2022. 5. 25 – 7. 16
Ndidi Emefiele, Nour El Saleh, Alessandro Fogo, Cecilia Granara, Erna Mist, Tsai-Ling Tseng

“I exaggerate a lot and I get fiction
and reality mixed up, but I don’t actually ever lie.”

(Lucia Berlin)

Cassina Projects is pleased to announce Tightrope, a group exhibition featuring works by Nour El Saleh, Ndidi Emefiele, Alessandro Fogo, Cecilia Granara, Erna Mist, Tsai-Ling Tseng.

Outside world and inner world dovetail as the works on display delve into the meanderings of human experience laying bare the collapsing of standard binaries of real and fictional.

Foundational notions like belonging and selfhood have been shaken by a prolonged liminal experience of spatial alienation and temporal warp. Limbo is the new dimension where identity and subjectivity are recast. Here, traditional frameworks blur and erratic narratives construe pliable realities.

Toying with ambiguous or missing contexts and with the uncanny, Tightrope disputes the actual existence of what constitutes categorical truth as the works on show mediate vaguely familiar visual lexicons imbued with the alchemical constructs of imagination. Arching from the cryptic to the decadent and from the intimate to the cosmic, the works dig up the oppositional tension between interiority and exteriority, living and inanimate, agency and predetermination, which define our deeply illusory understanding of the reality around us.

In the performative oscillation between looking and being looked at, sensorial experience and existential questioning criss-cross. Exploring the intersection of cognition and intuition, Tightrope enacts a transcending play where the subconscious is simultaneously stage set, lead character and negotiator of meaning.

Nour El Saleh (*1997, Lebanon) grew up in Abu Dhabi and now lives in London (UK). She received a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the UCL Slade School of Fine Art in 2019, and is currently completing a Postgraduate at the Royal Drawing School. Her works have been exhibited in solo shows and group shows over the United Kingdom as well as in Russia, Hong Kong, Switzerland and in The Netherlands.

Ndidi Emefiele (*1987, Nigeria) lives and works between Northampton (UK) and Abuja (Nigeria). She studied painting at Delta State University in Abraka, Nigeria, before pursuing her MFA at London’s Slade School of Art. She has exhibited widely both internationally and in the UK, including solo/group presentations in Miami, New York, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Lagos, Johannesburg and Abuja. Her work forms part of prominent private collections, such as The Deighton Collection, the Beth DeWoody collection and The Jimenez – Colon Collection. Public collections include: The Mint Museum, The Nigerian Stock Exchange, Lagos, Nigeria and The University Of South Africa, Cape Town. Emefiele presented her works at the MoCADA, New York; The Perimeter, London; The Charles H. Wright Museum, Detroit and The Taubman Museum of Art, Virginia as part of the exhibition Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody collection.

Alessandro Fogo (*1992, Italy) lives and works in S. Benedetto del Tronto (AP). In 2017 he graduated in painting at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium, after a BA in Visual Arts at IUAV Venice. His works have been exhibited in solo shows and group shows across Europe as well as in the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2018 he won the ArteLagunePrize and the Combat Prize in Livorno in 2019.

Cecilia Granara (*1991, Saudi Arabia) lives and works in Paris (FR). In 2013 she received a BA in Fine Art with mention of Honours from Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design and a BA in Fine Art from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. She studied with François Boisrond, Tim Eitel and James Rielly. In 2019 she won a scholarship to pursue her studies at MFA level at Hunter College. Granara participated in group shows at Fondation Pernod Ricard, Centre d’Art Parc Saint Léger, Musée Cères Franco , Galerie Derrouillon, Galerie Jousse Entreprise, PS120, Galerie Jérôme Poggi, among others. In 2021, Exo Exo dedicated its entire booth at FIAC Paris to Granara’s work.

Erna Mist (*1998, Iceland) lives and works between Reykjavik (IS) and London (UK). She graduated in Directing at the Iceland University of the Arts and is currently studying painting at Slade School of Fine Art (London). Her work has been shown in London (UK) and internationally.

Tsai-Ling Tseng (*1991, Taiwan) lives and works in Brooklyn (NY). Tseng received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York and her MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Besides many group shows organised across US, Europe and Asia, Tseng was selected between the finalists of the Hopper Prize (2019) and of the NYFA Painting fellowship (2021).

Cassina Projects
Via Mecenate 76/45, 20138 Milan, Italy
+39 0239284131

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