For the inaugural exhibition of 2018, Masha invites Lauren Comito to her boutique exhibition space in her home to explore the conceptual thoughts and processes of her artistic practice.
For several years, Lauren has been fascinated with packaging containers and the way we use and interact with them. She extensively collected hundreds of containers, searching for ways in which art influences their design, studying hidden psychological characteristics, and revealing visual patterns. Following careful selection and intellectual processes, Lauren repurposes containers by converting them into new shapes, materials, and images.
For the exhibition, Lauren will use the domestic context of Masha’s living and sleeping areas as an exhibition space to install her works of art. Tapestries, quilts, and pillows which bear imagery derived from the commonplace consumer packaging.
In lieu of this cold and wintery month of February, the exhibition is titled, “Cure for the Common Cold”. To counter the affects of the cold, Masha will be serving a nourishing brunch with healing herbal tea and hot coffee. The name of the exhibition also harkens back to the self-care nature of referenced products found within Lauren’s work., i.e. cold medicine, eye drops, rash creme, and birth control.
More about Masha
Masha was born in Moscow in the mid-seventies. As a child, she lived in Ethiopia and Egypt, as her father worked for Sovexportfilm, an organization promoting soviet cinema. Exposure to multicultural and intellectual environments at a young age formed her unordinary and critical take on life, as well as her taste for unconventional beauty.
After moving back to Moscow for several years, Masha continued her life journey in Paris, the cradle of modern art. She did not go directly into an art-articulated career, however. She first completed a technical degree and then later a management degree. For the next decade, she worked in financial services, but never lost sight of her desire to enter the art world more fully.
As a strong believer that art can impact the way we live and think and that artists are contemporary philosophers and healers of society, Masha travelled across art fairs, biennales and gallery shows in myriad cities, including Paris, London, Torino, Venice, Moscow, Basel, Miami and New-York—all while writing her blog phylin.com about her take on contemporary art.
Recently, Masha moved further west to New York City and began working at a privately held fintech group. Living in the epicenter of contemporary art, her dream is to discover a solid link of how art and the corporate ecosphere could cross-converse. Masha now connects the dots between art and business crossways in Europe and the Americas. She starts 2018 by opening a boutique exhibition space in her own home, inviting artists to experiment with forms and narratives.
More about Lauren
Lauren Comito is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist, educator, and curator. She received her Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design. This year Comito’s work has been exhibited at the Index Art Center in Newark, NJ and at Custom Cabinets in Los Angeles, CA. She produced a limited printed edition, published by Eminence Grise Edition that has be shown extensively at the Editions and Artists’ Book Fair in New York and the SOON Paris Art Fair in France. Her two most recent solo exhibitions in New York City took place at This Friday or Next Friday in 2017 and at Slag Gallery in 2014. Comito currently works at Montclair State University, teaching courses in the Art and Design Department. She has recently been a visiting artist at Pace University, UMass Amherst, and Sarah Lawrence College. This past year Comito also founder the company LRC Studios, LLC, which specializes in curatorial projects that combine the talents of emerging and established artists.
Lauren is interested in the ways in which everyday images and objects inform our identity, and how this impacts our collective and individual memory. Her recent work investigates the form and content of various types of consumer packaging containers that proliferate within our daily experience. The packaging container is a multifaceted subject in that it is both a disposable image and a consumable product. The imagery is impersonal but yet directive, and appeals to our individual sensibility, as well as our needs and desires.
Dates
Running Dates: February 18th – March 18th, 2018
Brunch: Sunday, February 18, 2018 from 12pm to 5pm
Opening hours: Sundays from 2pm to 5pm or by appointment
Venue
Take an adventure to the bourgeoning Jersey City area, home to new galleries and artists’ studios. Appreciate the best skyline views of Manhattan from the Paulus Hook neighborhood.
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