Play Pretend

Alessandro Albanese Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo show of Emilia Urbanek, titled “Play Pretend” and curated by Valeria Schäfer. In this exhibition, the artist examines the uncertainty and inner conflict we are exploring nowadays. Blurred lines as an expression of this timidity are dominating Emilia’s compositions. Figures are undefined, genderless, although bodies and faces can be identified, as they are elongating over the canvas, but everything remains in an unclear situation. In a temptation of explanation. “Play Pretend” is a metaphor for this attempting.

As children, we are all somehow playing a role, we are disguising, we are pretending and yet unsure. In these paintings, the artist is evoking an unreal scenery: a bunny close to a vase of flowers, a cat in the reed, bodies tussling in water, figures standing in a cornfield. The color palette oscillates between rusty red, sand and turquoise enhancing both the scenery and the central topic of the interplay between desire and doubt, lust and, over all, skepticism.