Friedrichs Pontone is delighted to present Weaving Narratives, a group exhibition in celebration of Women’s History Month 2025.
Weaving Narratives brings together eleven artists, highlighting their artistic similarities and examining their differences. Each artist works to portray their own observations, personal experiences, and insights, metaphorically ‘weaving’ their narratives together. The presentation is heavily rooted in identity; while some works directly engage with gender, race, and class, others are more personally understated and reflective. Uniting all in their individuality, Weaving Narratives establishes a dynamic joining of varying mediums and colors, along with unique methods of symbolism and messaging.
Ellen Lesperance contextualizes Feminist movements in their immediate sense. Relying on the visual nature of garment patterns both physically and metaphorically, Lesperance’s work dives deep into the documentational setting of Feminist activism. Reminiscent of the Pattern and Decoration movement, her literal titles reveal her engaged exploration of historical knitting, patterning, and fiber work. Similarly reclaiming the concept of ‘women’s work,’ L’Merchie Frazier communicates histories of racial and gender marginalization. Using intricate quilting techniques, Frazier reflects on concepts such as community, identity, and the exclusive nature of American history.
Rather than reminiscing on the past, Gretchen Andrew robustly confronts technology of the 21st century. Andrew previously worked in Silicon Valley, which served as a catalyst for her development as an artist. Harnessing the use of unconventional materials, Andrew alters images prompted by Artificial Intelligence by applying paint, revising the computer-driven outputs. Andrew’s artistic commentary on digital culture effectively critiques the prolonged impact of technology, celebrity, and consumerism.
Henni Alftan, infatuated with the processes of pictorial representation, explores the relationship between photographic image capturing and traditional painting. Preserving ambiguity, Alftan contorts viewer perception through her framing of color, line, and subject. Alftan’s academic approach to oil painting results in delicate, circumstantial portrayals, with deliberate materiality. In parallel with Alftan’s equivocal liking, Lily Stockman employs colorful abstraction to support her depictions of broader landscapes and environments. Influenced by classic novels, writings, and architecture, Stockman combines minimalist aesthetics with contemporary methods.
Works by both LaKela Brown and Sheree Houvsepian present artifactual qualities, such as found objects, collage, and symbols in their construction. Brown, greatly influenced by African American hip-hop culture, exploits the physicality of her materials in her anthropological approach reminiscent of Classical relief sculptures. Hovsepian’s collaging of print, string, and photogram similarly reflects Brown’s science-based perspective, and doing so results in her geometric compositions.
Julia Rommel displays meticulous, fragmented abstraction. Rommel balances layering and withdrawal, allowing her work small suggestions of imperfection, perhaps revealing her hand. This exaggerates humility in the viewer while showcasing personality in her paintings. Turning to historic abstraction, Grace Hartigan’s work blends color, texture, and movement, which established her as a prominent Abstract Expressionist. After her early success in 1950s New York City, Hartigan began experimenting with watercolor collages, creating tactile compositions. These works commonly featured found objects, such as newspaper clippings and cardboard scraps.
Embracing anticipation and passage, Dana Powell paints simplistic moments as if they were suspended in time. Powell’s work portrays an essence of polarity, as the quiet moments evoke both uncertainty and peace. Ambient light commonly adds to the scenes, bringing forth nature of power and factuality. Between still lifes of tranquil landscapes of her Midwestern hometown, Powell emphasizes the small moments of beauty in life.
Andrea Joyce Heimer’s paintings are rich in narrative, and are considered personal anecdotes. In conjunction with her poetic, extensive titles, Heimer adorns her canvases with evocative figures, landscapes, and architecture. As a child of adoption, the artist works to both assemble and deconstruct challenges with identity, loneliness, and being.
Unifying all eleven artists, Weaving Narratives demonstrates the impact of storytelling through art. A common theme among the works, identity, is addressed through a range of approaches. Creating a shared space with dialogue, the exhibition invites viewers to explore the multifaceted methods of storytelling and expression.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
- ARTISTS: Henni Alftan, Gretchen Andrew, LaKela Brown, L’Merchie Frazier, Grace Hartigan, Andrea Joyce Heimer, Sheree Hovsepian, Ellen Lesperance, Dana Powell, Julia Rommel, Lily Stockman
- GALLERY: Friedrichs Pontone
- DATES: 7 March - 30 March 2025
- LOCATION: 273 Church St, New York, NY, 10013
