Thanks to @nowbehereart for featuring my work! ❤️❤️❤️ Posted @withregram • @nowbehereart Karen Mainenti (@kmainenti) appropriates text and images from consumer products, advertising, and media in her work. By reframing these messages—often with humor—she attempts to reveal the absurdity and unnatural expectations that society has come to accept as commonplace. In her "Message in a Bottle" series, she explores the contradiction of women’s simultaneous embrace and skepticism of women’s beauty products; questions of product efficacy are often eclipsed by the irresistible promise of faith, belief, and transformation. The products depicted are common products that women keep in their medicine cabinets today but for many, Mainenti has replaced the product name with text extracted from the headlines of 1950’s-era beauty advertisements. You can see more of Karen Mainenti's work currently on view in "Brooklyn Utopias: Along the Canal" curated by Katherine Gressel (@eventpaintingbykatherine) at the Old Stone House in Gowanus Brooklyn (@oldstonehousebklyn) through June 26. Mainenti has had solo exhibitions of her work at the 2019 SPRING/BREAK Art Show (@springbreakartshow), Bard Graduate Center Library (@bardgradcenter), Ground Floor Gallery (@groundfloorbk), and Chashama (@chashama). Select group exhibitions include Untitled Space (@untitledspaceny), DUMBO Arts Festival, and Trestle Gallery. Her artwork has received coverage in ARTnews, Artnet News, Hyperallergic, Gothamist, Brooklyn Magazine, Gallery Gurls, and The Believer Magazine, among others. Mainenti is deeply connected to the Gowanus, Brooklyn arts community through collaboration with artist Sasha Chavchavadze (@sashachav) on Footnote project space (@footnoteprojects) and serving on the board of directors of Arts Gowanus (@artsgowanus). Karen Mainenti, Message in a Bottle, 2019 #NowBeHereArt #WomenArtists #NonBinaryArtists #KarenMainenti #FeministArt #BrooklynArt #ArtsGowanus #ConceptualArt https://www.instagram.com/p/CfLDm4qMYfZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
