Mrs. is pleased to present Queens, a group exhibition featuring work by Wallace Dibble, Olivia Sage Hamilton, Michelle Im, Mo Kong, Ada Roth, Isabelle Schipper, and Kalina Winters. Working across painting, sculpture, and mixed media, all seven artists’ lives and practices are entwined with the borough of Queens. While this doesn't produce a singular aesthetic, it's rather a shared condition and environment that links these artists.

In the past ten years Queens has emerged as a recognized site of experimentation, offering artists space, community, and a diverse social fabric. With economic realities already changing the landscape--the “Whole Foods Effect”--this exhibition aims to capture a small snapshot of art making in this particular moment.

Wallace Dibble’s figurative paintings pull from strangers’ archives of Flickr profiles. Narratives are created through painting one image next to another, decontextualizing the old photographs further while creating an artificial sense of intimacy and familiarity. Painting on mesh, some images appear as a distant memory while others are rendered boldly like printed snapshots, giving the viewer the feeling of fear that they missed out.

Olivia Sage Hamilton’s recent practice is grounded in world-building. In series like A council of one, Hamilton has predesigned the floral backdrops occupying the background of each work, as well as the figures which she sculpts herself. Intentionally lighting each still life to consider formal aspects of the composition, the artist’s works are contemplative, considering relationships between the feminine, nature, and myth.

The American club is a recent work by Michelle Im created during her residency at Kohler Co. The sculpture’s title is after the hotel across from the Kohler factory dating to 1918, which used to house immigrants employed by the manufacturer. For Im, the napkins recall her time as a service worker, having to fold napkins repeatedly at the end of her shift. Repetitive and mundane, the task also created an intimacy between workers through shared gossip and working close with one another.

Mo Kong’s work investigates science, identity, and speculative futures, which is specifically informed by her experience as an immigrant. Compass I is from her Swift island chain series which explores the melancholia and communicative informational gaps experienced by Asian immigrants. The freestanding sculpture serves as a compass, using magnetic fluid and astrological maps carved into the glass dome, charting the past, present, and future which reveals and considers intrinsic migratory patterns.

Ada Roth paints surreal compositions, oscillating between total abstraction and recognizable forms. The works are grounded in an ethereal space where total stillness seems impossible; some delicate shapes continue to elongate and some recess to the back of the plane. A bird emerges, a leg, a torso. Roth’s own personal considerations and anxieties inform her work, often revealing their form before the artist can.

Works like Two girls under two arches (Visitation) and Paper doll chain painting 4 demonstrate artist Isabelle Schipper’s interest in femininity and interconnectedness. From a formal perspective, Schipper
also investigates the possibilities that drawing and painting can offer. Her female figures are immediately recognizable, speaking to her use of symbolism and femininity. All clad uniformly, they hold hands creating a tessellating image that is both visually compelling but also seems to allude to something bigger - the female condition.

Interested in still lifes, Kalina Winters’ recent paintings have also taken on the specificity of the vanitas genre. Originally used to visually convey morality, the objects and materials used communicated life’s fleetingness. In Backlit vase a red vase sits on a desk, illuminated. Low on a stem, lilies appear opened and pink while above, unopened buds are silhouetted in shadow. A new candle has been lit but has gone cold.

While these artists offer work that is both deeply personal and informed by their surroundings, this exhibition ultimately maps their diverse ambitions. In a city like New York where space and community is ever-fleeting, in this moment, Queens still offers possibility.