September Gallery Guide: Part II, presented by ArtMuse NextGen
Presented by ArtMuse NextGen, the second installment of our September gallery guide is here to highlight the exhibitions that captured our excitement this month.
Emma Webster: Green Iscariot at Alexander Berggruen
With her commanding landscapes, Emma Webster paints wondrous scenes of the natural world where nature’s power and beauty is on full display. Dynamic and vibrant, Webster’s canvases emphasize the agency Mother Earth possesses as the dramatics of a looming tempest rage on. In Webster’s painted worlds, harmony is achieved.
September 8-October 14
1018 Madison Avenue, Floor 3
Images: A Setting Scene, 2021 , courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen. Photos: Marten Elder.
Sarah Slappey: Self Care at Sargent’s Daughters
Sargent’s Daughters presents a remarkable body of new paintings and works on paper by Sarah Slappey that explore femininity—and the underlying grotesqueness that comes with it. In Slappey’s work, feet and hands jumble in a hyper-feminine dance and straddle the line between glamour and violence. Slappey portrays a fleshy realism, as an abstract background anchors her composition in soft pinks and blues.
September 2-October 2
179 East Broadway
Image: Girl Talk, 2021, courtesy of Sargent’s Daughters
Jillian Evelyn: Lack of Pleasure at Hashimoto Contemporary
Los Angeles-based artist Jillian Evelyn paints graphic female figures in work that explores womanhood and the struggles that come with it. Evelyn’s stylized works—with sharp lines and a muted color palette—recall Alex Katz, but perhaps if he painted from the perspective of a millennial woman.
September 18-October 9
210 Rivington Street
Image: endlessly disillusioned, courtesy of the artist
Bambou Gili: The Nonexistent Night at Arsenal Contemporary
In her debut solo exhibition, Bambou Gili presents eighteen paintings of vivid scenes that appear to be taking place over the course of a single night. With references that range from popular culture to history, Gili’s narrative works act as a collection of stories, featuring characters who are interconnected yet unaware of each other's existences. On her canvases, Gili prioritizes a palette of the Boreal colors (rich purples, deep blues and vibrant greens), which heighten the sense of atmosphere and surrealism of these worlds.
September 10-October 30
214 Bowery
Image: Blue Kitchen, 2021, courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary
Carlo D’Anselmi: Wake Up at Thierry Goldberg
Carlo D’Anselmi’s paintings transport its viewers, perhaps to the Mediterranean, to an Amazon jungle, or to an Edenic mecca of our dreams. D’Anselmi paints lush scenes with statuesque figures in deep contemplation amid beautiful flora, fauna and wildlife.
September 10-October 9
109 Norfolk Street
Image: courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery
Amie Cunat: Petal Signals at Dinner Gallery
Amie Cunat has long been interested in the Shakers, often exploring the utopian community in her work. Cunat’s new series of paintings, which straddle pop abstractions and surrealist biomorphism, borrow from Shaker motifs to create completely new forms that feel at once familiar yet unknown. Bright and spirited, these works together ask, can we know something we’ve never seen before?
September 8-October 23
242 West 22nd Street
Image: Radical Spurred, copyright © Amie Cunat, 2021
Darryl Westly: A Dream Deferred at 1969 Gallery
Darryl Westly’s new paintings explore the theme of unrealized dreams and ambitions—a concept that for many became a reality as the world screeched to a halt from the global pandemic. Westley’s paintings feel intimate, and the artist indeed painted his friends as many of these works’ subjects. These works are beautiful and endlessly interesting as they grapple with both personal and collective histories of our time.
September 8-October 23
39 White Street
Image: Hadiqa Jardin Garden, 2021, courtesy of the artist
Alina Perez: No One Recognizes You As a Puddle at Deli Gallery
Alina Perez has an impressive resume, having earned her BFA from RISD and MFA from Yale. Her exhibition at Deli Gallery doesn’t disappoint. Working with charcoal and pastel on paper, the expert draughtsman Perez creates large-scale epic scenes that appear almost biblical, radiating heightened intensity and drama.
September 1-October 9
36 White Street
Image: Keep Still, 2021, courtesy of Deli Gallery
Anne Buckwalter: Clean Linens at Rachel Uffner
Rachel Uffner Gallery presents a series of delightful paintings by Anne Buckwalter of flattened domestic spaces and the intimate details that fill these rooms. Buckwalter masterfully paints wood grain, textiles, and other design elements into these tableaux where domesticity and eroticism meet in magical ways.
When you’re finished with Anne Buckwalter, head upstairs to see a presentation of rich, textural paintings by Bernadette Despujols that explore womanhood through different generations.
September 7-October 30
170 Suffolk Street
Image: Snowed In, 2021, courtesy of Rachel Uffner Gallery
Justin Liam O’Brien: Dreams at Monya Rowe Gallery
In his exhibition of new paintings, Justin Liam O’Brien presents amazing, dreamy scenes that are at times strange, at others erotic, and always psychologically charged. Figurative and atmospheric, O’Brien’s paintings engulf viewers into surreal scenes, packed with action, shifting forms and undulating horizons.
“…There’s something inherently sexy about having dreams, something ineffable in remembering. They are pure reflections of you, soaked in your deepest feelings. Feelings you might be terrified to feel, or might have been yearning to feel for years.” - Justin Liam O’Brien
September 9-October 9
224 West 30th Street, #1005
Image: Fais Comme Si J’avais Pris La Mer, 2021, courtesy of Monya Rowe Gallery
Patricia Renee' Thomas: Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Back Soon at Kravets Wehby
With her rich paintings, Patricia Renee’ Thomas (b. 1995) looks back to her Black girlhood to explore memory and engage in a process of rewriting personal history. Often incorporating nature in with depictions of the body, Thomas engages in a process of remembering and then re-remembering to liberate her past-self from the burdens she might have bore.
September 8-October 9
521 West 21st Street, ground floor
Image: Labyrinth, 2021, courtesy of the artist
Written by Samantha Kohl