Organs Without Bodies

JENNY KEMP • MARIANNA PERAGALLO
APRIL 2 – MAY 8, 2022 

Opening reception: April 3, 2022, 3-5 PM

Transmitter is pleased to present Organs Without Bodies—a two person exhibition of work by Jenny Kemp and Marianna Peragallo.

With an acute level of humor, labor, and self-awareness, this exhibition takes a cheeky approach to the concept of “a body without organs,” an unconstrained potential of a freely operating body. The French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari adopted the term “Body without Organs” to act as a metaphor for a large range of ideas pertaining to how we understand limitations, potentiality and interdependent relationships. Playing off of this complex and manifold concept, the artworks presented suggest attempts at breaking through conventional limitations—visual and otherwise—to explore the undulating, organic, imperfect nature of existence.

The artworks in this show operate on the periphery of the human body. Through the lens of our anatomical, messy, breathing lives, we observe these pieces living on the edge between figuration and abstraction, and the sentient vs. the inanimate. These sculptures and paintings suggest a level of animation as they test the boundaries for how we decipher the non-human or beyond human.

Kemp’s paintings are sly, nuanced expressions of the tension that lies between linear boundaries and oozing, undulating growth. Repetitions of linear forms combine and intersect to imply movement, rhythm and teeming energies.

Similarly, Peragallo’s sculptures reject their assigned purpose—a pillow enjoying a smoke-break (tired of being a literal object of support), a ladder lounging (evocative of a bather at the beach). Instead, they seem to challenge our expectations for how we understand what is “humane” and what are “human-made” objects. They enjoy a resignation from assigned-operation, as if their newfound autonomy allows for a rejection of purpose.

Both artists explore a freewheeling approach to our expectations for how objects, abstractions, and colors operate. Their gestures bend toward the surreal, evoking an awareness of humor, growth, rhythm, and time.

About the artists:

Jenny Kemp uses color to explore movement and meaning through a visual language based in the repetition of linear forms. She received her BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in Painting from the University at Albany, SUNY. Kemp’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country, most recently in solo exhibitions at Gold/Scopophilia* in Montclair, NJ, and the Mandeville Gallery at Union College in Schenectady, NY. Featured publications include 100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson), New American Paintings North East Edition 140, The Huffington Post, Seattle’s City Arts, The New York Times, Chronogram, and The New England Review. She is a recipient of the 2015 NYFA fellowship in painting, and the 2015 Emerging Artist Award recipient from the Art Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY. She also sits on the board of Collar Works, a non-profit art space dedicated to the support of emerging artists in Troy, NY. 

Marianna Peragallo is a Brazilian-American artist making anthropomorphic sculptures embodying the cross-sections of love, labor, endurance, and support. Peragallo’s work has been shown in various locations, including recent exhibitions at A.I.R. Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Collar Works (Troy, NY), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Garrison Art Center, (Garrison, NY), and the Border Project Space (Brooklyn, NY). She has made public art projects for the New York Restoration Project at the Suffolk Street Community Garden (New York, NY), Art Lot (Brooklyn, NY), and Light Year 56 (Brooklyn, NY). Peragallo was an artist in residence at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in 2014, Wassaic Project in 2019, Mass MoCA’s Assets for Artists residency in 2019, and the New Hope Colony Artist Residency in 2021. She is in residence at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program through August 2022. She received  a BFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia and an MFA from The School of Visual Arts, New York.