June 4 - July 9, 2005

Paintings, collages, drawings and prints by:

Katherine Desjardins, Moria Fain, Kojo Griffin, Jonathan Hammer, Marcus Kenney, Kumi Machida and Karen Moss

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to present "Childhood Revisited," a summer group show of established and emerging artists living in places as far apart as the United States, Spain, and Japan.

In recent years, artists have expressed a burgeoning interest in exploring childhood in order to uncover memories and delve into past psychological issues. Some of the artists In this exhibition have employed and transformed popular graphic images from the 40's and 50's found in vintage coloring books, paper doll books, puzzles and games. Others have invented symbolic figures to represent narratives from their past, as amulets of protection, or as expressions of the disturbed innocence of our time. "Childhood Revisited," curated by Boston-based artist Karen Moss, offers new ways of looking at childhood as a period as complex and unsettling as adulthood.

KATHERINE DESJARDINS
Katherine Desjardins employs the calligraphic language and idealized imagery of coloring books, which she deconstructs to reveal their underlying political ideologies and/or social and psychosexual tensions. Her travels to Italy and Japan have had a major impact on her work. One can see the influence of the latter in references to classical Japanese scrolls and contemporary manga. Most recently she has exhibited in Italy while spending part of this year in Cassis, France.

MOIRA FAIN
Moira Fain's work is an intensely personal exploration of her troubled childhood in a charming New England town in the 1950's. Her art is a way of coming to terms with past demons through the depiction of animal protection metaphors, often in the guise of rabbits. Her imagery conjures up fairy tales and mythology as she combines and transforms common materials scavenged at flea markets into magical vignettes. Her remarkable collages have only recently come to the attention of the art world.

KOJO GRIFFIN
Kojo Griffin's art comes out of his experience as a chubby, depressed and introspective child. These difficulties heightened his sensitivity to pain, and the vulnerability of childhood informs the emotional depth of his work. Threatened by exploitative adults, his narratives of innocence employ a number of media such as paint, collage, drawing and printmaking. Since he planned to become a psychologist and only began painting seven years ago, Griffin is fairly new to the professional art world. During this relatively brief artistic career, however, he has been selected for the Whitney Biennial (2000), the exhibition "Freestyle" at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2001), and has had numerous solo shows.

JONATHAN HAMMER
Jonathan Hammer was born in Chicago and is currently living in Barcelona, Spain. His art takes many forms, ranging from hand-tooled leather bound books to photographs, drawings, and prints. The artist is known for his brilliant epic creatures heavy with symbolism and for his images of clowns, old toys, and antiquated landscapes. This exhibition will include linocuts of childhood memories of circus clowns wearing masks. He has translated and illustrated a book entitled Ball and Hammer (Yale University Press, 2002) and has had solo shows at Mathew Marks Gallery in NY.

MARCUS KENNEY
Marcus Kenney hails from Savannah, Georgia. As a child, he found arrowheads on his family farm and has since become a compulsive collector and master of using found materials in his art. His genius lies in the editing process and his unique imagination enables him to assemble disparate elements such as vintage illustrations, comic strip bubbles, and old letters into hauntingly beautiful compositions. These works display a degree of nostalgia but with an edge. In much of his work, there is the underlying message of the ruthless power that adults have over children.

KUMI MACHIDA
Kumi Machida resides in Tokyo and has exhibited her work in Japan, Europe and New York (at M.Y. ART PROSPECTS). She earned her degree in Japanese-style painting (nihonga), which is evident in her carefully controlled use of built-up lines. Her work combines traditional sumi ink painting with contemporary composition and subject matter. Her children with larger-than-life heads evoke a sense of loneliness and other-worldliness. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, has recently purchased her lithographs. She has illustrated the Japanese translation of L'Ecole de Libertinage by the Marquis de Sade (Heibonsha, 2004).

KAREN MOSS
Karen Moss explores new materials and art forms that include ceramic tile murals and recent sculptural trees made from consumer catalogues. "Life Before TV," her painting on paper series, explores the artist's childhood in the years shortly after World War II. Her imagery was inspired by a collection of vintage coloring books that she altered to create narratives from her own childhood. The figure representing the artist herself is often portrayed with a distinctly un-childlike sobriety. In this character's expression of serious intent, the adult artist can be seen unconsciously infiltrating her being. Moss has shown her paintings throughout the United States, and her work is included in numerous public collections.

For further information and/or photographic materials, please contact: tel. 212 268 7132 / email MYartpro@aol.com