“Odd Jobs, Roula Partheniou’s first exhibition in Mexico City, presents a series of works that parody practical objects related to utility, household tools, labour and storage, transforming the gallery into a space that conflates the garage and studio. Reductive sculptures of common objects like building supplies, paintbrushes, lumber, sports equipment and drafting tools are re-arranged and re-envisioned with a peculiar new logic. The work collectively addresses themes such as labour vs. leisure, use value vs. aesthetic value and the format of the replica as a tool for rendering the ordinary as “other”.
Here, Partheniou’s signature trompe l’oeil sculptures made mostly of acrylic paint on wood, blur the line between work and works of art. Her practice of meticulously replicating ordinary household objects in a combination of reductive and highly detailed styles, stems from an interest addressing ideas around perception, the double-take, associative play and the relationship between elemental and representational forms.”
