CINDY CRAIG: THINGS NOBODY KNOWS BUT ME

SOLO SHOW
JULY 20-AUGUST 10, 2024

OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, JULY 20, 6-8PM

THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES: JULY 27TH, 8PM & JULY 28TH, 5:30PM

CLOSING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2-4PM

IN CONVERSATION WITH A PERFORMANCE OF YELLOW WALLPAPER 2.0 2020 WRITTEN BY JENNIFER MAISEL, DIRECTED BY EMILY CHASE, AND PERFORMED BY KAREN MALINA WHITE, WITH ROB NAGLE—AND THE YELLOW WALLPAPER BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

The Middle Room is pleased to present Things Nobody Knows But Me, a solo exhibition of a series of digital prints by LA-based artist Cindy Craig in our project space. This exhibit will be on view from July 20 - August 10, 2024, along with a concurrent connected group exhibition in our main space entitled Here I Can Creep Smoothly On The Floor, And Fit In That Smooch Around The Wall, So I Cannot Lose My Way—featuring artists Alexandra Carter, Nina Gerada, Jill Lavetsky, Galia Linn, Sarana Mehra, Daniela Soberman, and Camilla Taylor.

Things Nobody Knows But Me is a one-woman show, curated by Shannon Rae Fincke in dialogue with the early feminist literary classic The Yellow Wallpaper—written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and an immersive theatrical production of Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 2020—written by playwright Jennifer Maisel, directed by Emily Chase, and performed by Karen Malina White, with Rob Nagle. This unique interdisciplinary curation concentrates on the interconnectivity between Cindy Craig’s work from her Invisible Wallpaper Series with The Yellow Wallpaper and Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 2020—a contemporary re-examination of the 1892 short horror story about a woman driven crazy by the rest cure for postpartum depression: now set in a covid-era quarantine. The riveting conversation between this solo exhibition in our project space, held in conjunction with a concurrent group show in our main space, the original text, and the new play inspired by it—contextualizes and illuminates the disturbing and oppressing ideas, constraint, isolation, suffering, alienation, as well as the resistance—detailed in the 19th century’s text to today’s still ever-present misinformed and patriarchal attitudes towards the mental and physical health of women.

Cindy Craig, a Los Angeles-based artist, has always been interested in what goes on inside the home behind closed doors. Craig’s work closely examines her own family history—contrasting her father’s patriarchal idealism of the 1950’s "fantasy wife" with the reality of her mother’s struggle with postpartum depression, which ultimately led to her parents' divorce. Through her multidisciplinary approach and subject matter themes based on women who have not had their voices heard, along with the particular anxiety and struggles that women have experienced during the Covid-19 Pandemic, Craig explores the historical plight of women confined within decorative prisons of objectification and isolation. With a gallows sense of humor, Craig delivers a searing feminist message beneath the pretty, sometimes silly exterior. Her most personal body of work, Invisible Wallpaper Series, featured in this exhibition, connects to her own feelings as a child growing up in a home where she felt invisible. A native of the San Francisco Bay area and a graduate of UCLA, Craig has exhibited nationally at museums and galleries in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. Craig's work has been featured in publications such as New American Paintings, The New York Sun, Harper's, ArtWeek, American Art Collector, and Art on Paper, and was featured on KNBC news, spotlighting the emotional challenges of women faced during the Covid-19 pandemic.