This year is special. While entering a new decade feels momentous in its own right, 2020 brings perhaps a far more monumental milestone. On June 4, 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and on August 18, 1920, the amendment was ratified. This summer, 100 years will have passed since women were granted the right to vote in this country, and while it’s been an uphill battle since then, the climate around notions of what women are capable of achieving has changed dramatically.
Rose Freymuth-Frazier, Girl Resting, oil on canvas, 28 x 48"
Gallery owner, artist and curator Marina Eliasi knows this well. Since 5 years old, she’s dreamed of opening an art gallery. This past summer, that dream came to fruition when she opened Stone Sparrow NYC alongside her husband, Udi. “I’ve always walked through art galleries as a kid,” she says, adding that her mother often brought her along on trips to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “For a while, Mary Cassatt was the only name I knew. I feel like there are all of these amazingly talented women who are missing in the world of art galleries.”
In a response to the mountains we’ve yet to climb in terms of recognizing women for their creative talents—as well as a pure celebration of those talents—Eliasi has curated a major exhibition highlighting the works of 30 contemporary female artists from around the world. “I wanted to do this during a time where people are really looking at women being celebrated,” says Eliasi. The exhibition, titled The Unseen, will be held March 4 to 31 during Women’s History Month. An opening reception takes place the first day from 6 to 9 p.m.
Michelle Avery Konczyk, Queen of the Forest, watercolor on paper, wood, varnish, 17¾ x 29"
Each artist in the exhibition has been asked to create something that shows a piece of their own personal story or an intimate observation that sheds light on an aspect being female. Among those whose work will be on view are American artists Rose Freymuth-Frazier, Michelle Avery Konczyk, Daniela Kovacic, Dorielle Caimi, Christina Duarte, Hallie Packard and Gigi Chen, as well as Julie Campbell of Belgium, Carolynda Macdonald of Scotland and Lisa Lach-Nielsen of Denmark, among others.
“Each person is coming at it with such emotion. I’m excited about putting it all together,” says Eliasi.
Rose Freymuth-Frazier, Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil (triptych), oil on canvas, 28 x 36" each
Freymuth-Frazier’s Girl Resting is charged with emotion and poignancy. A young woman lies on the floor, her bruised face turned toward the viewer in a vacant expression, as if she’s removed herself mentally and emotionally from the physical world. Painted a decade ago, this is the first time the piece has been exhibited in a gallery. “When it was completed I was a young female figurative artist, not commercially minded at all, just trying to paint sincerely from my own perspective and trusting that my voice might have relevance to others. I didn’t know it would take a decade for this work to see the light of day, but I should have guessed when the painting single-handedly scared off a very powerful art dealer, an older man, who came for a studio visit back then,” says Freymuth-Frazier. “Clearly, I wasn’t thinking about sales. I was feeling for a stylized presentation of the unthinkable, but with the title I wanted to present a sense of hope. She is beaten and bruised; she is down, but she’s not out. It is the depiction of the darkest moments just before the light returns. It’s a reminder that this is not the end. She will regain her strength and prevail.”
Daniela Kovacic, The Knowledge, oil on canvas, 60 x 48"
Eliasi echoes Freymuth-Frazier’s sentiments regarding the approach she took with the content of her paintings when she first started out—this attitude of creating whatever felt important to her, rather than concerning herself with commercial success. “I love her more risk-taking pieces. They seem to come from a more genuine place...They talk about physical and mental abuse, but the expressions on the girls’ faces are so strong. They’ve come out on the other side...Even if someone may not want to live with that in their living room, I think they’re such important pieces to display...To see that women can make it out on the other side,” says Eliasi. Although nowadays Freymuth-Frazier approaches her work in a more practical way, art still has immense value for her. “What art means to me has changed so much over the years. Now it is a lifeboat, something stable to hang onto. I used to resent the mundane and tedious aspects of painting, but now I cherish the consistency of the practice,” says the artist.
Dorielle Caimi, Scapegoat, oil on canvas, 60 x 40"
Another piece by Freymuth-Frazier in the show, a triptych titled Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil, is based on the proverb of the “three wise monkeys,” she explains. “There are numerous meanings attributed to them, but I was interested in a Western interpretation of the refusal of moral responsibility, turning a blind eye to those in need. Each of these women could be seen as a victim of some kind of brutality or humiliation, but an internal strength neutralizes that position. They are strong even during great tribulation.”
Caimi’s paintings blend figurative realism and abstraction to explore societal ideas about women. Setting themselves apart with their vivid color palettes and eccentric subject matter portrayed in often dreamlike scenarios, they illuminate the world through Caimi’s gaze. “When I painted Scapegoat, I was in a place of feverishly trying to take my place in my own life without fear of blame for my efforts. As with most of my paintings, the ideas for the works come from a deeper and more personal place, and if I’m lucky, the work resonates with the deeper and more personal places in others. I censored the figure to illustrate just how silly we are for blocking parts of the human body to ‘protect it,’” says Caimi. In Scapegoat, a woman unashamedly faces toward us, her shoulders set back and her posture straight. “Women experience a higher percentage of body censorship and, ironically, we also are more likely to have our bodies singularly objectified, and aggressively so,” Caimi continues. “Yet, throughout the ages of oppression, silencing, being deeply and biblically blamed for the state of humanity, enduring body shame for not meeting the standards of the optical pleasure of others, women have risen, bore children, comforted, healed, forgiven and persevered. This painting is an anthem of resolute and stubborn ‘being-ness.’”
Shana Levenson, Burst, oil on dibond, 20 x 16"
Queen of the Forest by Konczyk also employs a sense of surrealism. Riddled with metaphor, the piece depicts disembodied hands, heads and eyes, which are attached to vines that appear as though they’re spying on the subject. “I just feel like this is a portrait of a woman, a mother, a career person, a wife”, says Eliasi, “being pulled in all different directions, judged by different people...This is how it reads to me, and I find it to be very powerful in that way.”
Residing in the Netherlands is Francien Krieg, who is known for celebrating the older woman. Eliasi explains that the artist recently completed a series called Precious Bodies, which explores this very subject. “Older females are really not something you see discussed as beautiful, but they are,” says Eliasi. She elaborates on her vision for the exhibition as a whole, “I wanted to show art from the female perspective, by a female hand, which looks different than when a man looks at a woman. He isn’t seeing what she sees.”
Teagan McLarnan, Becoming Mother, egg tempera on panel, 39 x 27"
In total, there will be around 80 pieces exhibited in a 1,300-square-foot gallery space. Eliasi says she hopes two things happen for viewers when experiencing the show: one, that they’ll find themselves awestruck at just how many pieces are packed into this relatively small space, and two, “That they’ll see that every one of them is by a female artist. From conception to fruition. The realization that most exhibits you see are all men, and that these women for the most part have not been shown on this elevated platform,” says Eliasi. “The overall effect is going to be something really great.” —
The Unseen
When: March 4-31, 2020
Where: Stone Sparrow NYC, 45 Greenwich Avenue, New York, NY 10014
Information: (646) 449-8004, www.stonesparrownyc.com
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