CONTROL Gallery is pleased to announce EXHIBITION 008: Mind Flowers, a new show from New York City-based multidisciplinary artist Othelo Gervacio. “I have always been drawn to things and ideas that exude a dark beauty; from the life-fleeting imagery of wilting flowers to the origins of melodic, yet heavy metal music," says Gervacio. "The cross-section of romance and tragedy has always been the coordinate at which a large portion of my interests lie, thus leading me to create work evoking melancholic emotions."
This new body of work references a familiar, dark romanticism within a world that explores the synergy between flowers and humans, and addresses the allegories that flowers carry within the human emotional ecosystem; this time, seen through a kaleidoscope lens – yet still rendered through traditional techniques.
A mutated evolution of Gervacio’s signature style, Mind Flowers finds inspiration from 17th Century Dutch Master painting – which often portrayed flowers as main subjects, floating between metaphors of relationships and scientific realism – while crossing over with ‘70s psychedelic aesthetics and ideology. The result is a series of oil paintings and framed collages that summon emotions, amplified into an intense euphoric state.
Starting with real flowers that Gervacio collected, photographed, and graphically manipulated, the paintings that compose Mind Flowers immortalize these living forms in a psychedelic herbarium, capturing moments of expressive beauty while simultaneously evoking the profound significance of the ever-present digital influence in our lives and the warped perceptions that they imbue.
The shadow box pieces – called "Bouquets" – contain cynical or self-deprecating phrases encased with real, cured arrangements touching on the traditions of flower-giving, a rich and subjective vernacular used to signify love, loss, sympathy, affection, forgiveness, and more. It is a silent language for pivotal moments in the human experience.
The exhibition celebrates the cycle of life, growth, transformation, and decay, reminding us of the ephemeral nature of existence and the urgency to express it in its liveliest forms.
Mind Flowers opens on July 29, 2023 from 11AM-6PM, with the show running through August 26, 2023.
