KERRI SCHARLIN

'Girls' School'
April 20 - May 20, 2006

View Images of Kerri Scharlin's Work

Kustera Tilton Gallery is pleased to present new work by artist, Kerri Scharlin opening on April 20 and continuing until May 20, 2006. In her first solo project with the gallery, Girls’ School represents the culmination of an ongoing exploration of both a new medium for the artist and a new subject matter. In previous bodies of work, Scharlin used herself as her primary muse and produced photographs, drawings, and video from a variety of conceptual strategies; always exploring issues of self and identity vis-à-vis society as a whole.

The Girls’ School project embraces the medium of painting, a medium that is inherently “slow” to make and “slow” to receive. This “slowness”, and more specifically the passage of time, is echoed by the transitional age of the artist’s subjects. They seem somewhere between childhood and adulthood. All of Scharlin’s young girls are pictured posing in their school uniforms in various domestic tableaux vivants: lounging on an overstuffed chair, standing by the mantle, grouped around an “artist’s” easel. The paintings’ luscious brushstrokes, bold colors and cozy compositions, render the viewer unprepared for the depth of melancholy, seduction, or menace in these youthful faces. Scharlin’s young charges are ultimately resonant ciphers for the exploration of identity, conceptually joining this group of paintings to the artist’s previous work.

Kerri Scharlin has shown at numerous galleries and museums, most notably the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Aldrich Museum of Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and The New Museum of Contemporary Art in NY. She lives and works in New York City.

For additional information please contact the gallery at 212-989-0082.