Golden Desire (with Lesley Bodzy) (2021)

Emerge Gallery; Saugerties, NY
August 14 - October 3, 2021

Excerpt from the Press Release:

SAUGERTIES, NY - Emerge Gallery is pleased to present Golden Desire on view in Saugerties, NY, from August 14 - October 3, 2021. The exhibition includes new works in abstraction by Lesley Bodzy and Jay Youngdahl, recent graduates from the MFA Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A public opening reception is scheduled for Saturday, August 14, 2021, from 2-5 PM. In addition, a virtual artists discussion between the artists is scheduled for Sunday, September 5, 2021, at 4 PM live on the Emerge Gallery YouTube channel.

Golden Desire puts Lesley Bodzy's and Jay Youngdahl's work in conversation exploring the role of desire in our existential lives and the relation of gold to our personal and economic relationships. The artists raise questions about how to consider our futures, with a nod to the past, and challenge the viewer to think about the relationship between the trials faced by humanity and by its planet. Conceived as an aid to consider our crucial universalities, the artists proceed with an understanding that we live in a common state of fragility, in our planet and in our bodies and minds.

Lesley Bodzy is a painter and sculptor whose larger-than-life gold sculptures are thought provoking as well as sensuous. She mixes gold paint with tar gel to create draped, sculptural works that explore the search for the authentic self. Bodzy seeks to create a unique dialogue with the viewer by focusing on the themes of wrapping and revealing, draping and unveiling, absence and presence.

"This series of works attempts to visualize and process the invisible pressures many girls of my generation endured while conforming with the golden standard of stereotypical femininity," she explains. "The gold drapery reflects the shiny veneer we each present to the world. Taught to play roles to please our parents and society, our challenge is to seek our true selves,"

Jay Youngdahl, a lawyer for and activist with workers in the American South, is a photographer, collage artist and writer. His pieces play off Bodzy's lush work. Finding abstraction in landscape and travel photography that connects to our human condition, his work in the show pulls several threads from the multitude of historic references to gold. Often operating as a participatory action artist, one work explores a reference to gold among textile workers during the twentieth century, emanating from the labors of his life.

"I believe in the connection between beauty and justice. To paraphrase the Caribbean poet and activist Amir Cesaire, justice sits at the gates of beauty, and beauty sits at justice’s gate as well,” said Youngdahl. “I attempt to suggest to the viewer that there are different ways of thinking and looking at things, and that art can play a role in this pursuit. The result has the potential to be a more humane world."

Download the exhibition pamphlet here (print on standard letter size paper, fold in half).