Emily Oliveira

Geary is pleased to present Red Velvet, Orange Crush by Emily Oliveira, at 208 Bowery and Geary Millerton. Oliveira’s new collection of sculptural and quilted works capture moments when the veil between worlds thins and opens, and cosmic phenomena come down to earth. The textile works in the the exhibition take the form of orificial ovals: these precipices and portals call to mind the moments before a figure steps into something wholly new; the rippling sensation of a world that is about to change.

Red Velvet, Orange Crush is a space to commune with the work: in Oliveira’s I am weak with much giving, I am weak with the desire to give more, a silk velvet form has the look of a volcanic vent for a subterranean fire, or a carnivorous flower, and calls back to the origins of the silk fabric in the show: tiny threads unraveled from the cocoons of silk moths. At 208 Bowery, an immersive wash of color radiates out into the space from within the cocoon. A long tentacle snakes out from the sculpture, beckoning the viewer to step closer, to perhaps merge and be enveloped in the folds of the creature, and to submit to its power.

Two large quilts at Geary Millerton both use pieced, hand dyed cotton, and cyanotypes on silk. The cyanotype is a photogram process invented by a nineteenth century astronomer that was often used to document plant life. The figurative cyanotypes create otherworldly images that seem just outside of our understanding. This process’s origins in the cataloging and categorization of the natural world by Western scientists contrasts with the imagery of the quilts, which positions desire and touch as modes of reconfiguring the cosmos, and human beings as enmeshed in the natural world rather than as dispassionate observers of it. The works visualize the entanglement of the figures in their environment, and the stitching creates lines around the moments of movement or touch that ripple outward to shift and change the world around them.

Emily Oliveira is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA candidate at Yale. She has exhibited and performed in venues including Vox Populi, Wave Hill, BRIC, Spring/Break Art Show, Paradice Palase, Soho 20, Ars Nova, Judson Memorial Church, and Brown University. She has received awards and residencies from MAD, AIR Gallery, Yaddo, BRIC, The Tides Institute, and Ars Nova. She was a 2019 Van Lier Fellow at Wave Hill, and a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow. Oliveira will open solo shows at Geary Contemporary and LaMaMa Galleria in 2022, and in 2023, she will be the Abbey Awards Fellow at the British School at Rome.