The Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present a new collection of three-dimensional paintings by Alyson Souza entitled Anatomy of Dysfunction. Jutting out of the wall, Alyson Souza’s mounted reliefs incorporate visual graphics with traditional figurative painting and sculpture to evoke the feeling of a rudimentary theatre set or a pop-up book. Her carnivalesque captions and stilted plywood heads reveal a bold and colorful glimpse into fragments of the human psychology whereby the viewer is encouraged to embark on a mental journey or to take part in Souza’s theatre of the mind. In essence Anatomy of Dysfunction is comprised of works meant to be seen as universal short stories that can be interpreted, by the viewer, in a multitude of ways.
The artist’s interest in storybook imagery and simple illusion lies in the openness of this presentation, which allows viewers to project their own thoughts and experiences through mental prompts or visual cues. With her fascination of the human mind Souza claims: “For the most part we are all given similar equipment with which to interface the world and the rest of society. Because of this, our internal experiences are I believe much the same though the external situations may be very different.” Alyson Souza’s work allows the viewer to embrace both freedom of imagination and the limits of our own anatomy, universal experience and individual thought.
This will be Souza’s second solo exhibition at the Robert Berman Gallery following her 2000 show Mind Matters. Her work has also appeared in shows in San Francisco and Houston, Texas as well as at the Houghton Gallery and the Ridge Street Gallery, both in New York where she previously resided before moving to Los Angeles in 1997. She recently returned from a six-week residency in Wyoming at the Ucross Foundation. There she received a grant with which some of the work on view was created.