“One aspect of great pain – as acknowledged by those who have suffered it from the perspective of psychology, philosophy, and physiology, and, finally, as becomes obvious to common sense alone – is that it is to the individual experiencing it overwhelmingly present, more emphatically real than any other human experience, and yet is almost invisible to anyone else, unfelt and unknown.Even prolonged, agonized human screams, which press on the hearer’s consciousness in something of the same way pain presses on the consciousness of the person hurt, convey only a limited dimension of the sufferer’s experience.”
– Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, 1985
Anat Ebgi is pleased to present Epithalamium, a two-person show with Cristine Brache and Brad Phillips, organized by Blair and Eli Hansen. The exhibition will be on view at AE2, January 26 through March 9th, with an opening reception on January 26, 6-8pm.
Taking its name from the epithalamium, a poem written for a bride, Cristine Brache and Brad Phillips, wife and husband artists, examine the potential of marriage, allowing their lived experience to speak to larger narratives of bodily trauma and mortality, while alluding to the intimate qualities of a unique partnership.
Pain has exterior indicators we can all recognize, chiefly via language. Yet language is often insufficient to adequately articulate, or empathize with, another’s suffering. Brache and Phillips transmit these difficult and impossible positions inside the language-based programs of culture, allowing for moments of vulnerability.
Art is supra-integral. Art is supra-personal. Art, like pain, is supra-linguistic. Epithalamium is about the fracture of language as it relates to expressions of pain, and marriage as a coping mechanism.
– Blair and Eli Hansen, 2019
Cristine Brache (b. 1984, Miami, FL) lives and works in Toronto, Canada. She received her MFA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Solo exhibitions include those held at Fierman Gallery (New York and Puerto Rico); Essex Flowers (New York) and Guccivuitton at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Ritter Art Gallery (Boca Raton); Team Gallery (New York); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Miami); AA|LA (Los Angeles); Bow Arts, London; Glasgow Short Film Festival, Scotland; Quartier21, Vienna and the Museum of Moving Images, New York, among others.
Brad Phillips (b. 1974, Toronto, Ontario) is an artist and writer based in Toronto. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Allen & Eldridge, New York; Rod Bianco Gallery, Oslo; Harper’s Books, East Hamptons; 8-11, Toronto; Louis B. James Gallery, New York; Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver; Groeflin Maag Galerie, Basel; and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York. His work has been included in group shows at Galerie Sebastien Bertrand, Geneva; Signs & Symbols, New York; Jessica Bradley, Toronto; The Hole, New York; Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal. Phillips’ debut story collection, Never Forget to Not Forgive, was published by Tyrant Books in 2018. His work has appeared in various publications including Purple Fashion Magazine, Mousse, Art Forum, Modern Painters, Hyperallergic, Bordercrossings, and Canadian Art.
