Rotten Little Fruits
Christine Garvey
Bonnie Staley
9/6/19 - 10/19/19
Opening Reception: Friday, September 6th, 7-10 p.m.
MASS is excited to exhibit the work of Christine Garvey and Bonnie Staley in Rotten Little Fruits opening Friday September 6th.
The analogy of women and fruit is a strong one: fertility, virginity, ripeness, sweetness—something that sustains and delights. A rotten little fruit is something that is sour, misshapen, shrinking, but powerful—an object doing something other than what it's supposed to do—to be sweet, pleasurable, consumable. The dark, celebratory, and comical work of Christine Garvey and Bonnie Staley’s has a lot in common with the rotten little fruit—the outsider, problematic, misbehaving body. Both artists reference the history, anatomy, pains, and joys of the female body to create objects that operate in a space between traditional classifications of painting, drawing, and sculpture. Claiming an otherness between these formal distinctions further enhances the works’ power and autonomy. The diminutive "little fruit" suggests that despite all of this, these recalcitrant objects are nothing to be concerned with. The work says otherwise—it radiates its defiance and demands a closer look.
Rotten Little Fruits is on view from Sept 6th – October 19th.
Christine Garvey received her MFA from Concordia University Montreal, and BFA from Washington University in St Louis. Her paintings and installations have been exhibited internationally, including exhibitions with Galerie Circulaire (Montreal), Sur La Montagne Galerie (Berlin), Jules Maidoff Gallery (Florence), International Print Center (New York) and Terminal 136 (San Antonio, Texas). Garvey is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2016 Fulbright Research Grant from the Italian Commission, Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts Fellowship, and most recently a City of Austin Community Initiatives Grant.
Bonnie Staley received an MFA in painting from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, and a BFA in Fashion Design with a minor in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She has exhibited work at Sediment Gallery, ADA Gallery, 1708, Gallery 5 and The Anderson Gallery (Richmond, VA), Artists Space in (New York, NY), Stella Elkins Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), and The Temple Rome Gallery of Art, (Rome, Italy).
