Juliana Paciulli Dissects Desire, Female Identity, and Consumer Culture w/ ‘UH HUH’

Lucy Tiven

Los Angeles artist Juliana Paciulli’s solo exhibit “UH-HUH” is on view at Greene Exhibitions starting Jan. 16.

Composed of photographs, video and sculptural objects, the mixed media show navigates the boundaries between female experiences and pop culture using massive images of women’s hands touching consumer objects and props.

Oscillating between hyperreal consumerist vocabulary and human subjects, the artist explores material fantasy, desire and psychological life in contemporary America.

Merging the uncanny and the every day, “UH-HUH” is both colloquial and dreamlike asking how we form our identities through consumption, deconstruction and tactile experience.

Her photographs take on a performative sensibility rich with gesture and expression. A coffee table and carpet at the center of the gallery invites viewers to enter into a dialog crossing mediums and individual subjects.

Juliana Paciulli was born in Virginia and lives and works in Los Angeles. Her debut solo exhibition “Are You Talking to Me?” at Greene Exhibitions showed in 2013 while she also has had solo shows at Los Angeles galleries Las Cienegas Projects and Black Dragon Society.

Her work has appeared in group exhibitions across the United States while she is an adjunct faculty in the Art Department at Chapman University in Orange, California. She has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Residency Fellowship and was selected by Rineke Dijkstra to attend the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency in 2009.

Juliana Paciulli’s “UH-HUH” is on view at Greene Exhibitions from Jan. 16 to Feb. 27 while the opening reception will take place on Jan. 16 from 6 – 8 p.m.