In Person, place, thing, artist Corey Pemberton’s embrace of classical genres are anything but classical. His disarming portraits and still life paintings both build on and subvert expectations for such traditional categories, infusing wholesome scenes of ordinary life with a lexicon of layered patterns, intimate daily rituals, intimated emotions, hinted-at histories, and an irresistibly lively palette.



An expansive suite of these paintings—most so large as to be all but life-size—is currently installed, along with luxe and jaunty pieces of design furniture in domestic vignettes and a host of Pemberton’s hand-blown glass objects, at UNREPD’s sunny and welcoming downtown space. The overall effect of the exhibition is a fantastic feedback loop in which paintings ennobling the narrative potential of the domestic sphere are set in domestic vignettes, intentionally paired with expressive examples of a sofa, some fantastic chairs, dining room set, cozy bedroom, and a host of superlative sideboards.



Certain individual pieces (retro oyster plates, a Coke 2-liter, a particular vase, the contents of a cabinet of ceramics in one scene’s background, etc.) and also bold textile patterns from within the paintings’ compositions are replicated in freestanding sculptures displayed on that furniture. It’s not quite immersive, but it is holistic, and its solipsistic array offers viewers a somatic empathy response that further highlights the intentional placement of every single object depicted in the paintings.



Several images have no figures at all, underscoring the potential for true portraiture to be accomplished by another means—by an inventory of the things which surround us. This dynamic reinforces both the “place and “thing elements of Pemberton’s project—elevating ordinary and heirloom objects equally to a level of value that has more to do with what they mean that what they’re “worth, viewing them as artifacts of important life events, signifiers of personality, and personal and family talismans.



In the key image I used to cook more, a young man serves take-out salads to his companion, whose POV the viewer assumes, as the front edge is their plate and the man is across the table from us. The warm wood and deep blue of the room suggests a kitchen, a slightly open door behind leads to a bedroom. The art on the walls tells its own story; a deliberately placed can of spray paint on the headboard also exists as a glass sculpture. The checkerboard tablecloth that fills the lower third finds its mate in an architectural glass piece which gathers all the color permutations of the pattern from across this show; and a pair of luminous glass Oyster plates are taken straight from the scene and placed on a low pedestal facing it. And that’s where the “person comes in. In Pemberton’s work, a certain thing in a certain place gives candid and profound insight into its custodian. The painting, with the casual sweetness of the title and the combination of fancy dish and take-out styrofoam gives the energy of a man impressing a date, his gaze gently averted from them, and therefore from us.





This formula is replicated to great effect in works like Sunday at Aunt Niecy's, as a maternal scene plays out in a deep pink living room containing among its treasures a blue and white porcelain vase that also stands nearby. As with all the paintings, Pemberton’s gift for chromatic and pattern-based problem solving creates a puzzle-like space in which the painted surface itself is rich and textured enough to hold it all together. Here, the figures demonstrate an ease and confidence with each other and with whomever is “taking the photograph, Their posture and eye contact suggest a cozy afternoon en famille briefly interrupted by a relative saying, “hang on, let me take a picture, suggesting that this private and probably ordinary moment is also one worth preserving in memory. Girlfriends and I love us have this same sense of capturing the beauty in the ephemeral moment, of noticing every detail of that moment and giving it weight as the site and setting of a life, whether its friends and lovers in quirky pajamas or a gathering on what looks like game day, celebrating togetherness and trying not to take it for granted.



There is a lot of work in the space, and the furnishings fill out a plentiful optical experience that might threaten overload were it not for the enchanting game of finding corresponding objects and recurring motifs across mediums and across individual works. The way the casual snapshot energy in the scenes intersects with the proliferation of ennobled detail and the ambitious scale and masterful technique of history painting is both impressive and affecting, leaving the viewer with a sense of involvement and emotional investment along with the many magnificent visual delights of Pemberton’s authentic aesthetic vision.Person, place, thing is on view at UNREPD, 100 S. Grand Ave., downtown, through July 15. For more information, visit: unrepd.com.









 

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