Art Hag

I must have been an angsty college student when I read Sylvia Plath's 1963 novel, The Bell Jar, so I'm going to have to take their word for it when the Tina Kim Gallery says that its current group show is titled after the last line from the novel. I Stepped Into The Room presents works by six New York-based artists that consider "the intersection and interplay of the psychological and the spatial."

It is never clarified in the book whether or not the central character (Plath) is in fact mentally ill (my guess is - yes) or if she "is assigned this label as a result of her rejection of social norms and gender expectations." Her stepping into the room "becomes a metaphor for the confrontation of this duality." The novel touches upon the notion that "sensitivity to one's physical environment is linked to and implicated in psychosis," and the artists' works in the exhibition explore the restrictiveness and/or liberation of physical space and gender.

Spanish artist, Rocio Rodriguez Salceda's three claustrophobically cropped photographs show a person wearing a pink, pleated, pussy-bowed dress and heels with a mass of black hair forming a mask or helmet over his/her face, obscuring it as well as keeping his/her identity and gender a mystery. Jersey City-born Kyung Jeon's Bandage/Bondage shows a series of girls within a large, black splotch of ink all restricted, bound, gagged, blind-folded, and wrapped in bandages. Polish artist, Joanna M. Wezyk's two oil paintings show close-up views of beds in tight, confined corners. See my pictures of these works below.

It was interesting to see how each artist interpreted the phrase and the theme of the show in their own personal way. It definitely makes me want to dust off my old copy of The Bell Jar and give it another read. Works by Tracey Goodman, Shiri Mordechay, and Habby Osk are also on view. Through September 12th. Learn more at Tinakimgallery.com.