This month, Jack Barrett Gallery in New York City welcomes back Haley Josephs for her second solo show - Paintings and Drawings for Childhood’s End. As the title suggests, the show features a new body of work presented in both mediums—a first for the artist. As the title also suggests, the works are both celebratory and inauspicious. Paintings and Drawings for Childhood’s End consist of three paintings and several framed drawings placed on freshly painted, pink walls. The artist has hand-painted the gallery walls using sanitary pads and two hues of pink paint. The circular application of paint creates an ethereal, cloud-like landscape reminiscent of the womb.
Paintings and Drawings for Childhood’s End marks a departure from innocence and a transition to maturity, a stage of life that is both lamented and celebrated. The works in this show represent an act of rejoicing, the fleetingness of life in the physical world, and honoring the departed and their lingering presence. The artist’s intention is to celebrate the beauty present in every ending as it transforms into a new beginning. Paintings and Drawings for Childhood’s End shows a variety of transitions into passages unknown—that of birth and death, childhood and adulthood—the line between these places is blurred. The characters presented are neither here nor there, they exist in a timeless place where known and unknown merge.
The worlds depicted in Josephs’ new paintings and drawings present dream-like realities. While the figures in past works have often been situated in rural, naturalistic settings, the figures in Josephs’ new works take a more surrealist turn, floating or doubled in florally-adorned, imagined worlds. The doubled figures in these works suggest a mirroring of worlds that exist simultaneously—as above, so below—either one person or two beings, interchangeable. The painting One and Many Are the Same, and its precursor, the drawing Hand on the Grindstone, Heart on the Flower, Eye on the Light, show two bodies, mirrored. The angelic or uterine form in these works creates an entry point for the figures and the viewer—a passage into womanhood, into death, into transformation. The detailed flowers present throughout these new works are yet another symbol of fertility and the essential change undergone by these young women at Childhood’s End.
Death and loss are often described to children as a passageway to another world. They can be celebrated as entry points into the unknown and as our profound love for the departed. Children, raw and sensitive to the world around them, feel these experiences with mystery and wonder. Joseph's work often engages the fantastical as a means of grappling with reality. Her current body of work is concerned with the way children experience feelings of loss and grief. Previous bodies of work have depicted women arising from or overcoming external conflict, with strength and perseverance. However, the presented works do not appeal to any melancholy. These works celebrate childhood in all of its mystery and wonder.
The entirety of this exhibition was created with the artist’s late sister in mind and heart. Haley Josephs’s Paintings and Drawings for Childhood’s End is on view at Jack Barrett Gallery through April 19, 2020.
