Petra Projects is pleased to present the debut solo exhibition by the New York artist Rebecca Schiffman, at Mehr Gallery.  Entitled Come in!, Schiffman created this body of work, comprised of four watercolors and a single acrylic painting, with the purpose of personally inviting each viewer into her realm to experience her vision of specific documented scenes. In this way, she aims to escape isolation and solitude by fostering an interaction between the artist’s and the viewer’s experiences.

The inspiration for each of the five exhibited pieces is a separate photograph which captures only an instant within an extensive story.  Schiffman’s objective is to delve further into these fragmented pictures through painting, transforming a single moment into a prolonged, observant process so that the viewer ultimately gains deeper insight to the narrative.  In her work, Schiffman deliberately retreats from the reality embedded in the photographs she chooses to a comparatively whimsical place, where she and her audience can meet.  This interpretive process is evident in ’The Clash,’ in which she effectively manipulates the image from a photograph taken in her dining room into a far more imaginative domain.

The exhibition’s title is an overt double entendre, as Schiffman continually invites the viewer to come in to her sphere, while portraying suggestive scenes.  Such a duality is apparent in the evocative relations portrayed in ‘Loft-bed,’ as well as in ‘Beatrice,’ which depicts a woman standing by the window longing to receive an awaited guest.  In each painting, Schiffman also succeeds in stretching time infinitely, granting the ability to see beyond the original photograph’s surface through each rendered line, shadow, range of palate, and physical expression.

Rebecca Schiffman is a New York native, and received her BFA at Cooper Union School of Art.  She has most recently participated in exhibitions at Song Song Gallery in Vienna, Austria, and Ratio 3 Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

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