BEAUTY SUPPLY

Chinatown Soup is pleased to present Beauty Supply, an exhibition of mixed media installations by Hilary Fitzpatrick. Please join us for an opening reception on Tuesday, August 6 from 7-9pm. Beauty Supply is Hilary’s solo debut and on view from August 6, 2019.

Now, a message from the artist:

‘Beauty Supply’ is the most self-expressive experience I can imagine. It is a meal of art, exhibited in three courses plus a few side dishes—kind of like children’s toy food that you can play with, except the gallery is my playground, the food became art objects, and I’m remembering how it felt to be a child.

In this memory palace personified, I explore a relationship between natural elements of the beach and the synthetic beauty of southeast Brooklyn where I grew up. Here you will find seashell encrusted dishes flanking white ceramic vases filled with faux flowers, electric-colored wigs with hair clips, illustrations of daytime TV talkshows, and frameless photographs of beach scenes. The backdrop to this setting is a custom playlist, because what is summer youth without music?

I was raised in Mill Basin, Brooklyn and spent a lot of time with my Bubbie and Zaide in the Rockaways. They taught my brother and I how to swim, boogie board, rollerblade, ride bikes, and take unreasonably long walks. They showed me how to love the ocean and all the elements around it.

At the edge of the beach, I was surrounded by the manufactured beauty of nearby salons. Women and young girls would parade the boardwalk sporting fresh acrylic nails and hair treatments. Why did the natural captivate me more than the familiar flora and fauna of this porously bordered, adjacent habitat?

While preparing for this exhibition, I went method and, for the first time in my life, I got my nails ‘did’ as an exercise in transposed memory. Can I finally know the secrets hidden in the hair and under the nails of these made-for-TV women? Perhaps we can uncover them here…

Hilary Fitzpatrick loves being near the ocean and her nail filer. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she currently lives.