Earth Ængel: The Dolphin Denouement

Parent Company is pleased to announce The Dolphin Denouement: The Psychopomps’ Eternal Family, an exhibition of new and evolved work by multidisciplinary artist Earth Ængel, curated by Lucas Ondak.

In Greek myth, the dolphin is a psychopomp, a sacred being ridden by winged cherubs that guides souls crossing the watery abyss to the afterlife. Through the use of narrative and heat-related mixed-media, Earth Ængel creates hybrid forms that splash and play in the preverbal waters of gender. These dolphin-like glass and metal sculptures are indeterminate, transspecies creatures, and the main characters of Earth Ængel’s years-long allegorical exploration of becoming. Denouement means an untying; a story must unravel before it can reach its resolution. After repeated appearances in exhibitions since 2019, The Dolphin Denouement is the latest chapter of their story.

Earth Ængel’s first iteration of this project debuted at Goldsmiths University in 2019. It told the story of an artist who transformed into a dolphin and realized they were trapped inside an aquatic circus where they were expected to perform gender constructs for the empire. The pod grew in number in the 2021 exhibition entitled SAGA, curated by Jeannette Gunnarsson, where they achieved self-actualization and found others who were experiencing the same transformation. This witnessing of their becoming broke The Dolphins’ chains to the empire, but they were still in the depths of the circus, planning their big exit.

At last, the story of The Dolphins has reached a culminating chapter, and they have become The Dolphin Denouement. A family free of their binds, The Dolphins’ bodies are adorned with painted pine wings that allude to their circuitous story. Their embodiment is articulated through materials that twist and leap in a choreography of liberation. A multi-faced sun made of pine rosin and twisted coyote willow beckons on the horizon, a much-welcomed vanishing point for The Dolphins, whose struggles with conformity have at last abated. After years swimming towards freedom, The Dolphin Denouement has finally reached a new uncharted horizon.

Earth Ængel (they/them) is a trans non-binary interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. They received their MFA from Goldsmiths University of London (2022) and their BFA from Parsons School of Design. Their practice is dedicated to the dissolution of binaries—specifically those pertaining to form, gender, material, and classification. Working with craft-based mixed media and interdisciplinary narrative structures, Ængel’s work inhabits the space between grief, self-actualization, and transformation. Ængel has exhibited in London, New York, Chicago, Cyprus, and Mexico City. Currently, they are working on a permanent art installation and architectural restoration project at The Church of the Village (December 2026). The Dolphin Denouement will be Ængel’s first New York solo show.

Lucas Ondak is a transsexual curator, researcher, and writer from Edmond, Oklahoma, the occupied land of the Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita people. Due to the severity of ongoing political and legal assaults on LGBTQ+ people throughout the United States, they are invested in understanding how artists challenge hegemonic national mythologies and provide alternative understandings of personal identity, community, and history. Ondak received an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a BA in Art Practice with Honors and Distinction from Stanford University. They have contributed to numerous exhibitions as a curator and co-curator, including Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas (Institute for Studies in Latin American Art, 2024) and Dystopian Ecstasy (BOFFO Performance Festival 2025), among others. Their writing can be found in Balam, The Brooklyn Rail, Burnaway, Hyperallergic, Systems of Release, and elsewhere.