wall relief – Art Spiel

November 18, 2025November 18, 2025, by Etty Yaniv

Singing in Unison, Part 12: Painting in Space

Judy Pfaff, *Barcelona*, 1990, steel, plastic, glass, table and chairs, 168 x 168 x 168 inches

It began, as many enduring ideas do, over wine and conversation. Michael David, painter, curator, and gallerist of M. David & Co., was speaking at a dinner with Judy Pfaff about her close friend and early champion Al Held. The talk drifted to another dear friend, Elizabeth Murray, and then to her admiration for Frank Stella. From that exchange evolved the idea for Singing in Unison, Part 12: Painting in Space, curated by Michael David, and now on view at Art Cake in cooperation with The Brooklyn Rail.

May 2, 2022May 2, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Susan Rostow: Biomorphic Figurations

Description automatically generated — Susan Rostow in her studio, Brooklyn, New York, photo courtesy of Carole d’Inverno

Susan Rostow’s sculptures resemble archeological artifacts with biomorphic characteristics, inviting us to probe into their origin, meaning and what they are made of. Textures of abrasive material such as clay and moss-like surface, along with graphic symbols such as linear markings of shore tides and other signifiers from old maps, fuse into hybrid forms where the lines between past and future, what is natural and what is fabricated, are seamlessly blurred.

January 24, 2022December 20, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Gabriela Vainsencher: Unfolding Motherhood

Gabriela Vainsencher in the studio with “Mom”, 2021

Gabriela Vainsencher works in photography, video and drawing, while merging all of these forms in her porcelain sculptures. Her sculptures and wall reliefs are as far off the smooth perfection we traditionally associate with porcelain – twisted forms merge into each other or repel, forming a fiery existential dance that sometimes invokes symbiosis and sometimes pulling apart.

October 3, 2021November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

Susan Mastrangelo at 490 ATLANTIC

Art Spiel Photo Story

A picture containing text, wall, person, indoor

Description automatically generated — The artist with her work, photo courtesy of Barabara Friedman

Susan Mastrangelo’s five paintings featured in her solo show at 490 ATLANTIC vibrate with vivid and visceral energy, a culmination of the emotional journey she has experienced this past year and a half. The artist says that as she is standing in front of this painting series, she remembers how the fear during COVID prompted her urge to “seize the moment and focus on being present every minute in the creation of each work.”

July 26, 2021October 4, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Armita Raafat: Reflective Tactility

Site specific installation, 2016, The Horse & Pony Fine Arts, Berlin

Armita Raafat is a New York based artist, born in Chicago and raised in Iran. Her sculptures, installations, and wall reliefs draw upon traditional Iranian architecture, specifically the Muqarnas Domes, the vaulting element in Islamic architecture. She is exploring their form and symbolism through her personal lens by using contemporary materials, transplanting them into new cultural, historical, and geographical contexts to assume a new meaning.

May 7, 2021December 6, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Jennifer Macdonald: We Met in Kaarthijenkia at Sala Projects

In Dialogue with Jennifer Macdonald

Jennifer Macdonald, We Met in Kaarthijenkia installation at Sala Projects, 2021, photo courtesy of Tania Cross

Jennifer Macdonald’s solo inaugural exhibition at Sala Projects features a group of unique cast bronze sculptures, made by using prototypes that are built from textured wax and wax-coated materials such as card stock, pasta, balsa wood.

February 25, 2021February 23, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Julia Kunin at Kate Werble Gallery

In Dialogue with Julia Kunin

Running through March 4^rd, Julia Kunin’s exhibition Mechanical Ballet at Kate Werble Gallery features ceramic wall reliefs and caryatids that create an imaginary narrative of sexually charged figures. “They are at once fortresses in themselves, a merging of body, machine and architecture, ready to become weaponized,” the artist says. The works draw from the hard-edged geometric rhythm found in Art Deco objects and the relentless patterns pay tribute to Art Nouveau and Op-Art. Her most recent large wall pieces are made up of multiple sections, with the potential to be re-arranged and taken apart. Julia Kunin refers to them as sculptural drawings in clay, that vibrate with iridescence — “the destabilizing psychedelic color enables the figures to change and move in their ever-shifting narrative frieze,” she says.

July 6, 2020October 13, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Bianca Severijns - Paper Transformations

A person taking a selfie in the snow

Description automatically generated

Bianca Severijns is a Dutch born artist who lives in Israel. Her sculptural installation range from wearable sculpture to wall relief made of paper. Through an elaborate process she utilizes this medium with remarkable skills to create simultaneously playful and thought provoking sculptures which evoke reflections on displacement, the meaning of a safe home, and coping mechanisms. For instance, her Blanket sculpture which is currently showing at the recently opened TLV Biennial 2020 particularly resonates with the angst during the pandemic. Since we have finalized the interview process before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, we have recently re-visited our last question in order to bring her responses up to date.