In Strange Girls, the mixed-media artist Melissa Stern pokes fun at twisted gender dynamics

HYPERALLERGIC

By Daniel Larkin

Melissa Stern “New Boyfriend” (2017) (image courtesy Garvey | Simon)

New York-based artist Melissa Stern is a connoisseur of visual puns. So many of her mixed-media works in Strange Girls, now on view at Garvey/Simon, deftly play on their titles, offering a refreshing mix of humor and feminist critique. By entitling the show Strange Girls, the artist intimates how many women feel alienated and estranged in their own skins. A visual culture inundating women with unachievable ideals of beauty doesn’t help. Nor do many men calling themselves feminists in word but seldom sticking to their values in deed. It’s easy to feel depressed. It’s harder, but healing, to laugh. Melissa Stern’s gritty satire makes this bullshit stink a little bit less. [More]