Hilary Doyle: Metrapolis

Taymour Grahne is pleased to present 'Metrapolis', an online solo show by NYC-based artist Hilary Doyle, launching virtually on August 14, 2020.

'Metrapolis' includes a series of paintings that investigate the personal and collective experiences of people as they navigate public urban spaces. Hilary Doyle's paintings follow fragmented narratives, mainly of women, commuting within the dreamlike labyrinth of an imagined subway. For Doyle, urban spaces are both public and private, both banal and shocking, both beautiful and ugly.

The subway is a representation of the contrasting emotions experienced during unstable times. 

The work examines the emotions, psychology, and rituals of daily life. Since the pandemic, the work has grown more surreal, epic, dystopian, and imaginary. Depicting women at various points in their lives, the paintings question the many roles women play. The works bring the untold, personal narratives into a shared space.

The work starts with mundane moments observed by Doyle often while commuting from teaching at RISD or Purchase college. From quick sketches, videos, and iPhone drawings, the artist then creates monotypes and sculptural models that inform the paintings. Doyle experiments with materials for the most authentic mark to capture the psychology and materiality of each subject.

The work draws from a range of direct and indirect references, including Otto Dix, Elizabeth Murray, George Tooker, Isabelle Bishop, Jacob Lawrence, Red Grooms, and Lucas Cranach. Hell/ Massacre of the innocents references paintings that are historically remade in times of extreme hardship and violence against the innocent. Books that Inspired the work include: Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez, When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone, Les Guérillères by Monique Wittig and Dante’s Inferno.

**10% of the sale proceeds from Hilary Doyle’s online solo will be donated to the Lebanese Red Cross to aid them in their efforts in dealing with the aftermath of the Beirut Port Explosion.