Smother
Emily Peacock
Sun, May 05, 2019 - Sun, Jun 16, 2019
Opening Reception:
Sunday, May 05, 1-5pm
Jonathan Hopson is pleased to announce smother, our third solo exhibition for Houston artist Emily Peacock.
“I got my sense of humor from my mother. I’d tell her my tragedies. She’d make me laugh. She said comedy is tragedy plus time.” - Carol Burnett
Emily Peacock’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, smother, is a comedic tragedy not of errors but of proof. Peacock's new works divulge a myriad of truths about her life: artist, stand up comic, postpartum survivor, contemporary photographer, daughter, mother, fucked-up-beautiful human. Peacock holds up a mirror unapologetically to herself and in so doing we find a glimpse of our selves in her work. smother articulates the shared tragically funny proof of life that often causes us to wince, a reaction reminding us we are viscerally connected to each other.
"For nearly a decade, I have collaborated with my family to create videos and photographs which examine and celebrate this bond. Family history and relationships, domesticity, and personal loss and tragedy are the foundation of my work. In the last four years I have experienced divorce, the untimely passing of my mother, getting remarried, and now the birth of my only child. The death of my mother has shaped my work, and life, more than any other experience I’ve had. Recently becoming a mother myself has only intensified the magnitude of her absence.
The human condition and absurdity are both integral to the images I make. I enjoy the idea of making someone laugh but also cringe within the same image.
All humans experience loss and pain, and from this commonality I enjoy connecting with people through my art, knowing they may relate to it on a personal level. Someone once told me the more specific you get with your work the more universal it can be. We all look the same from a certain distance."
- Emily Peacock
About the artist:
Emily Peacock was born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1984. From 2002 to 2004, she studied photography and journalism at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. In 2008, she was admitted to the University of Houston to study photography and digital media, graduating in 2011 with her Master of Fine Art.
Emily Peacock was awarded the 2013-2014 Lawndale Artist Studio Program artist-in-residence which culminated in and she recently received the Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant for 2016.
Recent exhibitions include: Big Medium, Austin (2017), Diverseworks, Houston (2016), Jonathan Hopson, Houston (2016), Beefhaus, Dallas (2016), Hello Project, Houston (2015), Lawndale Art Center, Houston (2013, 2014), Deep Ellum Windows, Dallas (2014), Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2011).
Peacock’s work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Emily Peacock has a forthcoming exhibition at the Art Museum of South East Texas, Fall 2019.
