Commonweal

With the generous support of MPN Realty and the East Passyunk Business Improvement District, Feed the Moon co-curator Rebecca O’ Leary (Executive Director of the East Passyunk BID) has organized an exhibition of reproductions of Amin’s paintings in the windows of 1805 East Passyunk Avenue as part of a ‘Contemporary Art on the Avenue’ program.

Join us on Tuesday, January 30th from 17:00 to 19:00 as Amin shares her thoughts on the thematic and material approaches that went into developing her newest body of work while viewing this satellite exhibition. Afterwards, Stogie Joe’s Tavern will host a private happy hour for guests with wine, beer and square pies provided!

Image: Natessa Amin, ‘Labyrinth’, 30 x 40 x 2 in., Acrylic on Wood Panel, 2024

Save the Date!
Natessa Amin - Feed the Moon | FRI•DEC•19 / 17:00 - 21:00

COMMONWEAL is pleased to announce its first exhibition of 2024: Natessa Amin’s Feed the Moon, featuring over a dozen new paintings and works on paper. Join us for the opening celebration on Friday, January 19th from 17:00 - 21:00.

Feed the Moon addresses themes including memory, mysticism, ritual, and place through the lens of Amin’s transcultural identity — as a child of the Indian diaspora and her upbringing in Pennsylvania. Throughout her works she implements an ever-growing lexicon of evocative symbols alluding to notions of creation and destruction.

The exhibition takes its title from the writings of the mystic philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff whose works embrace his syncretic approach to philosophy, bringing together Eastern and Western influences to develop new approaches to reconcile physical and spiritual wounds. The act of “feeding the moon” is a metaphor for self-revelation and consciousness raising, contending with and navigating personal trauma in order to find a place of equilibrium within ourselves and with others.

Having grown up with two parents in the medical field, an awareness of the changes our bodies undergo were always present in Amin’s life. Physical scars became signifiers of transformation and the manifestation of bodily experience. In her works, Amin employs techniques similar to those used by medical professionals, such as masking, scraping, cauterizing and sculpting layers of paint. Like scar tissue, her paintings emphasize transition and growth that heal over remnants and residues of the past.

Feed the Moon is organized in partnership with (re)FOCUS 2024 at Moore College of Art & Design, by co-curators Alex Conner and Rebecca O’Leary. A selection of Amin’s works on view at COMMONWEAL will be reproduced in the windows of 1805 East Passyunk Avenue as part of a collaborative ‘Art on the Avenue’ exhibition hosted by the East Passyunk Business Improvement District and sponsored by MPN Realty.

Image above: Natessa Amin, ‘As Above So Below’, 40 x 30 x 2 in. (102 x 76 x 5 cm.), Acrylic Paint on Wooden Panel, 2023