LAUNCH F18 is delighted to present in its online viewing room, it's seven by the sun by New York based artist, B. Chehayeb. This special presentation features a selection of recent paintings, highlighting the artist's captivating works on panel. it's seven by the sun opens on May 27, 2021 and remains on view through July 22, 2021.
How do you know what we know? This elementary problem is at the heart of our subjective experience, and we find our answers in language itself. Verification, validation -- ‘do you remember?’ ‘Yes, but not quite like that.’ In a multitude of languages beyond the verbal we say ‘I’m here!’ which is also always the question ‘do you see me?’ In all this, memory is the raw material of personhood; identity comes from what can be fixed as an anchor point between us. ‘Do you remember?’ The smell of an idling car, the tough skin of an orange, the coarse texture of a woolen sweater.
Each of these paintings is an act of remembering, of anchoring in paint a contingent and highly subjective view of a personal past. Painting needs a subject, and in the case of abstraction the subject is paint itself. So are these abstract paintings? Chehayeb uses a language of colour and gesture to paint her memories, without recourse to specific figuration or details, but rather through the expressionistic totality of her abstract surfaces. And yet her titles acquiesce to a narrative of details -- ‘burning tongues’ recalls a childhood memory of eating spicy mexican foods.
What we see on each canvas or board is an act of painting-while-remembering, and true to the nature of subjective memory, the viewer is left to form their own experience. We can gain some insight from a certain sense of light -- through her judicious use of yellow ochre and dirty white -- and that the language of place and landscape plays some part. The handling of the paint varies according to the needs of each memory -- we are given a lot, but it is never enough, and this is the point. We make our memories just as some of us make paintings or write poems. Looking at the paintings of B Chehayeb we feel what it is like to remember together. We’re searching for concordance under her sun.
David Surman, 2021
B. Chehayeb is an artist based in Brooklyn by way of Boston. She holds an MFA from the Massachussets College of Art and Design and a BFA in Painting from the University of North Texas with studies in Creative Writing. Her work spans a wide range of media and focuses on the reconstruction of failed memories, specifically memories warped by nostalgia, gender and cultural hybridity. Chehayeb has been awarded residencies with Mass MoCA, the Vermont Studio Center, and most recently the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency Award in Upstate New York.
In addition to being a finalist for the Hopper Prize Grant, Chehayeb was awarded the New York City Redbull Arts Microgrant in 2020. Her works have been published and exhibited both nationally and internationally including Maake Magazine, Art Maze Magazine and The Hopper Prize Journal.
For more information and a preview of this viewing room please email us at: info@launchf18.com