Catalina Ouyang's 'Trick' exhibition at Lyles & King presents assemblages exploring violence and bodily autonomy

Catalina Ouyang's exhibition 'Trick' at Lyles & King in New York features 16 sculptures and paintings that transform natural and industrial materials into fetishistic objects. The works include assemblages like 'Untitled' (2024), which combines a metal shelving unit with a wooden post displaying alabaster trinkets and a stuffed animal, alongside a flesh-pink papier-mâché shell impaled on a nail. Another untitled floor assemblage pairs apple wood with a steel fork, a canvas pillow, and cement-filled boots bound with twine. The exhibition includes paintings from the 'Deed' series depicting ominous tools like a three-pronged rake looming over a nude figure. A wall-mounted assemblage features a papier-mâché mannequin wearing a 'training bra' made from the artist's past partners' T-shirts, with a cylindrical stump suggesting injury. 'Heads' presents a similar figure hanging near seven scythes protruding from plywood. In the gallery's courtyard, 'Brank' is a five-meter-tall steel sculpture shaped like a 17th-century 'scold's bridle' used to gag women, though its spiked bit is reduced to a blunt protrusion. Ouyang's works reference sculptor Yeni Mao's diagrammatic assemblages but incorporate unclean, menacing elements. The exhibition explores themes of patriarchal violence, erotic tension, and bodily autonomy through weathered materials and personal artifacts. 'Trick' runs through June 15, 2024.