In this monthly roundup, we highlight five stellar exhibitions taking place in small and growing galleries around the world.
It is rare to discover a survey of contemporary painting as intriguing as Rolando Anselmi’s “About Painting” exhibition series. This year’s installment, “About Painting III,” features nine international artists, including Brazilian painter Ana Claudia Almeida and American artist Paul Rouphail, each presenting their distinctive approaches to the medium.
Among the selection of exceptional paintings, the “Oceanfront Property” series by the American painter Olivia Hill stands out. His series portrays a mixture of natural and imagined landscapes, subtly illustrating the human impact on nature. The dreamer of the Italian artist Andrea Respino Troubled Waters #5 e The warm currents (2023) draws viewers into a fluid and ethereal environment.
Throughout “About Painting III”, the artists always captivate us with their exploration of the mysterious. This is even evident in Rouphail’s still life Greenhouse flowers (2023), where he manipulates light, shadow and reflection to add a layer of depth and intrigue to the familiar image of flowers on a table.
London-based figurative painter Adam Baker explores the depths of self-discovery through his thoughtful subjects. His work, which often illustrates introspective male figures, is influenced by his travel experiences and his journey as a queer individual navigating the world. In her debut solo exhibition, “Passing through the Soft Storm,” Baker creates a space of open interpretation and reflection, inviting viewers to connect with the figures in her paintings.
The exhibition of 15 paintings is anchored in a deep longing for acceptance. A notable theme in Baker’s art is the exploration of queer identity in an often unaccommodating world for queer individuals. The artist symbolizes this through pigeons, creatures that thrive in a hostile environment, which reflects the resistance and the search for acceptance of the queer community, a motif particularly evident in Abominable affections (2023). Baker’s show examines masquerades and non-conformity, emphasizing the impact of being away from the environment and family relationships.
For more than a decade, Constanza Camilla Kramer Garfias has mastered jacquard weaving, a technique that dates back to the 15th century. Trained in textile design at Burg Giebichenstein University of Arts and Design in Saale, Germany, Kramer Garfias fuses concepts of industrial production with traditional craftsmanship in her “Autodrift” series. These textile works, centered on automobile racing and drifting, present subjects—mainly racing cars—in motion, reflecting the beauty and vitality of a high-speed moment.
“Eat. to sleep it drifts Repeat.” is a testament to Kramer Garfias’ innovative textile approach, where each piece tells a story of movement, color and texture. His fascination with drift racing culture stems from the idea that these races are “magical” performances. How viewer, following speeding cars with your eye is almost impossible, so Kramer Garfias felt compelled to capture these blurred movements. Works like lead / pursue (2023), depicting two cars mid-lap, captures the transient scenes of these races, conveying the sense of danger and wonder that first inspired Kramer Garfias to choose this unlikely subject.
Canadian artist Michael Batty’s current show “Tone Poem” reflects the decades the artist has spent studying color theory. These paintings, where blocks of solid color are arranged in a three-by-three rectangle, explore the similarities between color, pattern and language. Inspired by poetics, these arrangements use a finite number of colors to evoke visual experiences, both harmonious and discordant. Furthermore, the artist constructs these color palettes by adopting an improvisational approach, emphasizing their musical and literary foundations.
Batty refers to the “Tone Poems” series as “visual haikus,” designed to bring together disparate elements to convey deeper messages. Like haiku, Batty’s art is structured by strict design, but its emotional resonance or reach is not hindered by these limitations. Some paintings, like Tone Poem 13 (2018), illustrate sharp contrasts between bright colors, while others, such as Tone Poem 12 (2018), using soft tones, lead to a calmer visual experience. Throughout, the paintings are filled with not only a spectrum of colors but also a spectrum of emotions.
The German painter Gregor Gleiwitz is known for his large abstract canvases, characterized by wide fields of color. His paintings are distinguished by their richly textured, scratched, scraped and broken surfaces, each layer adding meaning to the work. To document the passage of time, Gleiwitz titles each piece with its completion date, offering a glimpse into the evolution of his artistic process.
For his current exhibit, “Sun Script,” Gleiwitz began by diving into his main subject: the sun. During sun-drenched country walks, he created watercolor sketches of the scenes he encountered. Back in his studio, he reimagined these sketches as large-scale oil paintings. Here, he transformed his initial impressions into complex compositions of tangled curves and vivid colors, each piece radiating with an intensity similar to the radiance of the sun.
For Gleiwitz, paintings are not just visual spectacles, but documentation of his experiences. As he paints, he tries to find a balance between the ordered and disordered perceptions of the world around him, drenched and distorted by sunlight.
