In Unreliable Narrators, Rochelle Voyles’s collages hold both a capacious nihilism and a hope to build stories from the void. From this fulcrum, I think of Joan Didion’s classic essay The White Album, and its opening truism: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Voyles’s compositions of found photographs extend to viewers, a branch, a bone, a tool in making sense of the randomness that seems to rule our lives. Cutouts layered into loops capture chaos, but the care in each cut, the curation, and the collision of hyperspecific images betray a belief in an idiosyncratic order. These works are at once figurative mazes of manifold meaning, and objects calculated to short-circuit our thinking and experience pure sensation.
Writer: Will Kaplan
@will.kaplan
Featured Show: Unreliable Narrators
Featured Artist: Rochelle Voyles
@voylescurio
Featured Gallery: 81 Leonard Gallery
@81leonardgallery 81 Leonard Street, New York, NY, 10013
On View through: April 11th, 2026, Tues – Sat, 12 PM – 6 PM
![Latest post / Lauren Clay’s organic sanctums /[Link in Profile: Please contribute to the Two Coats of Paint year-end fund drive!]Contributed by Will Kaplan / In her solo show “Solarium” at Picture Theory, Lauren Clay compresses different scales of time into tight, enchanting wall sculptures. In modernizing the timeless form of the archway, her work reflects the structure’s progression from functional to aesthetic. The series of torso-sized works foster an intimate viewing experience, comparable to an altarpiece. Traditionally, altarpieces hover behind the altar itself. The faithful kneel beneath them for their sacraments, like the Eucharistic transformation of wine into blood....Link in Profile, Bluesky, Threads@picture.theory @laurenclay_ @will.kaplan @twocoatsofpaint](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6758574749475016296820_0_d923a24e8744ea2787207927a57d43fa.jpg?o=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&h=9bf01398861451e0418bbad782380153)
