Opening Reception: Wednesday, 15 July 2015, 6-10pm

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses…may the song I sing be seamless as its way weaves from the world’s beginning to our day. — Ovid, Metamorphoses (1.1-4)

174 Rivington Street Bar and Gallery is pleased to announce Metamorphosis, an exhibition of works by African artist Didier, and local artists Bobby Daly, Matthew Goldstein, Taylor Kuhn, Sophy Lee, and Matthew Revere, who convey metamorphoses in their work in a variety of ways. Whether Ovid’s revelation that change in itself in constant, the verminile struggles of coming to terms with new states of being as revealed by Kafka, or the physical states of Orlan’s body, the philosophy of transformation has always held gravity in arts and literature as a way for humans to cope with change.

A known symbol of rebirth, regeneration, happiness, and joy, many ancient civilizations believed the butterfly to be a winged symbol for the human soul. It has the ability to cross into the Otherworld, allowing one to live eternally, to visit the living after death. Butterfly wing art enjoyed a period of popularity in the late 1930s and early 1940s and is still being produced today. Butterfly wings never fade, but tear when touched. To create these pieces, wings from fallen butterflies, a common sight in the fields of Africa, are carefully arranged by Didier to create iridescent mandalas, scenes, and figures.

Four year old Bobby Daly’s images of the Wicked Witch of the West reveal the melting state of her existence and the imaginative impulses of a child. Ex-banker turned artist, Matthew Revere uses crayons to create his melted wax paintings. Sophy Lee, an art student at the New York Studio School, gives us Blue Drips, an ode to the tossed splatters of the action painters and the historical emotional periods of artists like Picasso, Pollock, and Rauschenberg. Matthew Goldstein, a photographer and construction worker, depicts the early stages of a train tunnel being blasted through bedrock, while Taylor Kuhn depicts the stases of our experiences in social and constructed environments.

The metamorphosis of the soul in its journey from life to death. The emergence of a butterfly from a chrysalis. The artistic development of a child. The melting of a child’s drawing material onto a canvas. The transformations of the ground beneath our feet in the city. The regeneration of happiness after a blue period. Interpretation of these works unveils a profound truth about changes and conditions in life.