Dacia Gallery | 3/1-3/31 | New York, NY

A Celebration of Women Artists

New York’s Dacia Gallery hosts its annual exhibition of exceptional women artists

Lee Vasu has been hosting an annual juried exhibition of exceptional women artists at Dacia Gallery in New York’s East Village for 10 years now. This year’s show will feature an eclectic group of 14 artists who have impressively demonstrated their life-long study of anatomy, depth, color, light and unique vision.

Among those women celebrated are renowned representational artists Paige Bradley and Erin Anderson, classically-influenced Nancy France-Vaz, and rising stars Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings and Sherri Wolfgang.

Sherri Wolfgang was juried in for her jubilant piece, Taking Flight, part of a new series called Grounded/Ungrounded, which speaks to the tumultuous effects of the pandemic on the typical experience of an early 20-something.Sherri Wolfgang, Taking Flight, oil on Linen, 42 x 54"“From 2020 to 2022, nearly every area of these young adults’ lives has been ungrounded, upended and rearranged, from their experiences of finishing college, to maintaining friendships and relationships, to starting their careers,” Wolfgang says. “Rather than crystalizing their understanding of themselves and the world around them, this generation finds itself yearning for any sense of normalcy and stability.”

Wolfgang seeks to capture the not-so-normal experience of becoming an adult in the 21st century through portraits of five 22-year-old women. Emphasizing the duality of being grounded and ungrounded, her new series attempts to showcase the resiliency of a generation denied a typical coming of age.

Paige Bradley’s sculpture La Niña is about setting forces into motion, but not fully anticipating the consequences or repercussions until it’s too late. “This artwork is about taking off our blinders and having a 360 degree compassion for others,” she says, “[Women] are natural gatherers and child protectors due to the biological fact that our eyes have more rods than cones, thus more peripheral eyesight than the male eye. On the other hand, our constant caring for everyone but ourselves has set us back generations. But ignoring this power of caring will only result in devastation of innocents. ‘La Niña' means little girl, but she ends up being a force of unexpected power and global change.”Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings, If Alex were Queen of Hearts for a Day, oil on lead primed aluminum panel,12 x 16"Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings created her piece If Alex Were Queen of Hearts for a Day specifically with this exhibit in mind. “Women have a different story to tell than men,” she says. “Alex in Wonderland” is an autobiographical series she is currently working on which explores her own life through the lens of Alice’s first tumble into the rabbit hole.

“In a world plagued with sobering facts, we continue to dream,” the artist continues. “This painting asks ‘What if? What if I were Queen of Hearts for a day?’ If I can paint it, I can become it…Like Alice, Alex is the protagonist and unlike her counterparts in other fairy tales, she is her own hero. Alex doesn’t depend on a man, or any other character to save her—she is her own heroine.”

Nanci France-Vas considers herself a “modern Renaissance painter” and figurative storyteller. Her exquisite portraits, like show piece Freebird, aim to “express the human condition of strong women from past myths, poems and classic tales using contemporary concepts and subjects.”Paige Bradley, La Niña, bronze, 27 x 11 x 11½"“It’s important to me as a father and an artist to share with my daughters what artists are working on today and for them to be involved in a cultural atmosphere,” says gallery owner, Lee Vasu, father of a near-toddler and a creative six year old. “It will inspire them to great things by seeing what other women artists are able to do. I think it’s vitally important for galleries to recognize women artists and exhibit their achievements in art. This exhibition is dedicated to the spirit of all women artists.”