By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — It's hard to find the spiritual qualities in a discarded candy box, or the beauty in a plant covered with a trash bag, but a Chelsea exhibit is seeking to illuminate just these qualities in everyday objects.
In the exhibit "More World," Spanish-born artist Ester Partegas transforms the gallery space at West 27th Street's Foxy Production by painting the walls with a black and white mural of trees and fencing. The gallery's sculptures, prints, video and drawings feature subject matter ranging from French fries to pigeons to litter in a roadside puddle.
"There's a sort of longing that we all have, a yearning for things that gets all tied up in consumerism," said gallery owner John Thomson. "She's expressing those emotions that get all mixed up and misdirected."
One series featured at the show, "Studies in Mysticism," features broken-down candy boxes created in hyper-pigmented shades of blue, pink and red through stencils and airbrushing.
The colors, and the way the shapes created evoke planets and stars, create a hopeful feeling — until, Thomson said, the realization that you're looking at candy boxes "brings it back down to earth."
Another, "Organized Fries," shows row upon rows of prints of French fries, placed against vibrant orange and yellow backdrops. The intent, according to Thomson, is to provoke a different sort of reaction to a snack food that is so ubiquitous that it's effectively invisible.
Meanwhile, at the gallery, a silent video called "Ghost" runs on a loop, showing a view of the world reflected through a littered puddle on an urban street.
Despite the focus on consumption and the fault lines between urban and natural environments, the mood of the show is not intended to be didactic, Thomson said, or send a message of "oh, it's terrible, and we're all robots."
It is instead designed by Partegas simply to explore the emotions tied to our reactions to changing landscapes.
"Her nature kind of survives despite everything we do to stop it," Thomson said.
"More World" is showing at Foxy Production at 623 W. 27th St. through Nov. 27.
