Momentous Occasions

Artists include Jorin Bossen, Laura Krifka, Atilio Pernisco, Luis Antonio Rodriguez, Erica Ryan-Stallones, and Daena Title
Curated by Brian Thomas Jones and Jorin Bossen

Durden and Ray presents Momentous Occasions, an exhibition of six figurative painters whose work explores narratives that are contained within brief periods of time, enticing the viewer to imagine moments before and after a depiction. The artists in Momentous Occasions create scenarios — both real and imagined — that provide insight into their subjects’ lifestyle, psyche, and environments through richly-painted figurative works.

Featured artists include Atilio Pernisco, whose dream-like depictions utilize dueling modes of portrayal. His work often inhabits the space between representation and abstraction, ambiguity and certainty, reason and intuition, and personal and public space. Pernisco's work summons our innermost fears, dreams and fantasies, offering its own shortcuts to that deep-rooted anxiety.

Using the visual language of cinema and photography, Laura Krifka’s carefully-crafted paintings occupy various states of undress, preparation, and play. Krifka’s work invites the viewer to become comfortable with intimacy, where the act of looking is a central component of desire.

Daena Title’s painterly works are commentaries on Western society’s obsession with the female image. Her work explores the contradictory messaging exploited by popular media, including authenticity vs. conformity; beauty vs. distortion; and complicity vs. rebellion.

By interpreting the figure within an environment, the artists in Momentous Occasions have opened a specific world for the viewer, allowing them to provide their own response with momentary prompts from the artist.