(flyer via The Living Gallery / Facebook)
Of Ghosts and Girls
Opening Tuesday March 14 at The Living Gallery, 6 pm to 10 pm. One night only.
This one-night-only exhibition (as is the norm for The Living Gallery) showcases the work of Üriel Shlüsh-Reyna, a Bushwick-based artist who creates paintings, drawings, and sculptures. She also appeared as a cast member in immersive show Houseworld in 2015, which took place in the various rooms of a Greenpoint church. Her work zeroes in on matters of mysticism, fantasy, and magic. Also, she draws and paints a lot of women, some busty, some doe-eyed, some even tied-up and split in two. Of Ghosts and Girls will show a mix of old and new works in various mediums. She also indicates on her website that she’s inspired by both sleep paralysis and ice cream, which if anything is an interesting combo. The opening reception will also feature musical performances by Mike Campbell, Ben Pagano, and Charles Mansfield.
(image via Slag Gallery / Facebook)
Low Relief
Opening Friday March 17 at Slag Gallery, 7 pm to 9 pm. On view through April 16.
Avital Burg’s paintings reflect a range of subject matter, from still lifes to self portraits, all rendered in varying degrees of smudgy, dreamy colors. Some are sharper, more reminiscent of photorealism, and some are leaning more towards abstraction and stylization. In many instances, these two elements are combined, and Burg is able to create quite impressive and lifelike textures with paint while simultaneously summoning otherworldly feelings in her subject’s far-off faces.
In a version of the impasto technique, Burg often mixes leftover paint with new coats and dry oil paint, sometimes painting over prior works in the process. It’s impressive how a little extra paint spread here and there can make a stucco wall or a grouping of bricks seem so real. You might even be tempted to run your fingers down it to see if you come back with scratches. You can take a look for yourself in her latest exhibition Low Relief, which is fittingly described as a meditation on “what it means to spend time making and looking at painting in today’s world.”
(image via Disclaimer Gallery / Facebook)
w4w
Opening Saturday March 18 at Disclaimer Gallery, 6 pm to 10 pm. On view through April 8.
When we last spoke with artist Annie Rose, she was fresh off the opening of Fatter IRL, an art show within the larger Re:Art show (more on that later) in a massive and sometimes-eerie former factory. Rose was the curatorial mind behind Fatter IRL, which elevated the work of only artists who identify as “fat.” This time, Rose will be showing her own work by way of Disclaimer Gallery, a modest art space within the Silent Barn that only has its eyes on low-income, marginalized artists who are definitely not cis white dudes.
The show, w4w, is a vulnerable and personal one while also being relatable and informative, as it explores the experience of living a “woman-centric queer existence.” Rose has chosen to delve into that through handwritten renderings of Craiglist “Missed Connections” from the site’s w4w (woman seeking woman) section. Rose writes of the queer woman experience as being a conflicting and often confusing one– it is isolating, and you manage to be put in the spotlight and disregarded at the same time. As queer spaces are often very heavily male, that can inevitably mean queer women aren’t considered or catered to, and often encounter misogyny. A show which seeks to shine a light on the difficulties queer women face, even within queer communities, occurs on the heels of the widely-shared longform Huffington Post piece “The Epidemic of Gay Loneliness,” perhaps offering a new and necessary perspective on the same themes.
Nandi Loaf, Pacifico Silano (image courtesy of Erin Davis and Max C Lee)
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:
Opening Saturday March 18 at 630 Flushing Ave, 6 pm to 10 pm. On view through April 15.
If you took the time to count every “Re:” in the title of this exhibition opening Saturday, you might have noticed that there are nine, so this marks the ninth edition of the show. The rate at which “Re:” occurs again and again is rather impressive, as it means curators Erin Davis and Max C Lee are assembling a new roster of artists and a new way to display work within the large Pfizer building on a very regular basis. However, this time they’ve enlisted the help of guest curators Alice Sparkly Kat and Patrick McNabb, who have elected to curate around themes of “sexuality, gender, queerness, and subculture,” particularly how these ideas are multifaceted and often impact each other. In addition to a wide variety of visual artists, Saturday’s opening will also feature a performance by “trans wave” band Deadname and issues of Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez’s Newspaper, a revival of Steve Lawrence’s 1969 publication of the same name, with 50 percent of proceeds from papers sold going to the ACLU.