Playing Fields

About

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA is pleased to present Dominique Paul “Playing Fields,” the Canadian artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition features Paul’s opulent tableaux utilizing collage, photography, and animation. It will also feature a video documentation of her interactive performance and a related artifact. An opening reception will be held Thursday, April 20, 6-8pm. A gallery talk with the artist and independent curator Ayelet Danielle Aldouby* will take place Thursday, May 11 at 7 pm.

Dominique Paul plays with the representation of the body and explores its transformation. This notion of body transformation informs Paul’s fantastical invention of hybrid creatures. In her Insects of Suriname series, the lacy cutouts of bodybuilder’s flesh from magazines are buoyed by colorful consumer products. The surrealistic scenes share space with flora and insects illustrated by Maria S. Merian, a Baroque-era naturalist documenting metamorphosis of insects. Taking the form of a botanical mandala, Paul strives to express a sense of urgency in the playing fields of our human-centric society that overuses the planet’s resources. In her Escapist series, an extremely hybrid human figure floats in a cosmic background as if she/he is preparing to find another planet to dwell on. Paul boldly envisions a future where the genetic code of living organisms is altered, and a strange new hierarchy among sentient beings emerges.

This exhibition also features Paul’s Increasing Revenue Gap dress as the artist’s own transformed body and its new function. In a video documentation of one of her performances, Interactive Median Income Dress Acting as a Social Interface, she wears another dress that translates the median household income visually as she walks down New York City streets, indicating a gap by colored lights—red for the lowest, blue for the highest income. Along the way Paul casually talks with residents and passersby; thus her dress functions as a social interface in the public space and heightens awareness of inequality.

Dominique Paul (b. 1967) lives and works in New York (USA) and Montreal (Canada) where she received a Doctorate in the Study and Practice of Arts from the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada (2009). Since 2002, she has presented more than 20 solo exhibitions in North America and Europe. In 2012, Paul was awarded an artist-in-residence with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) on Governors Island. In 2015, she had a residency with Residency Unlimited, New York and made a special performance at the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C. In 2017, she has a residency with IDEAS xLab with Ayelet Danielle Aldouby, thanks to The Canada Council for the Arts. Paul has received generous support from Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Conseil des Arts de Longueuil, Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles du Québec, and the Québec Government Office in New York.