Based in New York’s Lower East Side, photographer-turned-painter Alannah Farrell looks to her friends and misfits from the area as her subjects. Painting in a style she describes as “faux realism”, the artist uses mainly muted colour palettes with a splash of brightness to signify her experience with sleep paralysis according to The Painting Center, which is showing her work from this week in a show entitled Worlds without Rooms. This image, Sanctuary (Magdalena), shows Farrell’s “East Village native” friend, who was forced to become financially independent at a young age when her immigrant family had to leave her childhood home due to rent increase in the area. The iPhone on her bed reflects her face, acting as a “sign of her personal economic victory”. The show runs until 20 April.
