Pulling single word statements from her Instagram account, Diana Georgie creates jarring, sometimes humorous, and contemplative juxtapositions against floral backdrops. The acrylic paintings are deceptively simple in their approach, yet with these brief statements, she’s able to both dismantle and examine the intentions of those who used the words. She shows these paintings in a new show at Gallery 30 South in a new show, “Pleasure Paradox,” running through Feb. 28.
“The pursuit of pleasure is both thrilling and aggressive, it is essentially the primary and most important driving aim of human life, to experience gratification and just be happy,” she says, in a statement. “Somewhere along the way, practical difficulties are surely to be encountered, and unfortunately for the hedonist, the constant and conscious pursuit of it interferes with experiencing it. Pleasure Paradox is about the thrill of the chase, getting to the sweetest part of the fruit and the high that comes with it. Yet inevitably, you will get to the pit, and you have to spit it out, or else you’ll choke on it. The pursuit that comes with a cost, like a moth to a flame, that is part of our human instinct. It’s lingering with one’s own temptations, the budding blossoms and their come hither appeal, the promise of satisfaction, and on the contrary, the overreaching grip that never truly grasps.”
“Gravities” is certainly an apt moniker for the works of 
Over the past few years, many of Ivy Haledeman's intimate paintings have focused on an anthropomorphic female hot dog character. The character bends and lounges across the canvas, often extending most of its form out of our view. While surely offering more erotic themes to extract, Haldedeman’s paintings also seem to be offering reflections on the capitalistic system that produces “hot dogs” themselves.
