(Lead image credit: Brendan Burke)
Intriguing installations abound in EXHIBITIONIST: Earthly Delights, on view at the newly christened cultural and performative venue, House of X, in the PUBLIC hotel in lower Manhattan. Curator and exhibiting artist Kat Ryals has assembled innovative and cutting edge artists into this inaugural exhibition with the venue: an exciting show that reveals more secrets at every turn. Artists featured throughout the space include Ryals, Anna Cone, Anthony Padilla, Olivia Taylor, Rob Ebeltoft and Tom Prinsell.

(image credit: Brendan Burke)
Encountering artwork from the very entrance into House of X, visitors are treated to a sense of fantasy and spectacle from the very first step inside the venue. Guests are greeted by Anna Cone’s luscious installations – vignettes borrowing from Baroque imagery, presenting decadent, detailed images of allegorical beauty and chaos. Cone’s 3-dimensional works bring a precious quality to contemporary image-making: an approach that informs the artist’s work in addition to her background in fashion photography. The artist plays with expectations, rebelling against art historical norms – and traditional expectations around female beauty. Cone’s stunning tableaux embrace sexuality, power dynamics and overindulgence to emphasize how contemporary culture’s beauty standards shift constantly and elusively.
Venturing further into the space, elaborate textures and representational imagery pervade the venue. The interior serves as a kind of art palace, with works spanning the walls across downstairs seating booths, a transitional space along the corner where the spiral staircase reaches to the upstairs level, elongated vitrines and an intimate lounge area. Art seemingly sprouts out of every corner and crevice, particularly when encountering Olivia Taylor and Kat Ryals’ provocative and tactile installations created from combinations of sensual, sensational imagery and materials (see top image, image credit: Brendan Burke.) Faces and hands protude outward from a caged corner approximating a cabinet of wonders, with precise attention paid to figuration and materiality. Upstairs, body parts and saccharine sweets combine in a vitrine of assorted sculptures presenting sensual imagery with the texture of ready-to-eat cakes and treats, referencing the range of pleasures present in the sumptuous surroundings.
Artist Rob Ebeltoft’s compelling installation work remains permanently at the venue, presenting the installation ”Cherry Babe” as a sumptuous vision of a Disco forward, futuristic nightlife. Ebeltoft’s work provides a portal for the curious onlooker to experience an alternative vision of club culture.
As guests navigate through the inner realms of the House of X upstairs lounge, they encounter paintings by Anthony Padilla and Tom Prinsell. Padilla’s representational works present introspective, nocturnal imagery approximating the otherworldly and the exotic. Moonlit jungles undulate in organic curves, with plant life seemingly bursting forth from the compositions. Sensual gradients chart the trajectory of light across flower petals, accentuating the curvature present in bodies both floral and fauna in nature. Tom Prinsell’s compositions present fantastical imagery of natural bodies and the built environment. Prinsell’s paintings subvert expectations, elevating the ordinary into the surreal and almost supernatural. These works create mood and atmosphere with effective use of color and line, confronting the viewer and allowing the eye to roam across scenes both vaguely familiar yet unfathomable. The emphasis on surreality and subverting expectations unites the range of mediums and materials present across the group exhibition.

EXHIBITIONIST: Earthly Delights enticed viewers who visited over the course of its duration. For the curious, the new iteration of EXHIBITIONIST – Esoterica – features art by Saki Sato, Rachel Stern, and Hannah Antalek. The show remains up over the month of May and the opening reception event for this show will occur on Tuesday May 17th, 7-11pm.
House of X is open Thurs-Sat, 10 PM – 4 AM at PUBLIC hotel, 215 Chrystie Street in Lower Manhattan. For further details, message Kat Ryals – kat@houseofx.nyc .