CINDY PHENIX
Particles of Abnormality
October 17– November 14, 2020
Nino Mier Gallery is pleased to announce its first exhibition with Chicago-based artist, Cindy Phenix, titled Particles of Abnormality, opening on October 17th in Los Angeles.
Cindy Phenix works across a multitude of mediums including painting, drawing, and sculpture implementing elements of collage to convey complex narratives aimed to deconstruct the hierarchical power structures that govern society and social conduct. Through a reciprocity of abstraction and figuration, Phenix navigates the tenuous relationship between the public and private, with subject matter regularly informed by participatory discussions organized to examine and brings awareness to shared experiences. Phenix’s works develop these discussions further by prompting free associations of ideas transmuted from fragmented figuration, intentional ambiguity, and untouched raw materials. Relationships between Phenix’s figures shift effortlessly from contentious to caring in accordance with varied personal perspectives.
Created over a period of self-isolation this year, Phenix’s newest body of paintings on linen engage in a discussion of their own as they consider the multifaceted ways in society will move forward while being shaped by the cumulative efforts of all individuals. The paintings explore themes of community, displacement, and escapism in response to the current state of our world, alluding to Bosch’s garden as figurative details including flowers, vegetation, animals, and flowing water spring up throughout a coexistence of monsters and humans.
In a new series on drywall, Phenix depicts individual monsters with mutable bodies undefined by gender. Drywall and wood, materials connoting building and interiority, are assembled with contrasting floral figuration cut from fragile gold leaf to form a labyrinth-like setting for the monsters to inhabit. Appearing to piece themselves together from aggregated paint gestures, the monsters defy socially constructed systems of power that have historically limited society to become figures of power and personal freedom through their abjection.
Cindy Phenix (b. 1989 in Montreal, Canada; lives and works in Chicago, Illinois) completed her BFA at Concordia University in Montreal in 2016 and her MFA at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 2020. Phenix’s work will be exhibited in a forthcoming exhibition at 6018North in Chicago and has been included in solo exhibitions at Galerie Hugues Charboneau in Montreal and Maison de la culture de Longueuil. Phenix’s works are included in the collections of the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, the Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Quebec, and Hydro-Québec.