Allston Skirt Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Danica Phelps: Integrating Sex into Everyday Life,” a new solo show by a young Brooklyn-based artist who has gained international acclaim for making art that incorporates her meticulous recording of her own everyday activities, captivating the eye, heart and mind while keeping a cool grasp on the transactional nature of art as it relates to our daily financial and personal interactions. The exhibition at Allston Skirt is one of three current Boston area exhibitions featuring work by the talented Ms. Phelps, as our show coincides with her inclusion in “Self-Evidence: Identity in Contemporary Art” at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, and “Danica Phelps: Walking from LA to San Francisco” at the Judi Rotenberg Gallery on Newbury Street.

Phelps has a knack for tackling enormous topics, from money to geography, which she proceeds to scrutinize in minute detail. In “Integrating Sex”, she zeroes in on one of the all-time biggest (and one of our personal favorites) - sex and its role in our daily lives. The show extends an investigation the artist began last fall, which she kicked off with an open letter to “family, friends, and colleagues,” informing all that “I have fallen head over heels in love with a woman.” Phelps elaborates: “After having been married for 7 years to the first person I kissed at the age of 20, it’s been quite a surprise to have a sexual awakening at the age of 32.” But true to her art Phelps‚ exploration of this new phase of her life is expressed as a story that unfolds through its most mundane details. Intertwining of the banal with the exquisite, Phelps‚ tiny works alternate the mundane details of life (“Walked the dog,” and “Paid the
Bills”), with the profound ones (“Made love with Debi”), all blithely written alongside Phelps‚ lovely, erotic drawings, and bordered by her signature, color-coded transactional notations along the bottom; each, a story within a story within a story.

Phelps received her MFA from RISD in 1995, and was awarded to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1994. She has recently had solo exhibitions at LFL Gallery in New York, OR Gallery in Vancouver, Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam and Galerie Schoette in Essen. And note: WGBH’s brand new program “Art Close Up” premieres on January 28, 2004 with a segment highlighting Danica Phelps. It airs on January 28 at 8 pm on Channel 2.