Naomi Reis
Planted

Mixed Greens is thrilled to present Planted, an ambitious, site-specific window installation by Brooklyn-based artist Naomi Reis. Using mylar collages that incorporate real and artificial houseplants sourced from the nearby Flower District, Reis creates a mixed-media installation that traverses two- and three- dimensions and transforms the windows into luscious verdure.

In her past work, Reis created labor-intensive collages by building up layers of painted paper and mylar. Subverting traditional landscape painting, this work presented inside views of botanical conservatory biomes where "nature" is staged, complicating our assumptions about what is interior and exterior, natural and manufactured. Mimicking the pieced-together quality of these constructed natural preserves, Reis’ collage technique draws attention to the illusionistic nature of image-making itself.

For Planted, Reis adds another layer of complexity by placing potted plants behind the collaged elements, occupying the “space between” on multiple levels. Situated in the narrow gap between façade and interior, Planted references the Japanese aesthetic concept of ma: an interval or a void, the space between one thing and another. In this in-between space, notions of authorship and authenticity are questioned. Behind the glass windows, the boundaries between the translucent and opaque, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, artificial and natural blur rather than collide.

Naomi Reis was born in Shiga, Japan, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is a co-founder of TSA New York, an artist-run gallery in Brooklyn, NY. She was a 2013 resident at Wave Hill; an article about her experience there appears in the Spring 2013 issue of Wilder Quarterly. She has had recent solo exhibitions at the Horticultural Society of New York and TSA, and her work has been included in prestigious group exhibitions at Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC; Kunsthalle Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY; and the International Print Center of New York. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the James Hotel in New York. Reis received an MFA from the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Transcultural Identity from Hamilton College. The window installation coincides with the group exhibition “Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden” at the Museum of Biblical Art, NYC.

For more information, please visit naomireis.com


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