Gabrielle Garland
GABRIELLE GARLAND | STUPIDDOPE
Gabrielle Garland’s Quirky Homes Get Personal in NYC Solo Show
5 AUGUST 2025
That is why every day we pray for rain. —Daena, Planet of the Apes (2001), 2024, Acrylic and glitter on canvas, 36 x 36 inches
GARLAND’S GOT RANGE, AND RANGE HAS HER
Her influences are rooted in observation. Garland pulls from her surroundings—New York’s neighborhoods, sure, but also photos she’s taken or found. There’s no single muse, just an ongoing fascination with the domestic spaces we inhabit, ignore, and often take for granted. Each house, even the weirdest ones, carries a little truth about how we live and what we hold onto.
Whether it’s a familiar stoop, a too-bright shutter, or a mailbox that looks like it could spill secrets, Garland’s work invites viewers to look again—and maybe realize they’re not just seeing a house. They’re seeing a memory with walls.
CATCH THE SHOW, CATCH THE FEELS
I’ll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too runs from September 4 through October 25 at Miles McEnery Gallery in New York. If you’re looking for art that’s funny, introspective, off-kilter, and wildly relatable, Garland’s got you covered. Just don’t expect her houses to sit still or stay quiet.
Step into Gabrielle Garland’s universe this fall and discover just how much personality a power line and a porch light can really hold.
Jesse James —
Gabrielle Garland doesn’t paint people—but somehow, her houses talk. Not literally, of course, but there’s no denying each one she paints is bursting with personality, like they’re mid-conversation or caught in some private moment. In her world, bungalows pout, Queen Annes gossip, and mailboxes practically roll their eyes. Her new solo exhibition, I’ll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too, opening September 4 at Miles McEnery Gallery in New York, leans into that visual wit with full confidence. It’s weird. It’s wonderful. It’s Garland doing what she does best—turning suburban structures into emotional narratives.
HOUSES WITH ATTITUDE (AND MAYBE AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS)
Garland’s square-format, mixed-media works don’t just depict buildings—they animate them. And no, not with cutesy cartoon eyes or Pixar polish. Think more architectural fever dream: warped siding, ballooned staircases, out-of-proportion flower boxes, and angles that would make M.C. Escher raise a brow. Her homes are not built for code compliance. They’re built from feeling.
The visual distortion isn’t just a style flex—it’s deliberate. According to Garland, these exaggerated features reflect the way memory interferes with structure. It’s not about accurate renderings; it’s about emotional residue. What does a house feel like after a lightning storm? Or during a Fourth of July cookout? Or when you’re staring at it in the quiet haze of dusk, wondering why the porch light’s still on?
MOVIE QUOTES MEET MIDDLE AMERICA
If the title I’ll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too gave you a Wizard of Oz flashback, good. Garland’s not shy about using pop culture as part of her toolkit. Many of her titles are pulled from film quotes, ranging from cheeky to cryptic, lending each painting an extra layer of narrative drama or comedic timing. It’s a clever twist—pairing architectural portraits with out-of-context sentiments that deepen the emotional oddity.
The effect is surreal but familiar. You might not recognize the exact house, but you’ll swear you’ve seen it—maybe while walking your dog or sitting in traffic or watching the sky turn orange through a dusty window. Garland taps into that shared visual library we all carry but rarely think about.
Gabrielle Garland's studio, New York, NY, 2024.
And... and... c’mon, Nick, what do you expect? To live happily ever after? —Elizabeth James, The Parent Trap (1998), 2024, Acrylic, oil, and glitter on canvas, 48 x 48 inches
NEIGHBORHOODS REIMAGINED
These aren’t pristine architectural studies or idealized real estate spreads. Garland paints houses the way you might sketch your childhood home from memory—if your memory also included a few power lines, a neighbor’s roofline creeping in, or a commercial jet carving through the sky. There’s no tidy isolation; every house is part of something larger, whether it’s a block party or a thunderstorm.
It’s a balancing act of independence and interconnectedness, a visual diary that celebrates the strange duality of American neighborhoods. Garland even told Dovetail her work reflects “the constantly shifting balance between our desire for independence and interconnection.” That checks out. Her paintings look like love letters to the domestic weirdness we build and the privacy we pretend exists between paper-thin walls.
COLOR SATURATION MEETS CONTROLLED CHAOS
Color plays a big role in Garland’s expressive toolbox. These aren’t beige-washed suburban snoozefests. Her palette is saturated and unapologetic. Fire-engine reds, lemon yellows, deep blues—it’s all in play, often used to draw attention to architectural quirks or emotional cues hidden in the structure. And despite the distortion, there’s a clarity of intent in every brushstroke. Her houses don’t need symmetry—they need storytelling.
Some paintings glow with interior light, others throb with the heavy silence of a storm on the horizon. And when fireworks are involved (and yes, there are some), the result feels like a mashup between Americana and surrealism with just a dash of party-crasher energy.
