nycartscene:

Closes Saturday, Feb 25:

 Joyce Pensato
”Batman Returns”

Friedrich Petzel Gallery, 537 W22nd St., NYC

For this exhibition, Joyce Pensato uses “Batman” as the predominant subject and inspiration for her paintings. “Batman” is a motif that first appeared in Pensato’s drawings as early as the mid-1970’s and has been used by the artist only periodically since, the last “Batman” painting, as singular work, having been executed in 1996. Pensato’s resurrection of this iconic image sixteen years later marks an additional shift in her practice as it will be the first time that she has added various colors to what until now has been a strictly black, white and silver painting palette. Pastel color has played a role in Pensato’s drawings over the years, but color in the paintings is new, and as with her drawings, the color element marks a layer within, simultaneously erased and darkened by the profuse and continual saturation of black and white enamel.

I saw this twice, once with my class, once with my friends. Both times I had this overwhelming feeling of a sort of “corrupt” childhood. There were dirt covered children’s toys placed throughout the whole gallery with paint drippings covering the objects. It’s strange to see these objects take a whole new meaning. The intended purpose of these toys were to bring happiness and joy to children, but placed in this scenario, it brings almost a new morbid, kind of gritty, and fearful feeling to it. All of these very recognizable objects and symbols of society were tweaked to give insight to the artist’s different perspective of perhaps commercialism or just childhood in general.