Emily Mullin still-life sculptures

Still-Life Sculptures That Blur the Line Between Photography and Art

In its guise as a flower shop, Saffron Brooklyn had already hosted its share of exhibitions over the years, everything from photography by Youngna Park to ceramics by Katy Krantz. So it made sense that the sister-owned shop would eventually open a gallery of its own: Sunday Takeout, a tiny spot in Fort Greene next door to Saffron, opened in April of this year. On view now, their second-ever exhibition — by Brooklyn-based Emily Mullin (who goes by the studio name Vachina) — in fact bridges both of those mediums, photography and ceramics. Her show spotlights a series of wall-based, still-life sculptures featuring glazed ceramic vessels on painted sheet metal. The curved metal sheets allude to the idea of the cyclorama — i.e. the photo studio tool used to dissolve the line between wall and floor — and in doing so, the press materials explain, “each vessel becomes a character, proudly posing for the viewer.” The ceramics themselves were inspired by everything from the width of 18th-century mantua dresses to multi-handled Egyptian vessels typically used for storing perfume and cosmetics.

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