The Shapes Feelings Take:
Brandon Opalka

The Shapes Feelings Take is an installation based on society’s need for motivational posters and daily reminders that can be found all throughout social media, doctors’ offices and school classrooms.

Would we know the feeling of triumph without the awareness of defeat?

The art installation features a laboratory scene from an unknown era where the Gravity 2000, an inspirational quote machine, depicts the words “triumphant” and “challenges.” To meet demand, the overworked machine malfunctions, challenging the viewer to question the importance of failures and successes, as well as reflect on their own intentions.

About the Artist

Brandon Opalka paints by day, he paints by night. He paints on walls, canvas, installations, invariably creating something new.

He moves from one medium to another with the same fervor, the same excitement, the same speed of execution. It’s the color that interests Brandon Opalka, whether posed by a brush or a spray can, applied with an air compressor or in coats of hot wax. Objects are soaked in it, covered, dematerialized, producing a novel interpretation.

He is building a body of work between assemblage and installation from which, on occasion, a canvas or a sculpture emerges. Recently, he is even inhabiting his environments, embodying figures from US popular culture and Florida in particular. Always the trash alongside the reverie—the excessive world of Miami, the artist’s home since childhood, is never far away. He revisits his personal experiences, delivering them to us in a multicolored chaos.