Josie Girand

People are magical in the way they can transform the most evil, pathetic creature into a kind and gentle lover, by sheer delusion alone. Young women seem to be especially skilled at this, as we are victims of a girlhood indoctrination: Love is our God. Witness our masochistic worship.

This excerpt from Josie Girand's artist statement reveals the premise and the ambition behind The Trick, Girand's first solo exhibition of her paintings, presented by Galerie Shibumi.

Girand's delicate female forms shift effortlessly from the ethereal to the unnerving, and the environments they occupy contain elements of surrealism and magic realism. Recurring themes of isolation, existential dread and girlhood underscore the mental states of her subjects, suggesting that they are not only witnesses but participants.

The worlds that The Trick explores are mysterious and solemn, a limbo between real life and personal fantasy, and the figures in the paintings are usually alone. Aware they are being looked at, and desperate to be understood, they often gaze back at the viewer, as if to ask, "do you feel this, too?" But sometimes, they close their eyes or turn their heads and willfully ignore it all, lost in a world of symbols and dreams.

Josie Girand (b. 2000, New York City) is a graduate of Kenyon College, where she studied Studio Art and Philosophy. She lives in New York City.