03/26/2024
“Life at the Intersection of the human and nonhuman”
ENFOCO, WALL WORKS NY, and Judith Escalona present Three exhibitions by Tricia McLaughlin, April 1-30, 2024
ONE
Life Forms: April 1 – April 30. Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment presents Tricia McLaughlin’s bizarre world of phantasmachina, creatures that exist at the intersection of the human and nonhuman. For the entire month, but only for the first 3 minutes before midnight, the phantasmachina in 3D animation will command the jumbo screens of Times Square startling onlookers with a glimpse into their phantasmagoric way of life. Music provided by David B. Smith and Omar Zubair on April 5 at Duffy Square.
TWO
Phantasmachina: April 6 – April 30. An exhibition presented by En Foco in collaboration with WallWorks Gallery, curated by Judith Escalona. Drawings, paintings, and renditions of the fabulous creatures in 3D animation, reveal the artist’s process. En Foco and WallWorks are located at 15 Canal Place, Bronx, NY, 10451 Tel: 917-503-8017.
THREE
Out of the Abyss: April 1 – 30. An online exhibition presented by TFLR Contemporary: The more belligerent phantasmachina creatures are revealed. Think of it as the nasty side of Happyland and be ambivalently amused.
•••
In Life Forms at a Midnight Moment, Times Square Arts presents mutant phantasmachina hard at work constructing a world within our own that is strange yet oddly familiar, a microcosm inside a bigger beast. “Balloon Head”, “Red Amoeba” and “Long Arm” busily apply themselves in a futile Sisyphean gesture condemned to repeat. We watch these phantasmachina as they watch us transform the environment that continues to change us in ways similar to theirs. The cartoon-like creatures and bright Happyland colors deceptively betray the complexity of McLaughlin’s explorations that encourage viewers to think and experience art beyond its traditional boundaries. ¨I strive to anthropomorphize geometry, imbuing structures and creatures with emotions and a sense of social responsibility.¨ Visitors should be in Times Square before the clock strikes midnight (get there by 11:57 PM) to catch a glimpse of the phantasmachina at work and play the first three minutes before Midnight.
A unique series of Phantasmachina are on view as physical art at WallWorks Gallery in the Bronx, where visitors have a chance to interact with the drawings and paintings through the QR codes that animate each work. Using their phones, visitors experience the 3D animation of individual phantasmachina and discover their true nature through whimsical narratives. These are accidental or subconscious stories generated by visitors and the artist. “I am asking ‘What if…?’ with the images that initially come from a stroke of paint. As I pull out forms from what I see, a narrative of the invented hybrid character and its spaces emerges.”
Unsettling phantasmachina wreak havoc in TFLR Contemporary’s online exhibit Out of the Abyss, featuring the underside of Happyland. Here childhood nostalgia in form and color also becomes bleak remembrances of narcissistic struggle, conflict, and revolt.
