Via Lactea

Exhibited at Cristina Grajales Gallery

May 6 – September 9, 2022

50 Vestry Street, NY, NY 10013

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Bringing together Paula Hayes and Randy Polumbo, Via Lactea (Milky Way) at Cristina Grajales Gallery is an exhibition rooted in the cosmic, magical, and the supernatural.

Several mixed media objects combine the mesmerizing with the dystopian. Alongside new works that highlight recent explorations with fungi as a sculptural material, the exhibition also features a miniature version of one of my hand-hammered aluminum and handblown glass grottos. Curiosity, 2021, is a handheld hypnotic micro-universe. This highly reflective and undulating interior of a rocket launcher case generates a spatial distortion wherein it’s sculptural elements of crystalline planets appear larger than life. 

Other works in the exhibition include Love Sac, 2008, an illuminated lead-crystal cast bag reimagining the Hermès Birkin Bag, stuffed with glass pistils and stamens that resemble sex toys. Two trees, Cerberus and Amorphophallus Titanium (both 2019), stand sentry in the gallery window, sporting twisted aluminum limbs that sprout LED-lit silver and rainbow petals of blown glass. Hand-made LED video screens set in stainless-steel frames with cast glass lenses feverishly distort video sequences focused on depictions of eyes alongside other coded images and slowly shifting abstractions.