Otherside: Alex Mihalko, Tarik Töre, and Wyatt Mills

Press release
Otherside
November 14 - December 26, 2024
Opening Reception: November 14, 5-8 PM

MEY is pleased to present Otherside, a group exhibition featuring work by Wyatt Mills, Tarik Töre, and Alex Mihalko. This exhibition will take place at 8714 Santa Monica Blvd, and will be open from November 14 through December 26, 2024, with an opening reception on Thursday, November 14, from 5 to 8 pm.
 
Across numerous cultures, religions, and mythologies, the “otherworld” or “otherside” is regarded as a supernatural realm; another world that in many ways mirrors our own. In this exhibition, the quotidian is imbued with elements of myth, mystery, and illusion, blurring the lines between the real and the imagined. Across the featured works, fantasy serves an antidote to contemporary chaos—including, but not limited to—the inundation of information, the omnipresence of consumerism, and the impending doom of global conflict. Visualizing these afflictions with ingenuity and irony, Mills, Töre, and Mihalko offer the catharsis of escapism in a world where there is seemingly no escape from them. 
 
In Mills’ paintings, familiar archetypes of Americana are layered and deconstructed, morphing into abstract renderings of the contemporary psyche. His works obscure symbols of fixed traditions, belief systems, and power dynamics, making them particularly gripping in times of impending political transformation. Reminiscent of the psychologically charged works of Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, Mills’ “erosion portraits” exceed beyond the physical and into the subconscious.
 
Töre’s painted compositions distill elements of skate, internet, and pop culture, politics, and art history into grid-like maps of collective memory. In his “physical graffiti” series, seemingly disparate symbols float alongside each other; a butterfly next to a gun, Bugs Bunny next to the Grim Reaper. Situated together, these natural and imagined subjects mirror the way contemporary information channels are constantly saturated with a motley amalgamation of innocence, pleasure, and violence.
 
Mihalko’s animated paintings and drawings confront themes of isolation, consumerism, capitalism, and escapism. Normally rendered in liminal spaces, his subjects emanate a solitude that is only almost pacified by the presence of other worlds, be it anime characters on a television screen or mythical creatures on the wall. Often, these mythical creatures are themselves Mihalko’s subjects, at times pining for glory and riches, at other times for mere dignity and survival. 

Investigating notions of the social, economic, and political with humor, the works in Otherside demonstrate how art can serve as a balm for the anxieties that permeate contemporary consciousness. Together, they prompt us to think about what can exist on the other side of these fears, and about our own escapist tendencies—when and why do we find ourselves imagining other possibilities, and where do those imaginings take us?
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