Pentimenti Gallery is pleased to introduce the curatorial talents of Catherine Haggarty in this summer exhibition titled One to the Next. This group exhibition demonstrates a deep understanding of the interconnection between nature, materiality, form, storytelling, people, and culture.

Since 2017 I have had the great pleasure of co-founding and directing The New York City Crit Club. At first, it began with two young women teaching a class collaboratively. This one class turned to 4 then to 6 and then to 15. Seven years later after a global pandemic turned us all inward - our world opened up creating the possibility to connect with artists all over the globe. When I was asked to curate this show and consider some memorable and important NYC Crit Club Artists to select for this show: One to the Next, it caused a pause simply because of the incredible amount of artists I’ve been inspired to work with.

My selection of Heather Drayzen, Zella Vanié, Raymond Hwang, Karen Rosenkrantz, Kate Sherman, Judy Riola, Cate Holt, and Kyong Kim came to be for their voices and endurance shining through time and obstacles. All these artists have been showing up for their work and their peer group in tremendous ways. Navigating all the decisions and trials that artists must do to find a personal language in their materiality and process.

Zella Vanié’s figurative work inspires us to see humans more clearly. Vanié paints with confidence and joy - their figures are staring back at us, aware of us but also self-satisfied as if to help us feel the same way. Karen Rosenkrantz’s drawings confuse space and time with fractured vantage points and complex mark making creating movement and challenging traditional pictorial logic. Kate Sherman’s idiosyncratic abstraction builds a psychological landscape conjured only through work that seems both knowing and automatic. Sherman’s work speaks to how abstract language really is - there is no one way to read this work, and that seems to be the point. In conversation with this openness is the ceramic wall relief work of Kyong Kim. Hanging from the wall - Kim’s work feels like a short story in form referencing symbols that feel functional but then just as soon - push back against the utilitarian.

Heather Drayzen’s work seems effortless as she portrays portraits of people she loves on ad hoc materials with refined materials with confidence and attention. In conversation with Bonnard and many great artists, Drayzen paints what she loves, sees, lives with and the work seems to tell us to pay attention, slow down and love more deeply.

Raymond Hwang’s abstraction refers to animals, divinity, power, fire, and play - most importantly, Raymond’s work suspends time. In another kind of painting language, Cate Holt does the same and makes us all consider hierarchies, materials, and rhythm in her assemblages. In addition to this contemplative state Holt’s work is also clearly full of joy which confronts the viewer immediately. In conversation with Raymond and Cate - are the paintings of Judy Riola. Judy’s work presents to us impossible relationships that only a brave imagination, a quick hand, and a love of painting can do. Patterns repeat, break down, eyes float around the picture plane, and the landscape is turned upside down - Riola’s work is absurd and future tense.

Traversing mark making as form, bodies as vessels, nature as sublime these 8 artists answer the call of ‘what matters most’ in their truest form. The outcome of these many processes may result in assemblage paintings, ceramic relief sculptures, drawings on paper or board, and pigment on canvas. The pluralistic nature of the outcomes reflects the potential of art today. Not interested in telling one story, all these artists are tapping into their landscape, their home, their culture, and their person. This results in incredibly specific yet open work asking us to understand one artist at a time… and then to the next.”

(Catherine Haggarty, curator)

Heather Drayzen earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, and her MAT from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. She exhibited with Thierry Goldberg, New York, NY; Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, MA; Moravian University’s Payne Gallery, Bethlehem, PA; Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY; and more. Her work is featured in ArtMaze Magazine and more.

Cate Holt earned her BFA from The Hartford Art School, Hartford, CT. She exhibited with M. David & Co Gallery, Brooklyn NY; Galerija Umjetnina, Split, Croatia; Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY; and more. She was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Fellowship and the Henrick Mayer Prize.

Raymond Hwang earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. He exhibited with LaiSun Keane Gallery, Boston, MA; LaiSun Keane Gallery, Palm Springs, CA; Latitude Gallery, New York City, NY; and more. He was awarded the Jeanne Ward Foundation Art Grant, San Marino, CA, and the Fine and Commercial Art Scholarship, Pasadena, CA.

Kyong Kim earned her BFA from Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea, and her M Arch from Columbia University, New York, NY. She exhibited with Latitude Gallery, New York, NY; Perigee Gallery, Seoul, South Korea; and more. She has been published in Temperature and GRAPHIC magazine.

Judy Riola earned her BFA from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY. She exhibited with Mitchell Gallery, Englewood, FL; Garage Gallery, Beacon, NY; Michele Mercaldo, Boston, MA; and more. Her works are in the collections of Boston Medical Center, Bank of America, Jack Morton Worldwide, and more.

Karen Rosenkrantz earned her BA from Harvard and received a Studio Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She exhibited with Steven Jupiter Gallery, Middlebury, VT; Visions West Contemporary, Bozeman, MT, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island, NY; and more. She is published in Jackson Hole News and Guide and Seven Days Vermont.

Kate Sherman earned her BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited with O’Flaherty’s, New York, NY; Paradice Palase, Brooklyn NY; Dekalb Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and more. She was published in Hyperallergic and more.

Zella Vanié earned their BS from St. John’s University, New York, NY, and their MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. They exhibited at Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ; Carrie Able Gallery, New York, NY; The Other Art Fair, New York, NY; and more. They are the recipient of The Other Art Fair New Futures Program, New York, NY; and the Flux Factory exhibition grant, New York, NY.