Essex Flowers is pleased to present JANUS, a group exhibition including six artists. As a space of perpetual reinvention, Essex Flowers finds itself at an inflection point—a moment of transformation that feels as ancient as it is contemporary. This exhibition marks and celebrates the arrival of new members, the enduring presence of existing members and the departure of longstanding ones. Chen Peng, Dino Takashi, Patrick Carlin Mohundro, Jonathan Ehrenberg, Jamie Chan, and Sara Murphy Doshi come together under the auspices of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, duality, doorways, frames, and endings. One face looking to the past and another to the future, the exhibition joins them in the present—embodying the tension and beauty for this occasion.

The works of departing members Jamie Chan and Sara Murphy Doshi have the feeling of farewell notes, imbued with the weight of retrospection and the wisdom of experience. Through athletic material investigation, the kinetic echoes of a practice reveal themselves as paintings. Marker on acrylic ground expands traces of the body through isolation of its parts. From existing members Patrick Mohundro and Jonathan Ehrenberg, we are presented with ink drawings on paper, sculptures and sculptural wall works. Their works bend and twist language through the humble materials of paper and ink, and the surprising combination of materials of bread and glass, which reflect and diffuse light and color simultaneously. Chen Peng and Dino Takashi, both new members, present paintings and photographs which introduce themselves to the collective and to the public. One evokes something of the surreal from the ubiquitous pixel, while another investigates nature and its symbolism to elicit emotion.

Within this exhibition, these six members’ works are poignant reminders of the paths they’ve carved and the influence they’ve wielded within the gallery’s evolving narrative. They invite viewers to linger in the past, to honor what has been, even as they make way for what is to come. Fragments of the natural cycle of things challenge the public to reflect on shifting fortunes as this nation crisscrosses the threshold of an executive election, and a new year. Locally, we enter the coldest part of the year to embrace fresh possibilities in the bright unknown darkness of the new. As we cross the threshold, there is the possibility of warming ourselves in new dialogs, new aesthetics and new directions.

—Ernest A. Bryant III

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Curated by Ernest A. Bryant III, E.E. Ikeler, Julia Rooney and Sara Stern