GABRIELLE GARLAND | ARTSY

The contorted suburban homes that hold court in Gabrielle Garland’s quirky paintings do not feature any humans, and yet they are alive with personality. These works are on view through October 25th at Miles McEnery Gallery as part of “I’ll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too.” This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery since joining its roster, as well as her first in New York.

Garland’s buildings are almost humanized, with windows and doors loosely alluding to faces. With a warped perspective and punches of color, the structures in these portraits appear as if recalled hazily from a dream, testing the limits of Garland’s memory. In I’m glad he’s single because I’m going to climb that like a tree. —Megan, Bridesmaids (2011) (2024), fireworks burst over a home with a roof dotted with icicles. In other works, Concorde airplanes fly overhead and pelicans investigate driveways—details that add rich movement to these static structures. Garland received her MFA from the University of Chicago and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since the 2000s, she has been the subject of solo shows with The Pit in Los Angeles, Taymour Grahne Projects in London, and Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago, where she has exhibited extensively with various galleries. More recently, her work has been shown at fairs including The Armory Show, NADA Miami, EXPO Chicago, and the Intersect Aspen Art Fair. 

Katherine McGrath —