Mother-In-Law’s Presents:
“COVID HäUS”
Susan Hamburger
Emily Roz | Richard Estrin | Anna Ortiz
Reception Saturday April 23rd, 4-6
April 23-June 19
Open Weekends 12-5 & by Appt.
140 Church Avenue, Germantown, NY 12526
www.frontroomles.com/motherinlaws • 314.680.7275
Mother-In-Law’s is proud to present Covid Häus, featuring Susan Hamburger; with Richard Estrin, Emily Roz, and Anna Ortiz. In Covid Häus the artists reflect on the intersection of urban and green spaces, the artifice created through cultivars, and how we bend nature to our purposes.
The structure of the exhibition includes an installation and concept by Susan Hamburger which transforms the gallery into a recreated dining pod, with hand sculpted vegetation made from the refuse from the Covid Lockdown. With cardboard and brown paper used to create the plant’s understructure and pots, and the surface greenery constructed from the color sections of the New York Times, sourced from customers still receiving delivery of the paper, mostly acquired during the election cycle and the run-up to the pandemic.
Covid Häus is a commentary on the New York Open Restaurants Program, and the new forms of provisional architecture which emerged on the streets and sidewalks, among them, the covid hut. Unlike the larger sheds, these intimate spaces were meant to keep groups separated and warm, although prior to widespread vaccination, too many these seemed like tiny virus incubators. With the appearance of these new spaces came the need to buffer the space from the traffic on the street and a desire to create an appealing ambiance. The overwhelming choice for beautification was houseplants.
Covid Haus is both an homage to and a spoof on the ubiquitous New York City dining structures that were the hallmark of restauranteurs’ resourcefulness in the face of covid shut-downs and limitations on indoor dining.
Following premise of the “Mother-in-Law”exhibition program, the lead artist, Susan Hamburger has developed the establishing concept and an transformative, immersive installation, into which Mother-in-Law’s curators have select artists to respond, or relate to the installation.
Integrated within the installation by Susan Hamburger are works by Emily Roz, Richard Estrin, and Anna Ortiz, which echo Hamburger’s thoughts/perspectives on the intersection of man and nature.
Richard Estrin’s lush watercolors were painted in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, during the height of the Coronavirus epidemic These en plain air paintings capture the break in the artifice of a peaceful, wild nature found in urban parks, with orange construction cones contrasting green foliage. His atmospheric paintings on paper emphasize the interplay between natural and manmade in a place that many considered a refuge from their apartments, and their computers.
Referencing seed pods of a specific Southern Magnolia tree from Emily Roz’s youth in Chapel Hill, her lush, tactile paintings exude the sexuality of the reproduction system of the Magnolia grandiflora. Emily Roz exaggerates the visceral and sensual qualities of the pods through the use of saturated colors and the drama of baroque light. These seemingly infinite fields of color paired with intense detail are inspired by Roz's love of Northern Renaissance and Flemish paintings that use color in both realistic and symbolic ways.
Anna Ortiz Anna Ortiz paints in a monochromatic or reduced palette to integrate or create a chromatic separation between elements of man and the environment. Her landscapes often feature a centralized totemic being, or imagined deity in a natural environment. These entities may assume the form of a plant or cactus or sometimes a sculptural bust in the jungle, or desert. These environments evoke visions of Central America and Northern Mexico and transport us to a mystical, pre-colonial Mesoamerica.