04/04 to 31/05/2015
Gleichapel, arguably the smallest art platform in Paris, presents a new project this spring by American artist Amy Jean Porter entitled “Social Butterflies”. This will be the artist’s first exhibition in Paris since her 2005 installation: “Birds of North Africa Speak English and French Both at Once” exhibited at g-module gallery (2001-2008).
For Amy Jean Porter’s installation “Social Butterflies”, she is creating a conservatory to honor an evolutionary moment of butterfly migrations and text messages — both of which are rapidly changing. Her vibrant gouache drawings of butterflies sporting text messages in their wings take over the white cube.
Cut-out drawings of actual-size monarch butterflies, the symbolic North American species, look as if they’re fluttering around wall drawings of emoticons :). The emoticons 🙂 take on characteristics of the butterflies as they float on the white walls while the butterflies communicate via text messages and emoji — all visible from the street with careful inspection and a pair of binoculars.
In the artist’s words, “The universe is over 13 billion years old. Our evolutionary moment of butterflies, text messages, and wing markings is a phone box of a moment — contained and discrete but also connected.”
Amy Jean Porter’s work considers the intersection between the natural world and human culture. Here she finds joy, tragedy, absurdity, terror, confusion, and humor. Porter’s drawings and installations explore our relationship to animals and how that is changing with the advent of new technologies. Her drawings are a natural history experiment and homage to the life around us.
Amy Jean Porter exhibits widely throughout the United States and has published several books with Birdcage Bottom, Cabinet, McSweeney’s and powerHouse. Her work is featured regularly in the press in magazines such as Artforum, ArtNews, The Paris Review and Time Out, as well as on indie blogs and webzines online such as the ubiquitous THE AWL (2016-2018). Her drawings are collected internationally including Deutsche Bank, Dubai and Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas as well as numerous private collections throughout the world.