Room
May 16 – July 3, 2009
Reception for the Artist: Saturday, May 16, 6 – 9 pm
Los Angeles, CA - Sam Lee Gallery is pleased to present Room by Los Angeles-based multi-media artist Carrie Yury. The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Saturday, May 16, from 6 to 9 pm. The show opens on May 16 and closes on July 3, 2009. Room marks the artist’s 2nd solo project with the gallery.
The depiction of the female nude is a longstanding genre in the history of art and photography. However, Carrie Yury’s latest series Room, consisting of 9 color pigment photographic diptychs, is a re-examination of the history of the female body as an uncritical trope. In each work, a semi-naked woman is depicted in repose within her own personal space, reminiscent of the 19th century oil painting La Grande Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Unlike Ingres’ Odalisque, Yury’s subjects in this series are fragmented between panels and then reassembled in impossible ways, simultaneously displaying and disrupting the classic ideal of the female nude.
In Untitled (Shared Flat) [2007], the female body (photographed in her bedroom)—like that of a magician’s assistant—has been divided into two panels: one depicts the subject’s back while the other shows her legs turned toward the viewer. Although her body is exposed, her face is turned away from sight. Yury’s diptychs oscillate between presence and absence—a dichotomy that reveals clues but also refuses to give up all answers. Within each room, the objects are as important as the body, providing visual signifiers but leaving the viewer the desire to know more about the woman who inhabits the room.
In conjunction with the exhibition, an elegant, 32-page color catalog has been published and is available for sale through the gallery. For detailed information, please contact the gallery.
Yury, born 1970, currently works and lives in Los Angeles. The artist received her master’s degree in fine art from UC Irvine, California in 2006, and her master’s degree in English from the University of Chicago, Illinois in 1998; in 1993, Yury earned her bachelor’s degree with a double major in fine art and literature from UC Santa Cruz. Recent solo exhibitions have been exhibited at The Office in Huntington Beach, California, and Swallow Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. Yury’s work has been displayed in numerous group exhibitions in Miami, Georgia, New York, Illinois and California.
Digital images are available for press purposes. Please email (info@samleegallery.com) for reproduction requests.
Sam Lee Gallery is located at 990 North Hill Street #190, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Phone 323-227-0275, Facsimile 323-227-0256. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 6 pm and by appointment. For detailed information, please visit the gallery’s website, www.samleegallery.com.