Carrying the Effigy

CANDICE MADEY is pleased to announce Carrying the Effigy, an exhibition of three artists working in paint, textile, and embroidery. The works featured in Carrying the Effigy utilize folkloric, mythological, and iconographical histories to consider the connection between visual traditions and methods of understanding individual and collective experiences. The title of the show references a work by painter Samira Abbassy.

Samira Abbassy’s oil paintings borrow emblematic imagery from Western and Middle-Eastern mythology and history, locating and extrapolating meaning from their many meeting points. Abbassy utilizes these symbols to explore the nature of domesticity, generational trauma, and the psychological state of the self through her investigative practice.

Oona Brangam-Snell’s Jacquard-woven textile pieces draw from her work as a textile designer, as well as the history of textiles such as tapestry, curtain making, and theatrical set design. Brangam-Snell references mythology and folklore through the lens of contemporary design, bringing to question both material and iconographical image making traditions. The resulting works are at once playful and cryptic.

Jia Sung’s gouache and oil paintings draw from “strange tales”, a Chinese zhiguai tradition, referencing visual histories from Chinese mythology and Buddhist symbolism to create surreal images that explore otherness, queerness, and femininity. In Sung’s work, delicate beauty coalesces with imagery that is at times sinister-feeling. The resulting works are both familiar and unusual.

Organized by Bella Anastasio.

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