LAMB arts is pleased to present The Psychology Of Visual Pleasure, a group exhibition, bringing together works by artist Mattea Perrotta (b.1990 in Venice beach, lives and works in Los Angeles) and furniture designer Mario Milana (b. 1981 in Milan, lives and works in New York).
For the exhibition, Mattea Perrotta presents a new body of abstract paintings that continues to explore her ongoing interest in the female figure and its evolution within the long art historical tradition. From Greek goddesses, the Renaissance women, fiftiethcentury class portraits, femme fatales, to the birth of modernism, the image of the woman have been idealized, eroticized and romanticized. However, the place of the woman has always been positioned as passive to its male counterpart. Perrotta's highly textured and richly pigmented colour fields interrogates this power relationship of the subject versus the object, by celebrating the sacred feminine, while resisting the oppressive objectification of the female body. The artist exploring notions of obscurity, vulnerability, and sexuality through rough textures, smudged charcoal, and thickly applied oil paint onto canvas, deconstructs the already established notions of beauty and pleasure -both aesthetic and erotic. In order to subvert the way in which dominant ideologies unconsciously structure ways of seeing and pleasure in looking at the female figure, ultimately to convey a sense of spiritual awareness.
In order to challenge mainstream representations of the body of the woman as haunted by the male gaze, the artist has included books featuring classical ideals of the place and role of the woman in art, from early Renaissance paintings to Neo-Romanticism, Modernism, Surrealism as well as 1960's pornography.
Mario Milana combining cutting-edge technology with traditional craftsmanship creates minimalist geometric furniture designs, which are both functional and stylish. His pieces are intrinsically performative as they can morph into different configurations: armchairs with articulated backrest, rotating dining tables, side tables that become shelves, and even an evolving sofa -these objects, as endowed with the capacity to meet various needs, ultimately emphasize functionality and innovation. If Osvaldo Borsani gave birth to the concept of movement in an industrial production, Mario Milana has applied this mechanical approach to a rigorously artisanal one. In his design practice, the unexpected touches of dynamism are found in his love of handmade production, marked by his use of natural materials and his deep respect for artisanal traditions. The result are collections, or environments, in which he sensibly balances geometric and organic shapes, and the union of refined aspects with those purposefully left raw; it is a style that is at once cold and mechanical, and yet deeply infused with human warmth.
Stepping back in time, the gallery space transforms itself into a mid-century modern sitting room. While the gallery's cave allows for a double maneuver installation piece incorporating the works of both practitioners, with mirrors and erotic imagery, suggesting notions of voyeurism and narcissism.