Verbal Description: Floor 6

Melanie Taylor: The sixth floor is designed to be the spatial and material counterpoint to the fifth floor. Whereas the fifth floor is open and bright, the sixth is dark and moody. With a similar ceiling height but slightly smaller footprint, the sixth floor undergoes an inversion. Here, the walls are painted black, the pine floors are completely obscured by black carpet and you are greeted by the monumental black and white hatch like paintings by Denyse Thomasos on either side of a small doorway.

Entering through this doorway, one encounters a small dark room, only big enough for a few people. A silent protest plays and this antichamber is punctuated by two small dimly lit objects. Passing through another low doorway, one sees a white scrim veiling a shallow space beyond with five large emphatically colorful and metaphysical portraits by Daniel Joseph Martinez, lit in a cold even wash of futuristic light, the only white space in the gallery. To the right is a labyrinthian circuit of spaces, gently spotlit where there are paintings or shimmering where large scale video occupies corners and even ceilings. Circling back to the east, one passes a series of small idiosyncratic black box spaces with wide, low doorways framing their contents like viewfinders or dioramas. Here on the sixth floor, a visual cacophony is replaced with a sonic one.

As a view to the east terrace begins to emerge from the shifting and overlapping pathway, the riotous form of an artificial oasis takes shape. On the terrace are over one dozen 9 and 12 foot tall palm trees with multicolored, LED fronds inviting you to sit beneath them and enjoy the surrounding city.