Elizabeth Glaessner, Asami Shoji, Oda Iselin Sønderland’s works merge worlds into worlds at François Ghebaly’s NY gallery.
Image courtesy of François Ghebaly
text by Maisie McDermid
Elizabeth Glaessner, Asami Shoji, and Oda Iselin Sønderland paint oil and watercolor worlds that mix, melt, contrast, and collapse in on each other. Their painted characters – some hyper-detailed and some abstract – play within the many dimensions, contributing to a greater universe within François Ghebaly's NY gallery.
Glaessner's figures, blurred but defined, seep and crawl through moments in time. Asami's figures, expressive and exaggerated, behold Eros and Thanatos—instincts mingling between love and destruction. And Oda's figures, delicate and folk-like, wistfully gaze into other worlds within their worlds. Common among all paintings are their living dichotomies—blurred definitions, battling instincts, and coexisting timespans.
Having recently appeared at François Ghebaly's LA gallery, Brooklyn-based artist Elizabeth Glaessner (b. 1984, Palo Alto, USA) is showing at the NY space for the first time. Glaessner embraces spontaneity in her vibrant and surreal painted scenes. Often beginning by pouring preliminary colors on a flat surface, Glaessner welcomes abstract shapes and unpredictable foundations for her works. Within such undefined spaces, she also masterfully constructs certainties, opening room for somewhat grounded interpretations.
Asami Shoji (b. 1988, Fukushima, Japan), widely showcased in Japan, makes a notable visit to the states in François Ghebaly's contemporary exhibition. Her art, rising from interactions between conflicted emotion and unconscious drive, has been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kanagawa; Ashikaga Museum of Art, Tochigi; Kurume City Art Museum, Fukuoka; and the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo.
Oda Iselin Sønderland (b. 1996, Oslo, Norway), crafting traditional yet curiously exaggerated, watercolor-painted stories, received her BA from The National Academy of Art in Oslo and an MA in painting from The Royal College of Art in London. Her characters, reminiscent of Japanese anime illustration, traverse through Sønderland's recurring themes of adolescence, embodiment, dreams, and the natural world.
All paintings, on consignment from the artists directly, are having their first showings at François Ghebaly. Associate director and curator Wesley Hardin wanted to find three artists who would open an interesting conversation across continents, age ranges, career ranges, and time spans. "All the paintings pull from different spots—some of them historically, others, just quite literally, in terms of subject matter," Hardin said. "Counterpoint is really important when you're showing art; it's like tension and release. It's what makes some music very beautiful."
François Ghebaly’s gallery, minimalist and quiet, contrasts the Lower East Side's nearby buzzing Grand Street. "It's a curious space; it's sort of shaped like a chapel," said Hardin. Gesturing towards the gallery's quirks and tendencies with its sight lines and points of emphasis, he spoke through the works' intentional placements, beginning with the first wall one sees when walking into the space. "In our imaginary chapel, it's where the climax is—the big crucifix or something." This wall holds the exhibition's largest painting—Shoji's 25.2.8. An almost translucent figure spreads its thin wings over a hidden face with another face, held in the palm of a hand, to its right. Hardin described Shoji's subtractive technique; while a lot of paint exists on the surface, images or figures are often made by removing painting and creating a lacuna shaped like the image or figure, the rib cage, or the form. "She also balances between a kind of abstraction and clearer figurative presentation. She's kind of playing around; I mean, they're all playing in their own sense."
Hardin continued with the wall near the window—a wall made vertical from the way in which a nearby column limits its width. There, another Shoji hangs. 25.1.19, much like 25.2.8, embodies faces simultaneously fading into and emerging from their backgrounds.
Glaessner's Going Under and Sønderland's Spire hang on the gallery’s long walls. "These walls can really handle ellipses of paintings, like a series of punctuations in smaller formats." Without a frame, the side of Going Under reveals its many layers—surprising oranges and reds in a painting which, from the front, appears to be only made from mixtures of green, white, and black. Sønderland's framed Spire contrasts Glaessner's frameless work, and its fine details contrast Glaessner's soft, in-motion brush strokes. As one leans closer into Sønderland's frame, one sees not only a leaf but a leaf's veins, not only a head of hair but a head of hundreds of hair strands.
The final three works – Glaessner's Big Head, Sønderland's Linse, and Shoji's 25.1.18 – push and pull through Hardin's intended tensions and releases. Glaessner's loose figures, Sønderland's intricate clues, and Shoji's symbols and expressions which emerge somewhere in-between. While not hanging amongst the other works in the central space, Shoji's 25.1.18 holds a mini room of its own in the gallery's nook behind the central wall. "Her paintings out there are darker, muddier, and more complicated. This one is a little quieter," Hardin said.
Tucked between two narrow walls, Shoji's 25.1.18 draws visitors to the back corners of the exhibition—a hushed moment to sit with the collection of worldly interactions.
Elizabeth Glaessner, Asami Shoji, and Oda Iselin Sønderland’s works will be on display at François Ghebaly until April 26, 2025.