Visit to DINNER WITH A SHOW by Olivia Sterling at Meyer Riegger

Exhibition Date: October 29 – December 10, 2022
Location: Meyer Riegger, Berlin
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 AM – 6 PM
Address: Schaperstrasse 14, 10719 Berlin

“Meyer Riegger is pleased to present its first exhibition by Olivia Sterling (b. 1996 in Peterborough, UK) and the artist’s debut solo show in Germany. For the exhibition at Meyer Riegger, Sterling has transformed the rooms of the gallery into a restaurant, which forms the stage upon which the events of Dinner with a Show take place. On entering the gallery space, visitors immediately find themselves in the dining room, surrounded by guests eating and drinking. Far from it being a decorous setting, there is a sense of urgency to these paintings and the depicted scenes are raucous. In Food Stains #2, a busty woman appears to have dropped a forkful of spaghetti and meatballs in her lap. People Talk with their Hands depicts a number of patrons applauding as someone (unseen) walks by. And in Food Stains #1, a diner in a cream covered dress falls backwards on her chair, while a chocolate pudding plopped on the table cloth hangs dangerously close to the precipice. Although it is not clear what, something unsettling seems to be taking place.

Such unrevealed narratives are typical of Sterling’s work. Her paintings tease and hint of ambiguous events that often lie tantalizingly out of reach. But they force us to look closer, to look beyond the typically playful, closely cropped and vividly coloured canvases, teeming with arms, legs and half-eaten food. In this way, Sterling’s images can be seen as contemporary genre paintings, allegorical scenes of everyday life, created to make us reflect upon our misconceptions and prejudices and to question our attitudes towards race, class, gender and social status. ” (Text excerpt from the press release by courtesy of Meyer Riegger)