33 Contemporary Gallery’s current online Artsy exhibition explores the human body in a state of struggle. The exhibition, entitled Exertion, is curated by noted figurative artist Daniel Maidman. In it, humans strain against themselves, the environment, or one another. 
John Hyland, Spidey’s Dance: Saint Vitus, the Patron Saint of Dancers, oil and pencil on canvas, 14 x 11”
Maidman says his impetus for the show started with storytelling. “Conflict is the root of stories, and conflict plays out as struggle,” he says. “To struggle, one must exert—the protagonist and the antagonist exist in a state of exertion. I wanted to see work that embraced exertion, that foregrounded the human experience of drama.”
John Hyland’s painting, Saints Like Us, features Cisco Graciano, former principal dancer with Paul Taylor Dance Company, as Saint Vitus. Vitus is the patron saint of dancers and of epilepsy. In Hyland’s painting, Graciano twists limbs and hands in a tortured yet elegant pose. Hyland says the gestures reminded him of “a youthful, energetic Spider-Man.” 
Daniel Maidman, Rowan, graphite and Prismacolor pencil on Rives BFK Tan Heavyweight printmaking paper,
15 x 11" (This work is not part of the exhibition.)
“This painting, with its sense of exuberance amid dark and gothic overtones, is a paean to [Vitus’] life and an attempt to reclaim his dance as a positive expression of childhood,” Hyland says.
Back down on Earth, Lorena Lepori’s Periodt finds a woman wrestling with herself. Weeping, a tattoo artist exes out the word “Love” emblazoned on her neck. The painting’s title suggests this is the end of the woman’s belief in love. Her heart has been broken too many times. About her work, Lepori has said she plays with archetypes, stereotypes and personal memories and translates them into contemporary scenarios. 
Amy Gibson, Current State Of Affairs: It’s Got Electrolytes, oil on cradled wood panel, 24 x 18"
Patricia Schappler’s figure prepares to do battle with someone else. Though he is ready for the fight, his posture and facial expression are defensive and reluctant. This is not a person squaring off with the world in an aggressive stance. Rather, as the flowered vines hint, there is a softness to his soul. He practices the moves that will keep him safe, but his heart lies elsewhere. Schappler says she seeks to paint “oppositional but essential partnerships” such as the fragility and strength shown here. 
Patricia Schappler, The Practitioner, oil on cradled board, 24 x 18"
Amy Gibson’s Current State of Affairs: It’s Got Electrolytes, offers layers of symbolism, humor and pathos. A girl half-hidden in her overly large red turtleneck holds out a small cactus plant. Maybe she’s at a Home Depot with her parents. She’s as guarded as the prickly plant.
Gibson says her current paintings explore “the human condition and how we are perceiving, interacting, and dissociating with reality.”
Lorena Lepori, Periodt, oil on canvas, 31½ x 23 3/5"
“My paintings convey an overall feeling of equity and offer up a deeper, more connective understanding of life, the way we view our world including the parts we cannot see,” Gibson says.
Whether struggling to communicate, to quell an inner demon, or to defend one’s soft heart in a hard world, the figures in Exertion expand and contract in the most human of ways. —
www.artsy.net/viewing-room/33-contemporary-e-x-e-r-t-i-o-n
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