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Opening tonight: Figure in the Field |
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| Please join me tonight at Morgan Lehman Gallery in Chelsea for the group exhibition Figure in the Field. Featuring artists Amy Applegate, Yeonji Chung, Dan Gausman, Christine Jung, Andris Kaļiņins, Amy MacKay, Claire Nicolet, Allegra Toran, and myself. Curated by Jan Dickey.
Thursday, January 6 – Saturday, February 21, 2026 Opening Reception: 6-8pm, Thursday, January 8th
Figure in the Field brings together nine artists at Morgan Lehman Gallery who explore the shifting boundary between presence and disappearance. A field, whether a physical landscape, a compositional ground, or a social or historical space, is an expanse where figures materialize before dissolving back into the environment they emerged from. Across painting and sculpture, the works in this exhibition trace the movement between distinction and absorption: how a form holds itself apart, how it is shaped by the space around it, and how it ultimately returns to the field that made it possible. |
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| I traveled to Santa Fe last month for the Artists Communities Alliance conference, and before settling into conference mode, I had thirty-six hours to explore the city. Visits to SITE SANTA FE, the International Folk Art Museum, and seeing my dear friends from Future Retrieval on view at Form + Concept were highlights.
SITE SANTA FE had long been on my list of art destinations, but the particular fortune of encountering Once Within a Time, curated by Cecilia Alemani, has left me still turning the work over in my mind. The exhibition felt immersive and surprising.
My first encounter was with Zhang Xu Zhan’s Compound Eyes of Tropical, an otherworldly stop-motion paper animation set to an intense, driving soundtrack of drums and bells. As an ancient fable unfolded, a creature shape-shifted in its attempt to outwit a hunter. The work was at once enchanting and nauseating as the action escalated. I loved it. |
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| Equally unexpected and delightful were Vladimir Nabokov’s exquisite drawings of butterfly wings. Yes, that Nabokov. Seeing these meticulous works, made as a kind of private devotion rather than professional ambition, fed directly into a larger feeling I was carrying last month: a desire to move further away from a screen-based life and back toward sustained looking. That this was simply his hobby made it all the more remarkable. When I returned home I saw the Post-it on my desk with his line, “Caress the divine details,” and the circle felt complete. |
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Helen Cordero’s Storyteller figurines were my favorite sculptures in the exhibition. With eyes closed and mouths open, these figures gather children all over their bodies, embodying the intergenerational transmission of knowledge through story. Beginning in 1964, Cordero worked within this traditional form but transformed it by shifting the storyteller’s gender; from the typical female figure to one based on her grandfather. Her words say it best: “To make good potteries, you have to do it the right way, the old way, and you have to have a special happy feeling inside. All my potteries come out of my heart. I talk to them. They’re my little people, not just pretty things that I make for money.”
I could go keep going but will restrain myself to these three highlights. |
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| | Currently on view: Amanda Valdez: Aftertouch |
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| Silent Shell, 2025 Embroidery, hand-dyed fabric, and canvas 46 x 42 inches |
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| | Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee
Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving came to me this fall during a Growth Planning Workshop facilitated by Corrina Peipon of Continuous Projects. In a conversation about right-sizing vision and goals for an art career, a fellow artist recommended it as we collectively questioned the deeply rooted belief that growth must always mean bigger, faster, and relentlessly upward. The book was recommended in that context, as a way to continue unpacking those assumptions.
What I appreciated most was Headlee’s clear, historically grounded argument that our current relationship to work is not innate, but constructed: shaped by the collision of Protestant Christian doctrine and the Industrial Revolution, and further accelerated by modern technology and optimization culture. She makes a compelling case that this system extracts our time and labor while leaving us impoverished in social connection, service, and hobbies. Importantly, this isn’t a doom-and-gloom book. Headlee balances critique with practical, humane steps for reclaiming time, attention, and energy, offering a path toward a more sustainable way of living and working. |
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| Wild Child, 7, 2019 Embroidery, gouache, and oil stick on mounted paper on canvas, 24 x 22 inches |
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