Exhibitions

NOAH SATERSTROM: INSTAMATIC

Julia Martin Gallery / 444 Humphreys St. November 2 - 30th

Noah Saterstrom

In the NYT article about his Mississippi Museum of Art exhibition last year, Noah Saterstrom delved into more branches of his family history featuring Dr. Smith - please read and explore this incredible exhibition and 120 foot long painting installation - which prompted a deeper dive into mental health within the artist's own life. You may recall Saterstrom's 2017 groundbreaking solo exhibition, Shubuta & Other Stories.

"In that (MMA) show I talk about an episode of mental disorder I had in my mid-twenties. It was a dissociative disorder called depersonalization, and even though I recovered fully, it changed the course of my life and my painting. Painting played a central role in creating that breakdown and also was the thing that brought me out of it. Instinctively, I painted hundreds of family photographs, rebuilding my memories and confidence in reality while I was staring into them, without knowing that’s what I was doing. It’s all in a way an extension of the Dr. Smith story as this conversation only came to light while I was writing for the catalog for that show." -NS

In this spirit, the paintings for this exhibition will be taken directly from family photo albums from approx. 1980 - 1984. "Ostensibly they are simple paintings from forty year old snapshots, but the subject is entangled with how memory works, dissociation, family, mental health, breaking taboos, art and neuroscience, and the very familiar atmosphere of the early 80s".