inside outside

a plus/space installation by

Meridith McNeal

Inside Outside is a site-specific exhibition of McNeal’s Windowphilia life-sized ink and watercolor paintings of windows on paper. The concept of the Windowphilia series is both complex and simple. The pieces play with reflection and layers of external and internal space, exploring the precarious, terrifying idea of being on one side or the other of incarceration. While the paintings are beautiful in manifestation, presenting them enables McNeal to address an important social justice issue.

Half of these new works are of views of New York City. Just outside the gallery door is a painting of a reflected image framed by a piece by Mildred Beltré, with her studio on Governors Island in the background. Once inside the Plus/Space, to the far left, are the tall arched windows of the ceramic studio at Pratt, and a diptych of gated doors from a brownstone in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The other paintings show scenes of Rome. The largest of these is a portal to an inner courtyard that has beckoned to McNeal for over a decade along her walk on Via Garibaldi in Trastevere. The smallest piece is of the window above the bath in the Monte Verde apartment she shared with her nephew. Inside Outside Artemisia (Piazza Navona, Rome) is a beguiling view looking out on a reflected window in a Roman villa, which the artist spotted after looking at a marvelous exhibition of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi.

Looking through the Plus/Space gate passersby will feel as if they are peering through the space to a mysterious other world, with the perceptual shift heightened by looking into the gallery through a barred entry—a new manifestation of McNeal’s body of work addressing the experience of wrongful incarceration.

About the Artist:

Meridith McNeal is a Brooklyn-based artist represented by Figureworks Gallery (Kingston, NY), the Flat Files of Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, NY), and Embrace Creatives (Detroit, MI). She has been a frequent Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her work has received numerous awards, most recently Curators Award, All The World’s a Stage, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis MA; Association Award Winner, Brand 49, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA; Shortlist Finalist, Visual Art Open 2021 UK & International Emerging Artist Awards; Best of the Net 2021, nomination by The Lumiere Review; Silver Medal, Curators Award, PAPERWORKS 2021, b.j. spoke gallery, Huntington, NY; Jurors Top Choice in Arizona Aqueous XXXV at Tubac Center of the Arts, Tubac, AZ. Meridith was honored as a 2020 Artist of the Year by the Circle Foundation for the Arts, Lyon, France. Meridith regularly exhibits her artwork throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her extensive solo exhibition Ordinary Magic was on view at the Galleries at Interchurch Center, NYC, in fall 2022.
Meridith is the cofounder and Director of ART YARD BKLYN.

GALLERY HOURS:

Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6pm, or by appointment. Please email hanne@fivemyles.org, or call 718-783-4438.

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

FiveMyles is in part supported by the New York State Council for the Arts, Public Funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Laurie Cumbo, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, the Perlemeter Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Joseph Robert Foundation, and the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.