Fri. Feb. 27 -ongoing

Take a look at the kitties in this painting by Jennifer Lewis. Cats having a ball, tossing cupcakes. Now, we're cat people here at JSInk, but cat people with a high bar toward, displaying enjoying cat are. How much cuteness can one take? But all is not, shall we say, totally swell in the world of Lewis's animals. There are lonely kittens venturing out on their own, in rowboats on stormy seas, or heading into a haunted forest. Mmmm. And others in the animal kingdom ... She encourages the viewer to take a second look at our "civilized" world with satirical images of piglets at the butcher counter, picking out their favorite cut of pork. Ideas of hunting,whether man or animal, second-guess the fittest of the species. Sometimes Lewis - born in Germany, raised in Maine (where there's lotsa critters, I know, I was raised there too) makes us cringe, with bloody palates of sanguine reds, sometimes she makes us smile, with chipmunks eating cotton candy. So, topsy-turvy. Her "Sweat Meats" exhibition is up at Space 242 along with Amanda Clarke's paintings and print collection "Sour Grapes." As to Clarke, she features an exploration into her interest of portraits and patterns. "I purposefully kept my concepts for this exhibition open-ended, so that the pieces could evolve” she says. What emerged is a group of work linked by a sense of melancholy.
Her work features a wide variety of characters in colorful and different spaces. Some include distraught astronauts, lonely widows lost at sea, and anxious animals– all interesting and interested. Clarke creates an array of female characters – from pubescent girls with tattoos, vacant patterned portraits, hooded girls in snowstorms, half-naked women staring intensely, some bordering on the un-dead. She draws inspiration from folklore and fairytales as wellas the Saturday morning cartoons of yesteryear.

242 Berkelely St., 2nd floor, 617-731-3131 www.space242.com