter to be attentive to almost nothing: in the slowness and solitude of pictorial work, nothing happens and eternity happens at the same time. Giving substance to fleetingness, to what our memories project onto each object. In this particular pairing, Janet sought to represent the sensations of living together in the cramped space of an apartment, showing the tenderness and intimacy that comes out of such proximity. She simultaneously portrays the feeling of loneliness that often accompanies togetherness - the impervious awareness of being separate to one another, which carries through the existence of all city dwellers.

When Stipan Tadić (b. 1986) moved to New York, he began using the city as his subject, conveying all of its uniqueness’, absurdities and characteristics as if a person itself. His energetic use of colour, the effervescent lighting and lively brushstrokes, bring his otherwise naturalistic depictions of his surroundings to life. The work featured in this exhibition, ‘The Hallway and the Room’ depicts the hallway of Tadić’s old apartment in Chinatown, NYC, with his bedroom superimposed on the upper corner. For Tadić this apartment holds great significance, representing an important time in his life. He manages to impose a sense of warmth and appreciation, despite the rough and ready nature of the scene.

Ali Eyal (b. 1994) is an LA-based artist working with painting, drawing, and video to explore the relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics, and identity. ‘Accident at Night’ offers a dreamlike vignette of Eyal’s experience driving through America. The surreal, illustrative quality of his paintings are often inspired by a poetic dialogue that the artist creates with his own memories, providing just enough information for the viewer to gain an impression of the story, whilst leaving space for interpretation and mystery.

Kyle Coniglio’s (b. 1988) recent work 'Movie Night 3 (What You Did Last Summer)', is the third iteration of his movie night tableaux, depicting a group of gay men watching a movie. Coniglio's practice celebrates campness and the theatrical qualities of queer culture; this particular painting, inspired by the baroque period, focuses on the exaggerated facial expressions of the sitters, enhancing the sense of drama within the work. Coniglio's use of the monochromatic colour palette, a trademark of his practice, is a nod to the likes of Josef Albers and Peter Halley. The luminous green colour of this work invokes the glow of the screen whilst heightening the captured drama. The contrasting shadow of the figured silhouette and door frame is compositionally resemblant of the cinematic context of the image, framing the figures as if themselves are on a theatrical stage.

Emil Robinson (b. 1981) is an artist based in the American Midwest, inspired by momentary observations that provide an opportunity for introspection or meditation. His thoughtful renditions of familiar places, painted with a delicate use of light and colour, seek to unlock the psychological potential of vernacular architecture. ‘Interior 1’ and ‘Interior 5’ exemplify his interest in vacant spaces, which are filled with feeling and an enigmatic presence, despite the absence of life depicted.