Margaret Pinto
Carapace Pierced
Artist Reception
Friday, December 8, 7-9pm
Closing Party and Music Performance January 28, 5-8pm
Note new date for the closing!
December 8, 2023 - January 20, 2024
Margaret Pinto, mixed-media sculptor
Carapace Pierced explores the theme of armored bodies, investigating the relationships between fear, protection, vulnerability, and violence. Visual reference is drawn from medieval armor, riot gear, cages, fencing as well as myriad forms of armor in the natural world such as crab shells, thorns, and insect casings. This work simultaneously celebrates and interrogates the outer shell as a potent metaphor for emotional states of separation from our environment.
Depictions of nets and veils are interwoven into this content. These permeable barriers present a secondary mode of containment, obscuring, concealing and trapping their subjects. Translucent, layered and complex surfaces are an invitation for viewers to look more closely, delve deeper into the spaces and objects around them and address the unconscious “veils” which obscure their own view of the world around them.
Statement:
I’m interested in creating entry points for people to access more complex, sensitive, and layered ways of seeing. Veils, nets, and translucent surfaces are an ongoing theme in my work. I believe looking at an image or surface that is visually complex, confusing, partially abstracted, and/or surprising can guide both myself and the viewer to think more deeply and creatively about the world. I would like to incite viewers to look more closely, delve deeper into the spaces and objects around them and question the systems and habits that unconsciously control them. In a world saturated by consumerism and the attention economy, our psyches are frequently taken hostage by messaging which harbors greed and consumption at its core. I hope that my work can offer a reprieve from this onslaught and challenge people to swim against the stream. I believe that providing spaces and experiences that are radically contradictory to the current environment is vital to creating a more hopeful future.
Bio:
Margaret Pinto is a visual artist living in Brooklyn, NY and working in a diverse range of mediums. She earned a bachelor’s degree in painting and drawing at SUNY Purchase College and has since been working various jobs in the art world while developing her studio practice. Her work is rooted in painting, but incorporates a lifelong interest in craft, experimentation, and material exploration. She explore themes of duality, trickery, and transformation, straddling painting and sculpture and often mixing them together.