Curated by Dennis Adrian, DISFIGURE focused on the portraits of Chicago artists Jeff Huntington and David Mordini. Sculptor David Mordini and painter Jeff Huntington both examined the figure and especially the head. Huntington’s paintings remake the body as deformed and monstrous while exploring the psychology of memory, desire and nostalgia in reference to the traditional genre of painting. Mordini’s, layered, monumental heads evoke similar psychological content to Huntington’s imagery, and function as stunned and appaled witnesses of contemporary life. In the exhibition space, four three-foot tall heads were placed on the floor and twenty paintings of faces were presented. The works exhibited in the installation forced the viewer into a compromising position both physically and mentally. The artist’s work recalled issues of identity, perceptions of attitude, arrogance, vulnerability, bewilderment, and ambivalence.
