Exhibition · Anat Ebgi · New York
NEW YORK—Anat Ebgi is pleased to present new paintings by New York-based artist Alannah Farrell. The exhibition, entitled Solastalgia, is Farrell’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. On view at 372 Broadway from September 9 through October 24. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, September 9, 6-8 pm. Solastalgia is a term coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrect in 2003. It is a composite word referring to the mixed feelings of solace, desolation, and pain experienced as the result of the immediate loss or assaulting changes to one’s home environment. While it relates particularly to the effects of facing ecological disasters resulting from the climate crisis, Farrell’s usage expands the term, reflecting broadly on the emotional heaviness of facing second or third-order effects including civic neglect, population collapse, and increasingly grave economic situations. This exhibition is a poignant ode to the rural community in the remote southern tier region of New York State where Farrell grew up. Coupling scenes of decaying architecture with tender portrait paintings for which the artist is best known, Farrell builds a visual story of an altered reality that contemplates the unbearable strangeness and overwhelming beauty of a place changing while one is living in it. Inspired by the eerie imagery of George Tooker, Hans Bellmer, and erotic compositions by photographer Pierre Molinier, Farrell’s depictions of their life and surroundings appear as near-cinematic scenes rife with psychodrama. In a double portrait, Surrender and Longing, two nude figures crowd the foreground of a train crossing. As one bends over the other, wrapping their arms and torso around the crawling figure, their tight pose compresses against the lower half of the composition. The pair are bathed in the light of a hazy, yet brilliant sundown and the silence of a completely deserted main street in the near distance. Farrell’s paintings are always painted from life,…