THOMAS BARGER, ALEXANDRA BARTH, COLBY BIRD,
CHRIS BOGIA, OONA BRANGAM-SNELL, BRIAN CALVIN,
MARK MULRONEY, ROSE NESTLER and ROBERT ZEHNDER
Felix Art Fair

February 15 - 19, 2023

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Los Angeles, California
Room 1124

 

Press Release

Mrs. is pleased to announce our participation in the Felix Art Fair 2023, with works by Thomas Barger, Alexandra Barth, Colby Bird, Chris Bogia, Oona Brangam-Snell, Brian Calvin, Mark Mulroney, Rose Nestler and Robert Zehnder; on view at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California, February 15 - 19, 2023.

A cultural oddity, the hotel room is a bedroom in which no one lives. Cleaned, sanitized, reset; its inhabitants change daily. In his play, Night and Day, Tom Stoppard says, “Hotel rooms constitute a separate moral universe.” For this occasion at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Mrs. presents a quirky facsimile of a hotel room. 

Within this presentation, dark reflections exert a strong presence. Rose Nestler’s Bolster/Holder/Display (Vanity), 2023, displays slippery twin hand mirrors which drape over a royal blue microsuede bolster, their reflections marred by illustrative lens flares. Alexandra Barth’s stark paintings of moody and ominous interiors, including Round Mirror, 2022, depict a mirror reflecting the empty space just outside of view. Another reflectionless mirror darkly stares back in Ormolu Mirror, 2020, a tapestry by Oona Brangam-Snell. The figure in Brian Calvin’s Beneath The Sun, a hand knotted wool and silk carpet, is doubled, staring back at herself. And Mark Mulroney’s somber portraits watch from the walls.

Thomas Barger’s gridded gingham chairs, his slinky, marigold lounger with feet, and Green Table infuse the room with a midwestern, nostalgic sweetness, while Oona Brangam-Snell’s jacquard-woven futuristic textiles function as the window’s curtains. Chris Bogia’s lacquered slick serpentine headboard hangs above Grand Baby Bedding Set, a gray/lavender woven duvet set also made by Brangam-Snell. A whimsical wooden telephone rests upon a floral bedside table, both built by Mulroney. Rugged, simple lamps by Colby Bird dot the room with light. A hotel room wouldn’t be complete without flora; here, Robert Zehnder’s colorful, panoramic landscape paintings fill the niche, while Bogia’s sculptural bonsai trims itself quietly in the corner.

Rhian Gallagher calls a hotel “a room just off to the side of our lives.” For this presentation, these nine artists transform the alternate reality of the temporary into something persisting and eccentric. 

For more information please contact hello@mrsgallery.com.