Yifan Jiang and James J.A. Mercer

Meliksetian | Briggs is pleased to present Mirror, Mirror, a two-person exhibition of works by Yifan Jiang and James J.A. Mercer. The show features paintings by each of the artists alongside a collaborative video installation.

The new exhibition sheds light on the many ways Jiang and Mercer are guided by the same star. This mutual influence can be seen directly in their animation, Vacation, 2022 and indirectly in their paintings. Two mirrors facing each other, reflecting each other’s reflections, opening an endless tunnel, a feedbacking of sensibilities.

In defiance of conventional methods, the works in this exhibition synthesize painterly techniques with digital processes, finding absurdity somewhere between the narrative and the visual. Familiar imagery appears out of context, misplacing nostalgia and challenging the viewer to connect. Spatial distortions are analogies for emotions, too close or not close enough. Can you connect with the animal?

Vacation, 2022, Jiang and Mercer’s collaborative animation, follows a protagonist road tripping home from college. A sudden volcanic eruption totals his car and destroys all his possessions. Barely surviving, our destitute star builds a life for himself out of furniture that has washed up on the shore, making an unremarkable patch of beach his home. An absurd fable on the nature of nature unfolds as he meets three animal companions; an intransigent seagull, a brilliant spider hidden in a broken laptop, and a divorced fish battling for custody over her 50,000 children.

~ Yifan Jiang and James J.A. Mercer, June 2024

In reference to her new paintings, Jiang states “my paintings are fleeting moments frozen in time. Spring Lady, 2024 grew out of the sharp divide between seasons. The first breeze at twilight, mixed with fresh soil and budding foliage, folded in a silk kimono. In the swirl of motion and sensation, Drive, 2023 is your heart flattened against the car seat while the Lamborghini makes clean incisions across the city. In Fall 1, 2022 your head is tilted back, making up into down, falling into the big bright blue desert sky. Proust said water lilies in Combray are where he kept his childhood nostalgia. Growing up as an immigrant in limbo between bodies of water, Pacific Lily, 2024 is a storage cabinet for my stray sentiments.”

About his work, Mercer says “my paintings explore troubled geometry and domestic alienation. Distortions in familiar space create dissonance between feeling and form, a slight suffocation manufactured by rectangular clutter. Everyday objects are painted in strange arrangements, suggesting private meanings. Framing devices such as doors, windows and glasses focus on different points of view, inviting the viewer to inhabit the artist’s position. Wesley, 2023 and Come Closer, 2022 are part of an ongoing series of pet paintings started during Covid. Inundated with endless streams of cute animals on social media, I question whether true empathy with them is possible. Do the digital systems that deliver pet pics also objectify them? Harsh compositions become a foil for cuddliness.”

Yifan Jiang (b. 1994, Tianjin, China) is a Chinese- Canadian artist currently based between New York City and Vancouver, Canada. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, New York, and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver. Recent solo exhibitions include A Boutique of Senses, Meliksetian | Briggs, Dallas (2023), Zero-sum game, Christian Andersen, Copenhagen (2022); a two-part exhibition Medium-sized dry goods / Names for airy nothings, Meliksetian | Briggs, Los Angeles (2021) and a video animation installation at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, Dallas (2022, two-person exhibition with James Mercer). She has participated in group exhibitions at The Roswell Museum, Roswell, NM (2022) and the Jewish Museum, New York (2021) among others. In 2023, her video animation works including Vacation, 2022, her collaboration with Mercer, were featured in To Your Eternity - The 4th Future of Today Biennial in Beijing, China and she participated in the Core Residency program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX in 2023 and 2024.

James J.A. Mercer (b. 1984, Boston, Massachusetts) is a New York based artist working in painting, drawing and animation. James received an MFA from Columbia University, New York and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has participated in exhibitions at the Roswell Museum, Roswell, NM, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, and the Drawing Center, New York City among others.

Jiang’s and Mercer’s collaborative animation works have been featured at film festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Holland, the London International Animation Festival, London, UK, Slamdance Park City, Utah and Eyeworks 2023 which included screenings at Redcat, Los Angeles, 2220 Arts Los Angeles, Museum of the Moving Image, New York and Block, Chicago among others.

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Mirror, Mirror

June 8 – July 6, 2024

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