Party Room

Party Room

On view at Gallery Closed from June 1 to July 31, 2024

“A series of stray balloons dot Lowrie Street, lodged inside a salon, notary office, pizza place, residence and elementary school. The source of these wayward party favors is revealed to be a fish-bowl style party room, the kind you might find in a neighbourhood cinema or play facility. A surprise-party of sorts, the sprawling banquet table is comprised entirely of meticulously rendered gifts, hats, snacks, cake, confectionary and other party paraphernalia, ranging from detailed to reductive sculptural copies.

Party Room expands on Roula Partheniou's exploration of the potential of the replica. Her work distills the language of everyday objects to map the ways that we read and decipher our environment. Banal household items are meticulously rendered in a variety of materials at a 1:1 scale, and are carefully composed within larger installations, typically comprised of hundreds of objects. In these installations, the objects work collaboratively: although each component is modelled on a particular real-life counterpart, the focus isn’t veracity or virtuosity of likeness - rather, the replica is employed as a useful tool to distill how we visually construct meaning and deduce narrative through material culture.”

detail of “Cake Plates”, acrylic on wood, MDF, plasti-dip, drill bit, 2024.

Detail of various balloon on view at Gallery Closed, as part of “Party Room”, arylic on cast resin, 2024.

Gallery Closed, at night.

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The artist would like gratefully acknowledge the support of the Koyama Provides, Canada Council for the Arts and ArtsNB, and to extend sincere thanks to Marina Guglielmi and Tyler Balko, Daniel Blenich, Lenka Clayton, Phillip Andrew Lewis, Jon Rubin, Michael Klein and Dave Dyment.