(MOSTLY) WOMEN (MOSTLY) ABSTRACT PT. II
40 Great Jones Street | New York, NY
September 8 – October 20, 2023
(MOSTLY) WOMEN (MOSTLY) ABSTRACT PT. II
Eric Firestone Gallery is pleased to announce the second iteration of "(Mostly) Women (Mostly) Abstract," a sweeping two-part exhibition across its East Hampton and New York City locations with a cross-generational group of artists. The exhibition focuses on abstraction and represents aesthetic conversations over time between contemporary artists and represented gallery artists and estates.
Trudy Benson
Fidget, 2023
acrylic and oil on canvas
54h x 56w in
137.16h x 142.24w cm
TBENS001
(Mostly) Women (Mostly) Abstract shows how content is embedded in abstraction. The work on view reflects multiculturalism, daily life, and domesticity, and employs references to sound, language, and place. The exhibition showcases artists who haven’t always operated in the center of the art world, but who charted a deeply personal path, and utilized experimental techniques, materials, and processes.
In broad terms, the exhibition considers the condition of “otherness” as manifest in abstraction, in terms of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation. The exhibition reflects Eric Firestone Gallery’s central mission: to examine the ever-expanding canon of Post-War painting and sculpture in New York.
Helen Oji
Whirlwind, 1982
acrylic, rhoplex, mixed media on folded paper
60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm
HOJI073
Several works in the exhibition reflect domesticity, craft traditions, and the decorative. Judy Pfaff, a pioneer of installation art since the 1970s, synthesizes sculpture, painting, and architecture into dynamic environments. Her work incorporates a host of materials, each chosen with careful intentionality. A major work from the late 1980s will be on view. Pfaff has said:
Most of the work I like has a funny kind of storytelling. One’s life is in it: including the cleaning, the cooking, the child-caring. The men I knew at Yale didn’t waste their time on silly things. I can, and I do—and that’s what I like in the work. Women are beginning to see that they can talk about themselves. Right now, that is available. It never used to be.
Jenny Snider
UNTITLED, 1971
acrylic on canvas
24h x 20w in
60.96h x 50.80w cm
JESN002
This tendency also manifests itself in the work of Jenny Snider (b. 1944), Tamara Gonzales (b.1969), Nina Yankowitz (b. 1946), and Toni Ross (b. 1957). Snider credits her involvement with second-wave feminism for expanding her understanding of art to include the handmade arts of daily life: sewing, quilting, folk, and outsider art. Textiles and nature often inspire Tamara Gonzoles’s works, while others are created through her own generative mark-making on paper or canvas. Over the last ten years Gonzales’s travels to Peru, and her visionary experiences and friendships with the Shipibo people have become a source of both inspiration and collaboration in her work.
The ceramic sculpture of Sana Musasama (b. 1957) is similarly informed by her global travels, and interests in women’s studies and indigenous artistic practices. For Musasama, clay was the geographical catalyst that first brought her to West Africa where she studied pottery with the Mende people in Sierra Leone. Later venturing to Japan, China, Cambodia, and South America, she continued her quest, expanding her interests to tribal adornment practices. She is challenged by issues concerning women’s safety, specifically rituals involving rites of passage and female chastity.
Pat Lipsky
Winter, 1971
acrylic on canvas
63 3/4h x 87 1/4w in
161.93h x 221.62w cm
PLIPS009
Sculptor Helen O’Leary (b. 1961) has described her work as reflecting a feminism that speaks to women’s resourcefulness and strength. Born and raised in Ireland, she, along with her mother and sister, farmed the land and managed the home after her father’s premature death. Her work stitches together hundreds of tiny pieces of wood, like sticks found on the land, to form works both monumental, yet also vulnerable and precarious.
Other work in the exhibition employs a softening and loosening of the grid and compositional structures that defined (and limited) modernist painting. This is visible in the stain paintings of Pat Lipsky (b. 1941) and the improvisational webs of Richard Tinkler (b. 1975).
Pat Passlof
Red Eye, 1959
oil on linen
42h x 35w in
106.68h x 88.90w cm
PASS014
Uday Dhar depicts abstracted flowers, which he describes as a metaphor for multiculturalism and gender fluidity. Because flowers have both male and female reproductive capacities and can be pollinated in a variety of ways, he sees them as emblematic of hybridity and related to his experience as an American artist of Indian descent. Similar concerns inflect the abstracted flowers of Vietnamese American painter Huê Thi Hoffmaster (b. 1982). Hoffmaster’s clustered lines also suggest calligraphic writing. Despina Stokou (b. 1978) combines text and dense layers of brushwork. She removes words from personal and political narratives, which then become layered on her canvases.
This exhibition also showcases several mid-century women abstractionists, including Pat Passlof (1928–2011) and mosaicist Jeanne Reynal (1903–83).
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Stuttering Affirmations no. 7, 2023
oil on canvas
46h x 66w in
116.84h x 167.64w cm
HUET002
Tamara Gonzalez
Arachnid Architecture, 2023
acrylic and pastel on canvas
40h x 35w in
101.60h x 88.90w cm
GONZ002
Sana Musasama
House Series #21, 2023
ceramic
22h x 9 1/2w x 10d in
55.88h x 24.13w x 25.40d cm
SM120
Jeanne Reynal
Young Friends, 1949
smalti and lapis, amethyst, quartz, citrine, obsidian or schorl, agate, and feldspar in cement on wood
19 3/4h x 15w x 1 7/8d in
50.17h x 38.10w x 4.76d cm
JREY024
Toni Ross
Stop Carrying Out Your Intentions And
Watch For My Signals, 2022
wool, jute netting
120h x 48w in
304.80h x 121.92w cm
ROSS002
Despina Stokou
My (Vienna) Story, 2023
oil and mixed media on linen
47h x 59w x 2d in
119.38h x 149.86w x 5.08d cm
DESP003
Reginald Madison
The Disappearance of the Magician, 2023
oil on canvas
45h x 80 1/2w in
114.30h x 204.47w cm
RMAD002
Ben Pritchard
Many Shapes, 2023
oil on canvas
16h x 12w x 1 1/8d in
40.64h x 30.48w x 2.86d cm
BEPR002
Martha Edelheit
Fishing for the Blue Moon, 1959
canvas, sheet metal, oil paint on Masonite
80h x 57w in
203.20h x 144.78w cm
MEDE044
Chris Martin
Seven Pointed Star for LA, 2020
acrylic on canvas
75h x 64w in
190.50h x 162.56w cm
CMART001
Judy Pfaff
La Calle, La Calle Vieja, 1990
painted wiggle board and steel, found objects, signage
56h x 156w x 62d in
142.24h x 396.24w x 157.48d cm
JPFA003
Trudy Benson
Fidget, 2023
acrylic and oil on canvas
54h x 56w in
137.16h x 142.24w cm
TBENS001
Helen Oji
Whirlwind, 1982
acrylic, rhoplex, mixed media on folded paper
60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm
HOJI073
Ted Gahl
Mom's Garden, 1990
acrylic, Moroccan pigments, chalk, colored pencil, and graphite on unprimed canvas
68h x 105 3/4w in
172.72h x 268.61w cm
TGAHL010
Pat Lipsky
Winter, 1971
acrylic on canvas
63 3/4h x 87 1/4w in
161.93h x 221.62w cm
PLIPS009
Joe Overstreet
Untitled, 1978
acrylic on canvas
72 1/2h x 96 1/2w x 1d in
184.15h x 245.11w x 2.54d cm
JOVE216
Huê Thi Hoffmaster
Stuttering Affirmations no. 7, 2023
oil on canvas
46h x 66w in
116.84h x 167.64w cm
HUET002
Tamara Gonzalez
Arachnid Architecture, 2023
acrylic and pastel on canvas
40h x 35w in
101.60h x 88.90w cm
GONZ002
Sana Musasama
House Series #21, 2023
ceramic
22h x 9 1/2w x 10d in
55.88h x 24.13w x 25.40d cm
SM120
Jeanne Reynal
Young Friends, 1949
smalti and lapis, amethyst, quartz, citrine, obsidian or schorl, agate, and feldspar in cement on wood
19 3/4h x 15w x 1 7/8d in
50.17h x 38.10w x 4.76d cm
JREY024
Toni Ross
Stop Carrying Out Your Intentions And
Watch For My Signals, 2022
wool, jute netting
120h x 48w in
304.80h x 121.92w cm
ROSS002
Despina Stokou
My (Vienna) Story, 2023
oil and mixed media on linen
47h x 59w x 2d in
119.38h x 149.86w x 5.08d cm
DESP003
Reginald Madison
The Disappearance of the Magician, 2023
oil on canvas
45h x 80 1/2w in
114.30h x 204.47w cm
RMAD002
Ben Pritchard
Many Shapes, 2023
oil on canvas
16h x 12w x 1 1/8d in
40.64h x 30.48w x 2.86d cm
BEPR002
Martha Edelheit
Fishing for the Blue Moon, 1959
canvas, sheet metal, oil paint on Masonite
80h x 57w in
203.20h x 144.78w cm
MEDE044
Chris Martin
Seven Pointed Star for LA, 2020
acrylic on canvas
75h x 64w in
190.50h x 162.56w cm
CMART001
Judy Pfaff
La Calle, La Calle Vieja, 1990
painted wiggle board and steel, found objects, signage
56h x 156w x 62d in
142.24h x 396.24w x 157.48d cm
JPFA003
Trudy Benson
Fidget, 2023
acrylic and oil on canvas
54h x 56w in
137.16h x 142.24w cm
TBENS001
Helen Oji
Whirlwind, 1982
acrylic, rhoplex, mixed media on folded paper
60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm
HOJI073
Ted Gahl
Mom's Garden, 1990
acrylic, Moroccan pigments, chalk, colored pencil, and graphite on unprimed canvas
68h x 105 3/4w in
172.72h x 268.61w cm
TGAHL010
Pat Lipsky
Winter, 1971
acrylic on canvas
63 3/4h x 87 1/4w in
161.93h x 221.62w cm
PLIPS009
Joe Overstreet
Untitled, 1978
acrylic on canvas
72 1/2h x 96 1/2w x 1d in
184.15h x 245.11w x 2.54d cm
JOVE216
(MOSTLY) WOMEN (MOSTLY) ABSTRACT PT. II
Is on view through October 20, 2023
Eric Firestone Gallery | 40 Great Jones Street, New York, NY
For further information and images, contact: press@ericfirestonegallery.com