Castor Gallery is pleased to present “Last Night” a group show featuring Parker Day, Julia Fox & Leah Schrager. An opening reception will be held on January 6th from 6-9pm at the galleries lower east side location.

Parker Day is a Los Angeles based artist whose work explores identity and the masks we wear. Through costuming and exaggerated expressions, Day toys with the truth of who and what she portrays. “Through my photography I explore this idea of the invention of identity. I costume my subjects and craft narratives about the character they’re becoming. When they step outside of who they think they are, something more authentic comes through. It’s that presence of true emotion that I’m looking to capture in the trappings of a manufactured circumstance.”

Day deliberately eschews Photoshop in favor of in-camera capture on film. Lurid color bathes her work and heightens the surreality of her subjects while the grain and grit of the photographs make them palpably real. Despite it’s saturated hues and often humorous subjects, there’s a darkness and a gentle undercurrent of rage that permeates in the work. Parker Day’s most recent series of 100 portraits entitled Icons has been shown in group shows internationally. A book of the series will be released in February 2017. Day has received press from publications such as The New Yorker, Juxtapoz, Vice, i-D, and Dazed.

Deriving majority of her inspiration from the numerous colorful people she has encountered through her venturous life, Julia Fox was raised amongst the creative fixtures of New York City. Fox is both visitor and active participant in the lives of her subject-if only for a brief period of time. She examines the boundaries within this group, simultaneously looking from the outside in and vice versa as she lives among and relates to the individuals in her works, which she refers to as her co- collaborators. Fox studied at City-As-High School, an alternate learning establishment in New York City, notable alumni including Jean-Michel Basquiat. Her photography was recently featured in S Magazine (Issue 17); she has been featured in numerous publications including Elle, Dazed, i-D, & Purple. Fox also published and released Symptomatic of A Relationship Gone Sour: Heartburn/ Nausea at MoMA PS1 Book Fair, September 2015. Her first critically acclaimed solo exhibition, PTSD, was held at Magic Gallery, NYC, in May 2016; it's second iteration was held at 3125c gallery, Los Angeles, June 2016.

While most contemporary female artists ignore or critique the male gaze, NYC-based artist Leah Schrager embraces and explores it. Utilizing an open-minded approach to sexuality that fluidly includes its dynamics in her aesthetic investigations, Schrager has both a visual and a conceptual practice. Her visual work involves digitally painting on photographs of herself that are then printed for gallery display. Her conceptual work involves creating and propagating images of herself online in tandem with various "persona" projects. Both practices seek to examine the possibilities of female action and representation in today's society. In 2010 she founded a new form of therapy as Sarah White, The Naked Therapist, which proved seminal inspiration for her pro-arousal approach to art. She also co-curated the female-positive BodyAnxiety.com exhibition, which is featured in the April 2015 issue of Art Forum. After graduating in 2015 with an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons, The New School, she launched a celebrity-as-art-practice project called Ona, which will run until 2020. Making ONA a real world celebrity has so far included the creation and growth of her Instagram account, which has over 400k real followers, the release of her EP “Sex Rock” and numerous music videos. Prior shows include Johannes Vogt Gallery and Superchief.