Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present an online exhibition of recent paintings by Melissa Brown, Jameson Green, JJ Manford, Kathia St. Hilaire, and Austin Martin White. The gallery will be open for in-person viewing on August 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, and by appointment.

To schedule an in-person viewing, click here

Melissa Brown utilizes a variety of techniques including screen printing, stencils, and spray paint on thin, flat television-like surfaces (aluminum or Dibond) to create paintings which nod to the influence of new media. Brown sees her painting Desktop as a mission control center, a window through which she can initiate remote control and also a portal through which she is remotely controlled. It is home to an evolving, chronological strata of bills, drawings, misplaced files, and unopened mail. It is the black mirror one faces on a daily basis.  Venice Beach Psychic is a double take on smoke and mirrors. It is two perspectives on the same mystery, a glimmering insight discovered on an empty beach.

Melissa Brown (b.1974) has had recent solo and two person projects at Dodd Gallery, University of Georgia in Athens, the Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, Magenta Planes, and CANADA, New York City. Internationally she has mounted solo exhibitions at Kenny Schacter, ROVE in London and Roberto Paradise in Puerto Rico. She was awarded the Joan Mitchell Grant for painting in 2012 and a residency at the Joan Mitchell Center in 2019. Brown is an associate professor in art at Lehman College, City University of New York.

JJ Manford renders interior scenes with paint, oil pastel, and oil stick on an array of textured supports including linen, couch upholstery, and burlap.  These new works, made during quarantine in a cabin in the woods, are inspired by his surroundings and contain thoughts and observations from this surreal time period.  For the work Counting the Days, Manford explains, “I saw a huge blue jay one day…and I knew right then that the blue jay would become a calendar in which I would mark the days until we could put the pandemic in the past”.

JJ Manford (b.1983) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.  He has done recent projects with Alexander Berggruen, NY; Freight and Volume, NY, Hesse Flatow, NY and  forthcoming at Annarumma Gallery (Naples).  Manford is also the co-founder of the Brooklyn-based artist collective Underdonk and is an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute.

Kathia St. Hilaire interlaces elaborate processes and personal narratives into her practice. Drawing from Haitian Vodun culture and her upbringing in a South Floridian Caribbean community, St. Hilaire's interdisciplinary work is densely layered and evocative of traditional tapestry fabrics. Using relief printing techniques and oil based and metallic ink on canvas, she creates luminous compositions in which figuration functions as a means of memorializing both personal moments and controversial political historical moments.  The two works included are inspired by the Parsley Massacre of 1937, in which Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were systematically executed by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujilo. As Haitians and Dominicans pronounce the Spanish word “perejil” differently, this became a litmus test for determining their origins.

Kathia St. Hilaire (b.1995)  currently lives and works in Palm Beach, FL and has an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Yale School of Art (2020). St. Hilaire has recent and upcoming group shows in New York at The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, Half Gallery, James Fuentes, and Blum & Poe.  She received her BFA in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is the 2019 recipient of the Jorge M. Perez Award.