DIMIN is excited to present Spider Silk, a new series of paintings and drawings by Emily Coan. Inspired by the lineage of women as tale-tellers, particularly the weavers of myth and literature, Coan’s work examines the art of creating the tale itself. From the Moirai of Greek myth and Ovid’s tale of Philomena, to the German Spinnerinnen and the Brothers Grimm, the connection between weaving and the female voice in fairytale remains at the heart of this series. Considering herself “a storyteller painter” – she creates visual fairy tales that will, in her lifetime, build out an entire world.
Departing from her longtime use of self-portraiture, Coan repositions herself to the orchestrator of a story and environment where very real personalities are invited to contribute. This move toward reconciliation of her fragmented self-portraits – a reconciliation of self – manifests in the cooperative nature of the narrative. To visualize this narrative, Coan invited eight women from her Hudson Valley community to engage in the fairytale world that she built. As described to the participants, this world is the “perilous realm” where they, eight sisters, would be compelled to work together against external foes. In the woods they gather spider webs to be spun and woven into garments on a magical loom. The finished garments in the form of lingerie, dresses, and veils would be stronger than steel and serve as their feminine armor. Only through combined effort can this armor be made, and it will be needed before they can transcend to the next realm. Though too late to protect Ovid’s Philomena from harm, her loom lent her the only means by which she could tell her tale, exact her revenge, and transcend to another physical form. As interpreted in Patricia Klindienst’s The Voice of the Shuttle is Ours:
“When Philomela begins to weave over the long year of her imprisonment, it is not only her suffering but a specific motive that gives rise to her new use of the loom: to speak to and be heard by her sister. As an instrument that binds and connects, the loom, or its part, the shuttle, re-members or mends what violence tears apart: the bond between the sisters, the woman's power to speak, a form of community and communication.”
On summer solstice, Coan shot reference photos at an undisclosed upstate location on land energetically and personally significant to the participants. The result is a showcase of the picture-making skills she has developed over the past decade, overlaid with a new collaborative, and feminine spirit. Coan likens the complexity of her compositions to choreography, comparing the flow in the works to the movement of a dance. Unlike her previous, more theatric work, the subjects are grounded in the moment, as in Our Lady where a foreground figure breaks the fourth wall as she meets the gaze of the voyeuristic viewer. Eight-Legged Ritual depicts four women sitting in a circle, hand in hand, giving thanks to the spider as mother and teacher through ritual, before again attending to the woven spider silk fabrics hanging in the background. These subjects are rendered more confidently and painterly than ever before, and on more ambitious scale. Mimicking the colors of the Hudson Valley woods, the palette of the paintings is more traditional than previous work. Though she has created charcoal drawings for each of her past compositions, Spider Silk represents the first occasion of Coan’s drawings exhibited alongside her paintings in a solo exhibition.
Emily Coan (b. 1991 St. Petersburg, Florida) lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY. In 2013, she received her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Florida and moved to New York City in 2015. In 2018 she attended Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild Residency in Woodstock, NY, and the Macedonia Institute Residency in 2020. Coan has recently exhibited in group shows with DIMIN, New York; Nino Mier, New York; Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; De Boer, Los Angeles; Gowen Contemporary, Geneva; CH and Kutlesa, Goldau, CH. Spider Silk at DIMIN will be Coan’s fourth solo show in New York and her first with the gallery.
DIMIN is located in Tribeca at 406 Broadway, Fl. 2, New York, NY. DIMIN is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.
For all inquiries, please contact gallery@dimin.nyc.
