Project For Empty Space is excited to announce the opening of Phase One of GRAB BACK: PES Feminist Incubator Space + Lounge on Wednesday, January 18th, from 6-8 PM at the Project For Empty Space gallery in Newark, NJ. Phase One will feature two concurrent topical artist projects by Angela Fraleigh and Michele Pred, which will be on view through February 18th.

Angela Fraleigh’s project one by one they have vanished in the blank behind their names addresses the historical erasure or dismissal of the female voice. Some of the selected large scale paintings highlight female figures who have long been thought of as passive or ancillary. In revisioning these characters as the foremost subject, Fraleigh gives them a voice and reconfigures the idea of narrative and female agency. Fraleigh’s other works, which feature fighting animals, are a more obvious homage to the larger idea of GRAB BACK; swathed in heavy saturated colors and rich with aggressive tension, these pieces were selected to inspire and rally people to fight against patriarchy.

Michele Pred’s project Wage Gaps highlights the continued inequities in the valuation of women in America. Pred shares with the audience the wide spectrum of wage inequality across racial groups, an element that furthers the discourse around intersectional feminism and the rampant gender-based racism that still exists today. Through a series of literature, discussions, and an installation of Pred’s trademark statement Pred-a-Porter purses, this project is both an exposé and a call to action.