Guest contributor Peggy Cyphers / �New Narratives,� a large group show of recent representational painting at Storefront Ten Eyck, includes KK Kozik�s Orion�s Belt, an image of a traditional farmhouse, covered in snow and illuminated by a deliciously starry blue-black sky. Kozik is known for creating quasi-surreal scenarios, full of sardonic humor and mystical imagery. I first saw her paintings two decades ago at Bill Maynes in Soho and was struck by the range of subject matter � suspiciously silly groupings of objects, scenes and figures. Her stories, although often indecipherable, continue to verge on the mystical, stirring up peculiar childhood memories and nostalgia.
[Image at top: KK Kozik, Orion’s Belt, oil on linen, 46 x 57 inches.]
Like her contemporary Robert Yarber, or the master Ren� Magritte, Kozik paints her world-view turned Twilight Zone. In her imagined reality, the mundane becomes hyper-real, articulating a punch-line with loaded brush and facile mark-making. In Orion�s Belt, the house seems quiet, with yellow lights glowing warmly from the attic, front door, and a room downstairs. But behind the house an eerie magenta light reflects off the entire snow-covered yard, extending to the dark expanse beyond, creating a palpable sense of unease. Home life is alien terrain.
“New Narratives” features work by Bill Adams, Roland Allmeyer, Tatiana Berg, Katherine Bowling, Katherine Bradford, Gregory Crane, Daniel Derwelis, Austin Eddy, Matthew F Fisher, Hoda Kashiha, KK Kozik, Siobhan McBride, Hiroshi Sugito, Melanie Vote, and Margeaux Walter. Storefront Ten Eyck, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY. Through April 5, 2015.
In the Project Space, don’t miss Leslie Alexander’s digitally altered images of stuffed birds, some more than 100 years old, from the Natural History Museum in Vienna. On view through April 5, 2015. Image above: bird 1875, 2005, pigment ink on canvas, 40 x 30 inches.
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