Melissa Sims has long trafficked in her very own form of nostalgia, channeling a earth of cowboys, funny papers girl reporters, superheroes and other brightly colored Americana. She returns to some of that marginally goosed nostalgia in several of the functions here, many of which are commencing to look a little toothless. But she’s also pursuing a a lot more exciting exhumation of the earlier in her paintings that examine the darkish aspect of ‘60s and ‘70s kitsch: lifeless-eyed children with Margaret Keane expressions dancing like fairly zombies to a file player at their ft in “The New Craze.” But the most unnerving perform has to be the poor vacation fantasia “Let Your Peace Move, like a Mountain Stream” in which a Russ Berrie & Organization (maker of trolls and Sillisculpt) determine adopts a Nixon gesture of peace from a backdrop of pretend paint-by-figures character, Wayne White typography and a telegenic rainbow. Sims taps into a streak of consumerist sentimentality that lowers political protest, youthful revolt and nature to gaudy rainbows and peace signal jewelry so saccharine and bogus you want to #gag.
“Fox in the Hen Household” by Melissa Sims
Courtesy of Tew Galleries
Credit score: Handout
Credit history: Handout
New York-primarily based Steven Moors is new to Tew, but like Sims, he traffics in American pop society iconography: traveling saucers, Mickey Mouse, ‘50s housewives in bullet bras. His electronic drawings, sketched on an iPad, are then printed onto a vellum-like etching paper that offers his functions a delicate blueprint-like high quality. Just about every perform is a crazed collision of pop society references. In “Untitled: Major Ship, Tiny Horse, Pointing Gentleman,” there is a flying saucer, Pegasus, an Age of Sail brigantine, midcentury contemporary household furniture and aspects of woodgrain and upholstery fabric that give his perform a combine of the natural and organic and the Populuxe, and the crazed energy of a Richard Hamilton collage.
“Untitled: Clown As well as 100 on Hill,” by Steven Moors is highlighted in the Tew Galleries team exhibit “The Mysterious Earth.”
Courtesy of Tew Galleries
Credit history: Handout
Credit score: Handout
Show
“The Mysterious World”
Through April 16. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays, Totally free. Tew Galleries, 425 Peachtree Hills Ave. NE #24., Atlanta. 404-869-0511, tewgalleries.com.