OPENING: BACKLOT

Cleo the Project Space is pleased to present ‘Backlot’ with work by Marianna Peragallo and Thomas Martinez Pilnik. This exhibition posits domestic life as set design by utilizing everyday objects as a backdrop for fantastical narrative.

Marianna Peragallo’s sculptural work activates everyday objects like gardening gloves and plastic bags with movement and gestures that play with their intended function. An animation of a plastic bag twirling, a plastic bag spitting water like a fountain, and thermoplastic gardening gloves in shadow puppet postures move these objects from the periphery to center stage. By subverting their original context, the works create scenes that magnify the familiar and make it surreal. These moments covertly convey the personal memories attached to each object i.e. the gloves her late grandmother would wear when washing dishes, a nod to the caretaking, labor, and vanity attached to her outward character with the goofy disposition that surfaced in…