June 16 - August 10, 2023

Opening reception: June 16, 6-8 PM

The Missing Painter aims to recreate the gallery space into a collection of Portraiture and Still Life. Each piece holds a reference to these genres through practices whose intentionality is to produce objects inherently meant to operate within the functional realm. Through fragments of daily life objects, we aim to copy-cat painting’s tradition of immortalizing the subject through its representation. While we fail, we are forced to replicate, if not the subject’s material possessions, at least their dimensions. The sitter has vanished and everything aims to reconstitute its presence through a system of proportions; we have a body for which we knit and mold and a body that knits and molds. The closer we get to the physical actions the further we get from representation, creating a fragmented object that dwells within the sphere of “resemblance” and struggles to escape its intrinsic functionality. We are missing the painter and the painting and we are left with shallow appearances of the genre and its history.

This collaboration places at the center of the discussion the problem of the absence of the body, giving a common ground to construct–in a curatorial manner within the exhibition space— what could be conceptualized as the inside of a broken Still Life painting. The works appear in the space as replicas of everyday objects and by dwelling in their lack of functionality they rebuild purpose. The domestic aspect of the Still Life genre is accentuated by the knitted component and its reference in the ceramic. Patterns in books, web pages and magazines meant for domestic craft practices are here appropriated and serve as the departing scores. The act of knitting has a fundamental relation with the body of a wearer. With the absence of the wearer the objects in the show get fragmented and forced to reshape themselves as new bodies that occupy the gallery space.

Montserrat Albores Gleason (born in Mexico, lives and works in Mexico and New York) Formed as a visual artist and specialized in curatorial practice and fashion design Albores Gleason worked for years as an independent curator. In 2007 founded PTRA, originally a curatorial project that through the years evolved to a fashion creative entity dedicated to both the technical and creative construction of garments. Through PTRA Albores Gleason has delved into a creative space that dwells in the division line between Fashion and Art. Her work has been shown in both fashion and artistic contexts and it forms part of the collection of Museum at FIT.

New York-based artist Nicole Cherubini works largely in sculpture and mixed media. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, PA), the Jersey City Museum (Jersey City, NJ) and the Santa Monica Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions across the US and beyond. Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artforum, Art News, Bomb, Frieze Magazine, The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 1 – 6 pm, and by appointment.

For inquiries, please contact marisa@marisanewman.com