Snail Shell: Maria Guzmán Capron & Rachel Hayden

pt. 2 Gallery is pleased to present Snail Shell, a collaborative exhibition of new work by Maria Guzmán Capron and Rachel Hayden. The exhibition juxtaposes Hayden’s acrylic paintings with Guzman Capron’s textile wall sculptures to investigate the relationship between physiognomy, emotional state, and the idea of home.

Guzmán Capron’s composite figures exist in a state of movement and flux. Their heads often contort against their bodies, with expressive gestures and faces that are open to interpretation. Meanwhile, Hayden’s subjects gaze back at the viewer, fixed and motionless in the center of the canvas. Each artist uses repeated images and textures and reassembles them in different ways in various works. Guzmán Capron uses fragments of old clothing, drapery, and textile to create figures and frames that withhold them. Hayden’s composes and recomposes motifs of butterflies, anthuriums, celestial bodies, and faces as a means to understand psychological space.

In shimmering, vivid tones of cadmium orange, light phthalo green, and light ultramarine, Rachel Hayden rearranges recurring images, documenting her transformative journey from anxiety to joy. Flowers, butterflies, and rainbows often grace her transcendental paintings, floating in space atop lush horizons full of twinkling stars or deep allusions to twilight. These symbols of beauty and transformation are grounded by faces, sometimes in clear human forms, others in composite images with the flowers and butterflies. While the symbols are light objects indicative of joy and beauty, they do entail struggle and perseverance to reach that moment of joy – the butterfly must transform from the caterpillar, the rainbow must wait out the storm and the flower must blossom.