January 6th - February 25th 2023
Gallery Hours: 24/7
miniMAC (miniature Mount Airy Contemporary)
25 West Mt Airy Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19119
www.mountairycontemporary.com
miniMAC is pleased to announce homeward, an exhibition of works by Elisa Jensen and Kelly Popoff.
Three years into the COVID pandemic, our relationship to home has shifted; it’s been challenged and evolved - sometimes in fundamental ways. Jensen and Popoff both work from the perspective of the home, each having brought their own history to these bodies of work on the subject.
Jensen says, “My work in the last few years has been profoundly influenced by the global pandemic. COVID first forced us into our homes. I brought my painting practice to my home, and there it has remained. My home and my views of home life became my subject matter and my passion. I was particularly interested in how light changed over time. More recently, as I have had to clear out my parents’ house after their unfortunate deaths, I visited again my childhood home in my work, adding memory and time to this body of work dealing with home, light, life, loss and time”.
Popoff’s “American Snapshot Series” includes work from the last three years. “During this time I have been looking at images of Americana: doll collections, gun collections, antique furniture, clothing patterns, model home kits, yearbooks, toys, etc.. Perhaps as an instinctive response to try to make sense of our current culture by looking back. Or maybe, to find connections that may explain why our history seems so present and unresolved. More recently, I have been gifted a large collection of vintage snapshots that allowed me a more intimate look into America’s past. My current paintings and drawings use these photos as a reference to try to capture the essence of American life – with emphasis on family, memory and socio-psychological dynamics.” Popoff’s creative life has been most influenced by childhood and the injustices that she felt in the two areas that dominated during that time: home life and Catholic school education. The social dynamics of these two realms overlap in ways that fuel her desire to bring to light abuses of power. Popoff’s work addresses social concerns, often pertaining to children, animals and others in powerless positions that are susceptible to manipulation. Houses and clothing are recurring images in her work and address issues of being human without the presence of a specific person. They are intimate representations of those known and unknown to the artist. They represent sacred spaces of joy and pain.
Elisa Jensen (http://www.elisajensen.com) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Academy Museum, and The American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has shown extensively in New York and in Europe and her work has been featured in Whitehot Magazine, Hyperallergic, Artcritical.com, The New York Sun, New York Daily News, she currently teaches at the New York Studio School and Pratt Institute.
Kelly Popoff (https://kellypopoff.org/) was born in Akron, Ohio. She lives and works in Greenfield, MA. Kelly’s recent honors include: Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Drawing 2020, The Clowes Fund Fellowship and Residency, Vermont Studio Center 2019, Millay Colony Fellow 2018, The Artist’s Resource Trust Fellowship and Residency, Vermont Studio Center 2017, The Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Grant 2017, a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation 2016, Finalist Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Painting 2016. Recent solo shows include American Snapshot at Melhop Gallery, South Lake Tahoe, NV, At Home with Our Histories at The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, O Children at Herter Gallery, The University of Massachusetts and Rock on Doily at Augusta Savage Gallery, The University of Massachusetts. Kelly has exhibited in international group shows including shows curated by jurors such as Jill Kearney (Founder and Head Curator of ArtYard), Carter E. Foster (Curator of Drawing at the Whitney Museum of American Art), Richard Klein (Director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum), Trenton Doyle Hancock (contemporary artist), Camilo Alvarez of Samson Projects, Rachel Wolff (art critic and writer) and Deborah Rockman (contemporary artist).
miniMAC is a project of MAC (Mount Airy Contemporary). MAC has been curating shows in northwest Philadelphia since 2009.
