Sarah Slappey and Ryan Wilde
Soft, Pink and Warm
May 8 - June 19, 2019

Deanna Evans Projects is pleased to present Soft, Pink and Warm, a two-person exhibition with Sarah Slappey and Ryan Wilde. Wilde’s soft sculpture and Slappey’s painting coalesce in this hyper-sexual world. Through the use of dismembered parts of the body – lips, breasts and hands – they explore this realm of extreme femininity and address the ownership of female bodies. In reaction to the domestic exhibition space, all the works are in shades of pink and flesh tones reflecting the intimacy of the space and the socially prescribed role of females in the home.

Slappey’s paintings reduce the human form to parts and limbs to not only serve as an extension of the viewer’s body, but to address the vulnerability of the human body; a tug or grab could either be for pleasure or pain, or both. Through her work, she addresses the paradoxes within the natural and human world; softness is counterbalanced with aggression, comfort with vulnerability, banal with the uncanny, and masculine with femininity. This constant shift keeps the paintings bordering on the razor-thin edge between sweet and sinister.

Constructed in felt and other tactile materials with provocative color, and design, Wilde’s work manifests the uncanny extreme that is identified with sexuality, fetish, gender and the seductive female. By highlighting the semiotic mechanism of the cultural expression, her work creates a platform to reconsider the purpose of the conventional system of signification.

-

Sarah Slappey lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2016 and BA from Wake Forest University in 2006. Her paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Italy, London, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. Slappey has exhibited at Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY; Maria Bernheim, Zurich, Switzerland; Andrew Edlin, New York, NY; Crush Curatorial, New York, NY; START Gallery, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC and George Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Her work as appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Flash Art, Two Coats of Paint, ArtSpace, ArtMaze Magazine, Social Life, Long Island Pulse, and Hamptons Art Hub.

Ryan Wilde is an internationally recognized hat designer who has designed for Patricia Field, Henri Bendel, The Metropolitan Opera and been featured in magazines such as Vogue and W Magazine. In 2016, following an interest in feminist soft sculpture, Wilde expanded on her practice by utilizing the millinery process to create art objects that encourage discussions on gender and sexuality.  Wilde’s work has been included in exhibitions at The Spring Break Art Show New York, NY; Marinaro Gallery New York, NY; Crush Curatorial New York, NY; A.I.R. Gallery Brooklyn, NY; and The Knockdown Center Queens, NY.

To inquire about the availability of any of these works please email info@deannaevansprojects.com.