SHFAP presents a special six-day exhibition titled, I Don’t Go By That, showing four young artists, Natasha Wright, Noa Ginzburg, Talia Levitt, and Staver Klitgaard, who make their case for the messy vitality of New Painting, taking on predominantly cis-male painterly traditions.

Natasha Wright’s paintings buzz with creativity and feminine appropriation of ancient motifs. She paints in the scale of her own body; She touches all of the canvas, sometimes painting with her hands. Willendorf (Cardi) depicts a cherry-black aggressively painted femme icon. Wright showed at John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY this summer and will be having a solo show in New Zealand in October.

Talia Levitt’s paintings of sentimental objects and detritus narrate her experience in the studio, as well as engages with and pokes at the history of the still life in the European tradition. She uses trompe l’oeil rendering selectively in an effort to reinforce the thingness of the painting. Levitt spent this summer at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. She received a Kossak travel grant in 2017 to visit paintings in Madrid, London, and Paris. Her work is currently included in a group show: A Rose is a Rose is a Rose in Watermill, Long Island.

Noa Ginzburg’s sculpture and painting installation To sink, to heal, to sweeten the sea (after UKL, once again with feeling) is a spatial assemblage incorporating hand-made and repurposed materials. It explores perceptions of surfaces, using craft, light, and color functioning together in solidarity. Ginzburg has shown in solo, collective, and group exhibitions in Tel Aviv, Medellin, and New York. She was recently in a group show titled, Survey Dover Plains in Dover Plains, NY. Coming up for her in 2019 are exhibitions with PAD and Kunstraum Brooklyn Galleries in NYC.

Don’t Get Lost in Your Sadness by Staver Klitgaard, is a figure crossing a river of sunken heads. It is about dealing with humanity as well as sadness without getting lost in it. Klitgaard’s paintings were included in Dance with Me at Zurcher Gallery. Klitgaard and Levitt previously showed their work together at an exhibition titled, “It’s not me, it’s you” at the Hunter College Galleries in October 2018.

This exhibition is curated by Joachim Pissarro, a former thesis professor of Levitt, Ginzburg, and Klitgaard. Pissarro is an art historian and director of the Hunter College Galleries, and the Bershad Professor of Art History at Hunter College, CUNY. Since 2002, Pissarro has served as the Editorial Director of Wildenstein Publications. His latest book, authored with art critic David Carrier , is called Wild Art. Pissarro was a curator in the Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Painting and Sculpture from 2003 to 2007.

I Don’t Go By That will include an opening reception held on the 26th of August, from 6- 8pm. The artists will have a panel discussion, moderated by Joachim Pissarro on Wednesday, the 28th at 5pm. A Closing Karaoke party will be on Friday, the 30th of August at 6pm.