Cindy Phenix: Who Countest the Steps of the Sun
April 30th, 2024 – June 8th, 2024
Nino Mier Gallery
62 Crosby St
New York, NY 10012
United States
Nino Mier Gallery is pleased to present Who Countest the Steps of the Sun, the latest solo exhibition by Montreal-born, Los Angeles-based artist Cindy Phenix at the gallery. In this new presentation, Phenix adopts an ecocentric perspective, infusing her works with hope for the future endurance and coexistence of all life on Earth.
Her New York debut, the exhibition will be held at our 62 Crosby location from April 30 to June 8, 2024.An artist working across mediums, Cindy Phenix is well known for her kaleidoscopic paintings comprising outlined, fragmented figures and scenes. She begins each painting with a collage focusing on a thematic interest—in this case, ecocentrism and emerging climate technologies.
Each collage takes on a distinct lens on her broader thematic interest, such as sustainable farming or geology. Phenix then translates these collages into pastel line drawings on linen, creating dynamic compositions that overflow withenergy. Unpainted sections contrast with impastoed areas that lift off the canvas, distancing her source imagery in favor of new visual narratives. In past bodies of work, Phenix explored monstrosity, cyborgs, and the theatrum mundi. Her latest exhibition maintains a theatrical quality, filled with moments of performance (a ballerina here, a bard there), but emphasizes an environmental consciousness, one less focused on the human.
Phenix fills her compositions with lush natural imagery and references to climate solutions, like planting trees, coral restoration, and carbon capture. But she also erases the background environment/foreground figure dynamicin favor of a more networked perspective that transcends individual actions. Suns, moons, animals, flowers and trees appear on the same perspectival plane as books, maps, and figures. Amidst these forms, the work radiates hope for making the planet more habitable for all life forms.
In de-centering the human from her paintings, Phenix challenges viewers to consider the interplay between human-created structures and natural forms. What results is a psychedelic aesthetic, in which figures morph into floral shapes, landscapes merge with maps and books, and architectural elements blend with organic life. Bacterial amoeba, representing the architecture of life, blend with human-made architectures; flower petals are transformed into faces; and standing globes are integrated into misty landscapes –an immersion of a simulation into its origin.
Oil & pastel on linen | 2023 | 96 x 144 inches
Drawing from art history, Phenix’s influences include Romanticism, Renaissance, and Netherlandish painting. The exhibition takes its title from a poem by William Blake, in which its speaker personifies a tired, yearning sunflower who watches time pass as the sun crosses the sky. Like the poem, Phenix’s exhibition registers a desire to reach beyond the human to capture something more cosmic. Who Countest the Steps of the Sunencourages us to rediscover Earth as an archive of possibilities for the future, emphasizing connection and renewal rather than abandonment.
Cindy Phenix: Who Countest the Steps of the Sun opens on April 30th, 2024 until June 8th, 2024 at Nino Mier Gallery
©2024 Nino Mier Gallery
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