SUMMER SESSION
An annual show
Now open at Lyons Wier Gallery in New York City is Summer Session, an annual group show featuring top representational artists at the prominent gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
The show will feature new work from James Gortner, Kira Nam Greene, Laura Kennedy, Gerald Lovell, Luisi Mera, Louise LeBourgeois and others.
New York artist Sullivan Giles will be showing new work that arises out of a series of “confrontational and unapologetic self-portraits, mostly about radical vulnerability as a strength and my own rebellion against beauty standards.” The one that will likely have guests talking is Trust/Truth, a nude self-portrait of the artist at 32 years old. Though she
is nude, Giles is also covered in tattoos, which has a clothing-like appearance on her skin. She says, “I wanted to create a bold, unapologetic selfportrait. I wanted to take up space, lock eyes with the viewer, say, ‘Here I am. Can I trust you?’ That’s the Trust of it. The Truth of it is depicting myself as I am, imperfections, tattoos and all. It’s a view into how I represent and express my bodily autonomy, and how my life experiences inform my visual and emotional identity. The body modification in my work refers to how I’ve used tattoos and jewelry as a kind of psychic armor, like protective talismans.”
Asked about how she responds to her own body as subject, Giles says the choice to paint herself came easy. “It’s a vulnerable action to depict yourself nude in a painting, yes. Using my body as the
subject matter whether to talk about my identity, my experiences, the subcultures I relate to, radical vulnerability, the #MeToo movement or some other narrative, makes the most sense to me because it is my viewpoint and it is what I know. How else am I supposed to reclaim the gaze on my own body than to show you that this is my gaze? I don’t agonize over how to portray myself. I am myself. Here I am,” she says, adding that her tattoos are an extension of her body. “They are my skin, which when I paint self-portraits becomes an extension of the painting, sure. My collection of tattoos represents a tally of events, symbols, memories and time frames in my life. It’s also a way that I’ve been able to collect art from tattoo artists that I admire, most of whom I am lucky to call my friends.”
Chelsea Gibson will also be showing new work from a female perspective. “My recent work depicts women in upstate New York that live in the same part of the world that I do, and whom I admire and look to for guidance or inspiration,” Gibson says. “We get together and talk about life, family, relationships and they agree to let me take photographs while we talk. This keeps the images relatively casual and helps capture the spirit of the conversation and where we both are in our minds as we spend time together. They become capsules of memory for me of the conversations we had and where we were in our lives at that specific point in time.”
In one of her works, Kaima’s Living Room, she paints a yoga teacher in a magnificent room with wood floors, a colorful rug and a wood-burning stove. “She agreed to have me come to her house and photograph her while we sat and drank lavender tea and talked,” Gibson says. “As with all of my paintings, I know exactly what we spoke about during that meeting and remember the feeling of being together that day. That said, what exactly we spoke about doesn’t matter to the work as much as the feeling of closeness and really seeing one another, which I am lucky to say happens with all of the women I am painting at the moment.”
Other works in the show include Greene’s quiltlike patchwork of color Chloe and Tommy; Lovell’s work with areas of thick impasto paint, Jemel Campbell (in the neighborhood); and Kennedy’s bird paintings that extend past the panel and onto the frame. One piece tells a story in just the title: “Ernie naively hoped that if he could throw himself into this dynamic pose the colonisers would be forced to acknowledge his uniquely radiant splendor and might refrain from their invariable decimation.”
The show continues through August 17.