SAMANTHA JOY GROFF: HUNTRESS
Half Gallery is pleased to presents Huntress by Samantha Joy Groff in Los Angeles. The exhibition draws inspiration from the mythological figure of Diana the Huntress with her upbringing in a rural Mennonite Pennsylvania.
February 27 – March 28, 2024
Rural America is an America that is often overlooked, and even more discounted are the people who live within these regions and their ways of life. Generally dismissed as being unrelatable or out of touch with those who live in urban and city centers, the histories within these regions run quite deep and the Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania fall into this dismissed subset of rich cultures within America.
Groff has set out to portray her goddesses of the countryside, nature, hunters, wildlife, and the night and move away from the traditional portrayals of Diana in serene and ecstatic moments. Groff’s paintings delve into the darker aspects of the literal and metaphorical hunt and life within rural areas of America, by using imagery of women and animals as the dual subjects of desire.
While the women depicted in the paintings are not actively engaged in hunting, the ambiguity surrounding their relationship to the prey creates an atmosphere of suspense and unease. Using luminous surfaces and vibrant yellows, the paintings evoke a sense of hypervigilance, a sense of impending doom, and a need for protection.
Within the exhibition is a single outlier painting that features two interlocked bucks and acts as a throughline piece that carries forward the repeating symbolism of the male subject within the Dark Pastures series. Groff hearkens back to the mythos of Diana turning Actaeon the hunter into a deer, after which he runs off into the woods and is himself then hunted. The romanticized notion of communion with nature is juxtaposed with the harsh reality of human interference and exploitation of nature and wildlife.
The human desire to connect with wildlife becomes a slippery slope, as human interactions such as leaving feed out or coaxing them into comfort with human interaction, the deer domesticate in a sense and become more emboldened to enter urban areas. With no natural predators, deer often become a nuisance around Pennsylvania and are often found in neighborhoods and city parks which results in communities having to initiate deer management programs (regulated hunts) to thin the deer populations.
The Huntress and Dark Pastures series further underscore themes of feminine power and self-preservation, alongside the complexities of the relationships and interactions between humans, nature, and wildlife. The exhibition invites viewers to reconsider traditional narratives and confront the unsettling truths and misconceptions of rural America.