Petra Projects

Petra Projects is pleased to present Megan Marrin in a solo exhibition at Mehr Gallery. Entitled Under the Net, this new group of work is comprised of painting, photography and collage, all created to render visual symmetry to “Two Sisters”, a three hundred fifty year old Appalachian fable which harkens back to the perennial themes of the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

Marrin combines this moral tale, with its haunting sense of melancholia, inescapable fate and foreboding, with vintage photographic material she amassed at estate sales and flea markets. These found representations, many of them eerily morbid and filled with a sense of unconscious violence, are appropriated; their anonymity is replaced with a purpose. As Marrin consistently draws her influence from literature, music and dialogue more than visual artistry, she then uses these discoveries to piece together her own interpretation of this macabre ballad.

The eerie-toned palate of “Stay Outside” stems from Marrin’s use of a particular old photograph, which is excerpted throughout Under the Net and serves as the cornerstone of this new group of work. She focuses on the wide range of cultural adaptations of the fable and the embedded commonality of necromancy, and reconstructs this quilt of narratives in each work. Marrin takes the complete story into consideration, providing a near-total embodiment of the pain and sexual jealousy between two sisters culminating in murder:

Under the Net
Megan Marrin Exhibition: February 13 - March 7, 2008 Opening Reception: February 13, 2008 6-8pm view additional images

Petra Projects is pleased to present Megan Marrin in a solo exhibition at Mehr Gallery. Entitled Under the Net, this new group of work is comprised of painting, photography and collage, all created to render visual symmetry to “Two Sisters”, a three hundred fifty year old Appalachian fable which harkens back to the perennial themes of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Marrin combines this moral tale, with its haunting sense of melancholia, inescapable fate and foreboding, with vintage photographic material she amassed at estate sales and flea markets. These found representations, many of them eerily morbid and filled with a sense of unconscious violence, are appropriated; their anonymity is replaced with a purpose. As Marrin consistently draws her influence from literature, music and dialogue more than visual artistry, she then uses these discoveries to piece together her own interpretation of this macabre ballad. The eerie-toned palate of “Stay Outside” stems from Marrin’s use of a particular old photograph, which is excerpted throughout Under the Net and serves as the cornerstone of this new group of work. She focuses on the wide range of cultural adaptations of the fable and the embedded commonality of necromancy, and reconstructs this quilt of narratives in each work. Marrin takes the complete story into consideration, providing a near-total embodiment of the pain and sexual jealousy between two sisters culminating in murder:
Two sisters walked by a miller’s stream, O the wind and the rain. The one behind pushed the other one in, O the dreadful wind and rain. She floated on down to the miller’s pond, O the wind and the rain. Stop the dam there swims a swan! O the dreadful wind and rain. The millers’ son ran down the hill, O the wind and the rain. Pulled her out of his mill wheel, O the dreadful wind and rain	He made a little fiddle of her breastbone, O the wind and the rain. The one behind pushed the other one in, O the dreadful wind and rain. The only tune that the fiddle would play, Was, "O the wind and the rain." The only tune that the fiddle would play, was "O the dreadful wind and rain."
Three of Marrin’s daunting and numinous mixed media works, entitled “The Light Lesson”, “Outside Rooms”, and “Pastoral” are examples of her technique of cutting apart and piecing together dissected, isolated imagery in calculated, delicate arrangements to sound out the exquisiteness of the narrative. Specifically, the events of the story such as pushing, drowning, or death are examined through images of people sleeping, or falling. Under the Net exemplifies Marrin’s creative process: how she expands on what she extracts from examining the fable to create a fantastical world in her works. Megan Marrin lives and works in New York. She earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Marrin has exhibited painting, sculpture, photography and mixed-media work throughout New York, and in 2005 she was recognized by Art Review as one of 25 Emerging U.S. Artists in an exhibition at Phillips de Pury & Company. For additional information or images please contact Anastasia Rogers at 1.917.679.5496 or Anastasia@PetraProjects.com.
Exhibition on view February 13 - March 7, 2008 Tuesday-Saturday 11-6 Mehr Gallery 436 W. 18th St. New York, NY 10011 1.212.255.0009 www.MehrGallery.com
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