Melanie Ebenhoch

All images courtesy the artist & Galerie Martin Janda. Installation views shot by Manuel Carreon Lopez

Melanie Ebenhoch sets the scene with a pun. As a full moon rises gently through a pair of bare, marble-smooth legs, illuminating the fog of Old Hollywood below, we consider the act of ‘mooning’, both as an act of self-exposure and innocent intimacy. In her solo show at Galerie Martin Janda in Vienna, Ebenhoch splices together heady, filmic symbols to create a fractured storyboard of feminine longing and revelry. Ebenhoch’s preoccupation with bygone actresses of the silver screen sets the stage for nostalgia, and psychological tension in her paintings. Reworking earlier compositions into more nebulous states, Ebenhoch presents new works that explore the colour grey. These grey renderings suggest a psychic shift in perspective, softening the boundary between the real and surreal. Ebenhoch conjures up a world of liminal non-places – fairytale forests and Jane Mansfield’s mansion, past memories and visions of fantasy – each ruled by dream logic and a glistening desire to escape. Melanie Ebenhoch’s exhibition is on view at Galerie Martin Janda until July 11th. – Molly Cranston

3AM, 2020, oil on canvas, 150x 127 cm

The Fireplace, 2019, oil on canvas, acrylic resin, styrofoam, wood, 181x125x65 cm

Reisehutchen, 2020, oil on acrylic resin, 37cm

The Past, 2020, oil on acrylic resin, 37cm

Gas Station, 2020, digital print on paper, 150x 278cm

The Movies, 2020, oil on canvas, 150 x127 cm