Grotto: Shrine @ Soloway

In conversation with Hannah Barrett and Saul Chernick

Saul Chrnick and Hannah Barrett in front of the gallery

The Grotto: Shrine group exhibition at Soloway Gallery, curated by Hannah Barrett and Saul Chernick, featuring works by Orli Swergold, Laurel Sparks, Ben Pederson, and Saul Chernick, merges the physical with the mystical. It showcases sculptures and installations that draw on the use of scale and a diverse range of materials—obsolete electronics, dried grains, paper pulp, and glitter. These elements serve to connect viewers to celestial, underworld, ritualistic, and imaginative realms, referencing the reflective and immersive qualities of shrines and grottos.

Continue reading “Grotto: Shrine @ Soloway”

Embodied Futures and the Ecology of Care at BioBAT Art Space

HOT AIR
A room with a large wall with a painting on it

Description automatically generated with medium confidence
Installation view of Katie Hubbell’s, Slow Down Soft Body, Stay with Me, and, Subsuming Solids, photo courtesy of Flaneurshan Studio

In the heart of Sunset Park, within the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal, BioBAT Art Space stands as a pioneering gallery that blurs the lines between art and science. The current exhibition, Embodied Futures & the Ecology of Care, Curated by Elena Soterakis & Eve Barro, showcases eleven artists whose work merges research methods and materials from scientific practices such as genetics, mycology, microscopy, and bacterial cultivation with artistic creation. By using living yeast as their palette and mushrooms as their sculpting medium, these artists challenge conventional artistic norms.

Continue reading “Embodied Futures and the Ecology of Care at BioBAT Art Space”

In the End, a Devastating Beauty at Stand4 Gallery

Hot Air
Susan Hoffman Fishman (l) and Leslie Sobel @ Five Points Center for the Arts Artist Residency, June 2022

Susan Hoffman Fishman and Leslie Sobel met in 2019 at a virtual “mixer” sponsored by SciArt Initiative for artists and scientists who either were already working together or who wanted to work together collaboratively. Hoffman and Sobel quickly determined that their mutual interests in water and the climate crisis overlapped. Looking for ways to collaborate, they applied for and were awarded a joint residency in 2021 during the height of the COVID pandemic at Planet Labs, a global satellite imaging company based in San Francisco. Planet had created its residency program to see what happened when artists were given access to their scientists and satellite resources. Because of COVID, the three-month residency ended up being entirely virtual.

Continue reading “In the End, a Devastating Beauty at Stand4 Gallery”

Jeanne Verdoux’s Female Vaisselle at Sculpture Space

previewing exhibition
A white and orange plastic mannequin

Description automatically generated
Ballerina, Ceramics & glaze, 17x12x9.25”, 2023

Brooklyn artist Jeanne Verdoux’s latest exhibition, Female Vaisselle, at the Sculpture Space NYC from February 2 to March 2, 2024, marks her first solo show in New York City. Verdoux captures the essence of the female form through a blend of ceramics, drawings, monoprints, and video art. The title itself is a linguistic play, merging the French word “vaisselle” (meaning tableware) with the English “vessel,” reflecting the dual themes of domesticity and the female body as a container of multifarious experiences.

Continue reading “Jeanne Verdoux’s Female Vaisselle at Sculpture Space”

Swoon – Hushed and Big Voices

In Dialogue

 All images courtesy of Tod Seelie.
Swoon, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, photo courtesy of Tod Seelie

Brooklyn-based artist Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, is celebrated internationally as one of the first female street artists in a male-dominated field. For over two decades, Swoon has explored human experiences through public art, museum exhibitions, and film. Her latest projects look at the ties between trauma and addiction, inspired by her own life in a family affected by opioid addiction. She works closely with communities, using art to show empathy and help people heal. Over the last ten years, Swoon has led important projects in places like Braddock and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, New Orleans in Louisiana, Venice, and Komye in Haiti, tackling everything from natural disasters to the opioid crisis.

Continue reading “Swoon – Hushed and Big Voices”

Rachel Frank: Ritual and Rehabilitation

Hot Air
A collage of hands holding a clay dog

Description automatically generated
Rewilding Franconia Sculpture Park, Participatory Performance as part of 4Ground: Midwest Land Art Biennial, Franconia Sculpture Park, 2022. Photographer: Rachel Frank

Rachel Frank is a Brooklyn-based artist whose practice includes sculpture, video, and performance. Her art explores our shifting perspectives towards natural history, climate change, and relationships with non-human species. She grew up near Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, the birthplace of American paleontology, where large mammoth and other megafauna fossils were found, altering Western views on extinction and evolution. She works as a staff wildlife care manager at The Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Manhattan.

Continue reading “Rachel Frank: Ritual and Rehabilitation”

Elizabeth Gilfilen: Denouement at Yi Gallery

In Dialogue
Unearth, 2023, oil on canvas, 64 x 72 inches


Elizabeth Gilfilen’s debut solo show at YI Gallery presents oil paintings that exhibit a meticulous yet bold exploration of color and texture. Her strokes span from boldly assertive to gently nuanced, each adding to her work’s visual depth and dynamic feel. Eschewing neat conclusions, her paintings are presented as evolving works, with each layer suggesting new narratives in an unfolding journey. The synergy of color and form in her paintings creates a dynamic tableau, inviting viewers to interact with the canvas, drawing them into the active narrative of the art’s continuous unfolding.

Continue reading “Elizabeth Gilfilen: Denouement at Yi Gallery”

Dalit Gurevich: A Memory Interwoven at Amos Eno Project Space

A painting of a pond with lily pads

Description automatically generated

Dalit Gurevich’s A Memory Interwoven, curated by Jenn Cacciola at the Project Space of the Amos Eno Gallery, is a vivid exploration of transformation and adaptation through depiction of mixed-media landscapes and cityscapes. The exhibit, now open to visitors, captures the shifts in Gurevich’s life from the confines of a Brooklyn apartment during the pandemic to the liberating nature of Vermont and back to the bustling city life. Her paintings tell a story of seeking space and peace in a time of global uncertainty.

Continue reading “Dalit Gurevich: A Memory Interwoven at Amos Eno Project Space”

Dov Talpaz: The Sound of Longing at SARAHCROWN

Photo Story
A painting of a person riding a horse

Description automatically generated
Holding the Mountain, 2018-23, Oil on Wood, 36X24 Inches

An acute sense of yearning permeates the ten artworks showcased in Dov Talpaz’s debut exhibition at SARAHCROWN in Tribeca. The exhibition, The Sound of Longing, was thoughtfully composed by curator Sarah Corona, who selected small to medium-sized oil paintings characterized by their strikingly vivid hues. The modest dimension of the paintings enhances a sense of an intimate space, while the rich, dynamic colors seem to resonate with a loud auditory experience.

Continue reading “Dov Talpaz: The Sound of Longing at SARAHCROWN”

John Avelluto: Impasta Handbags at Stand4 Gallery

Photo Story
A plate of food on a white surface

Description automatically generated
Cannoli Ultrasound | Acrylic paint on panel | 9” x12” | 2023

The details in John Avelluto’s delightful paintings—thin strands of hair, tiny droplets of perspiration, chunky gold chains, or hyperreal food items—are uncanny in their realism. Avulluto is a trickster. Through all the paintings featured in his third solo show at Stand4 Gallery he convinces us that we are looking at the “real” thing, but in fact, each piece in Impasta Handbags is made solely of acrylic paint. Curator Paul D’Agostino says in his essay that “no matter what viewers think they’re looking at in Impasta Handbags—marble, paper, wood, or gold; skin, hair, sweat, or jewelry; cookies, cakes, fritters, cannoli, or sprinkles; ravioli, penne, ziti, parsley, pizza, pomodorini, mozzarella, mortadella, salsiccia, soppressata–what they’re actually looking at is paint. In turn, since the objects at hand, however sculptural, are crafted from paint, then all these things viewers are looking at are, simply put, paintings.”

Continue reading “John Avelluto: Impasta Handbags at Stand4 Gallery”