Exhibition · Galleria Monica De Cardenas · Milano
Monica De Cardenas is pleased to announce The Human Stain, an exhibition titled after Philip Roth’s celebrated novel. The group show brings together artists whose practices engage with the human figure and its zones of ambiguity, drawing out – through painting – memories, dreams, and emotions. The “stain” emerges as both a metaphorical and a material presence: on the one hand, it points to what remains suspended within the image, not fully articulable or legible; on the other, it resides in the very substance of painting itself, in brushwork and traces of color. Within this space, the figure appears unstable, oscillating between presence and dissolution, recognition and erasure. Michael Ajerman (New York, 1977; lives in London) approaches painting as a means of probing emotional states and the perception of the present, allowing gesture and color to shift in response to the subjects and ideas at stake. His images unfold without premeditation, developing through free associations in which irony, ambiguity, and a subtle voyeuristic undertone coexist. In this process, painting asserts itself both as a vehicle for meaning and as a playful act, fully aware of its own materiality. At the core of Emilio Gola’s practice (Milan, 1994; lives in Milan) is the depiction of everyday life within his generation. His paintings portray friends in informal situations – conversations, moments of waiting, rest, or domestic social scenes. Dense, layered compositions accumulate ordinary objects, creating images suspended between intimacy and unease. Through an intense and tactile figurative language, Gola explores human relationships, vulnerability, and interpersonal dynamics, transforming private experience into a shared narrative. Although abstract, Erin Lawlor’s paintings (London, 1969; lives in London) reveal an underlying figurative substratum with organic resonances – currents of air and water, atmospheric elements, the passing of seasons. These are translated onto the surface as…