2018
Young Artists: One
Presented with OpenArt
July 7 – September 9, 2020
Closing Reception
Wednesday, September 9, 2020, 6–9 pm
Live performances by Four (electronics) and Renaissance (vocals) at the top of every hour. Please RSVP to attend.
Please contact us to inquire about a work and/or make an appointment to see the exhibition in person.
+1 (646) 345-9831
Young Artists: One highlights the voices of a diverse group of modern and contemporary artists with a focus on their practices, aesthetics, and conceptual questions.
Navigate to works in the show by clicking on an artist's name below. Move the cursor over a caption to read more about the artist, and click on the image to zoom in.
Presenting artists

Born in New York City, Lucia Hierro explores the body as a collection of fragmented signifiers that includes language, taste, and culture across a broad platform of techniques such as digital media, collage, and felt constructions.
Lucia Hierro
BYOB: Retrato de la Artista Primavera 2020
2020
Raw canvas, foam, digital print on brushed suede
43" h x 33" w x 3" d


Nate Lewis explores history through patterns, textures, and rhythm. Formally trained as a critical-care nurse, Lewis creates a visual language reminiscent of medical diagnostics. His works explore the granularity of the photographic image while addressing the current political landscape.
Nate Lewis
Probing the Land 2 and 2.1
2019
Hand-sculpted inkjet print
26" h x 60" w

Born to a French father and American mother, Jerome Lagarrigue moved to the United States in 1992 and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1996. He has received several awards, including the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award and the Ezra Jack Keats Award (2002).
Jerome Lagarrigue
Besieged
2017
Oil on linen
72" h x 96" w
"Despite the commonly held myth of meritocracy in art, a deeply entrenched system of power and privilege exists, which values the creativity of some, while minimizing that of others."
Based in Baltimore, Amani Lewis works toward shifting the dominant narrative of the people in their city. Lewis begins each work with a photograph of a person, distorting and saturating the image to model an aesthetic akin to a topographical map or heat map.
Amani Lewis
DEV
2020
Acrylic, pastel, glitter and digital collage on canvas
56" h x 58" w
Original photo by Michael Evan Reilly.
Listen to Amani Lewis speak about their work in the exhibition
2:21


Born in New York City, Ana Benaroya graduated from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in Painting in 2019. Benaroya’s work employs vivid colors and satirical imagery to examine gender dynamics and representation.
Ana Benaroya
The Show Must Go On
2019
Spray paint, acrylic and oil paint on canvas
40" h x 48" w
Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice tends to the in-between, and those that know the trouble and pleasure there. She spent her most formative years in a constantly shifting landscape, thereby tethering her work to interests in multiplicity, belief systems, and bewilderment.
Amaryllis de Jesus Moleski
Glisteninglisteninglistening
2020
Watercolor, color pencil, graphite, gouache and airbrush on paper
30" h x 22.5" w


Gustavo Montoya was a Mexican artist considered to be a late adherent to the Mexican School of Painting, most often associated with Mexican muralism. His best-selling work was that of children in regional traditional Mexican clothing.
Gustavo Montoya
Niña a la matraca
1955
Oil on canvas
22" h x 17.5" w
Listen to curator James Bartlett speak about this work
0:38
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Sanié Bokhari graduated with an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2018. Bokhari’s paintings interrogate gendered assumptions and create a platform for cultural dialogue.
Sanié Bokhari
6 Bunkers
2020
Acrylic on canvas
48" h x 36" w
Listen to Sanié Bokhari speak about her work in the exhibition
1:17


Debra Cartwright paints the interior lives of black women from a voyeuristic perspective. Her work examines the threshold between personal and political circumstances and considers the possibilities of using rest as a means of rebellion against capitalistic racism, challenging traditional representations of black womanhood.
Debra Cartwright
Lillie's Old Room
2019
Oil on canvas
60" h x 48" w
Listen to Debra Cartwright speak about her work in the exhibition
1:17
"Young Artists: One is the first of a series of exhibitions to explore power and voice within the art world. This power is largely determined through systems of access and privilege that determine which artistic voices are heard and which are dismissed."
Sahana Ramakrishnan creates images that are complicated, dissonant, and abject in ways that open the heart and mind. She addresses issues related to the violent and shifting processes by which we form our cultural, gender, sexual, and human identities, taking inspiration from myths that prioritize spiritual and emotional experience over historical fact or rational thought.
Sahana Ramakrishnan
The Butterfly Woman
2020
Acrylic, sumi ink, gold leaf, rhinestones, color pencil, and oil pastel on paper
76" h x 45" w
Listen to Sahana Ramakrishnan speak about her work in the exhibition
0:49


Jamea Richmond-Edwards graduated from Howard University with an MFA in 2012. Her multi-media collages examine the nature of luxury and myth in relation to the portrayal of black women in popular media.
Jamea Richmond-Edwards
Water Ritual with Golden Serpent
2020
Ink, acrylic, graphite, markers, glitter, fabric and mixed media collage on canvas
72" h x 72" w
One of the major figures to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance, Jacob Lawrence drew inspiration from the African American experience, as well as historical and contemporary themes such as war, religion, and civil rights.
Jacob Lawrence
Brotherhood for Peace
1967
Lithograph in colors
Edition 247/300
20.5" h x 16.5" w
Listen to curator James Bartlett speak about this work
0:30


Working with intangible ideas such as the advancement of technology, the pervasive use of social media, and social injustice, Nanette Carter employs an abstract vocabulary of form, line, color, and texture to chronicle the issues of our time.
Nanette Carter
Cantilevered #53
2020
Oils on Mylar
32.5" h x 64.5" w
Listen to Nanette Carter speak about her work in the exhibition
2:04

Born in Cap-Haitien, Haiti and currently based in Brooklyn, Francks Deceus examines the immigrant’s constant struggle with identity and acceptance. He is particularly interested in the time period following major social events, crises, and upheaval, when humanity comes together regardless of ethnicity, gender, or class.
Francks Deceus
Mumbo Mumbo #2
2020
Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas
60" h x 48" w
Listen to Francks Deceus speak about his work in the exhibition
1:52
"Young Artists: One, highlights these global voices, with a focus on the practices, aesthetics, and conceptual questions of each individual artist."
Born and raised in Suriname, Remy Jungerman explores the intersection of pattern and symbol in Surinamese Maroon culture, the larger African Diaspora, and 20th Century Modernism. In bringing seemingly disparate visual languages into conversation, Jungerman’s work challenges the established art historical canon.
Remy Jungerman
Promise V
2019
Cotton textile, kaolin (pimba), yarn, nails, wood (yellow poplar, plywood)
92.5" h x 32" w x 32" d


Gumby graduated from of the Yale School of Art with an MFA in Painting and Printmaking in 2016. He has won notable awards such as the Austrian American Foundation/ Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts and the Robert Reed Memorial Scholarship.
Alteronce Gumby
Zahara
2019
Acrylic and glass on panel
24" h x 24" w
_2020.jpg)
Born in Philadelphia and based in Brooklyn, Jonathan Podwil is an American painter whose work blurs the line between the staged and the mundane, the violent and the everyday.
Jonathan Podwil
011917 (Protest VI)
2020
Oil on Canvas
18" h x 24" w
Listen to Jonathan Podwil speak about his work in the exhibition
1:13
Ambrose assembles large-scale collages by re-mixing paintings of faces, bodies, plants and animals with layers of found fabric and other materials. Drawing inspiration from dreams, Murray’s collages visualize the disjointed quality of memory as an imaginative form.
Ambrose
the space between
2020
Acrylic, paper and various textiles
96" h x 60" w


Amy Bravo is a Cuban/Italian American painter based in Brooklyn. Her large-scale works employ multiple layers of paint, graphite and other materials, creating fantastical scenes that examine the construction of cultural identity and empowerment.
Amy Bravo
Vamos a la Granja!
2019
Acrylic, graphite and mixed media on unstretched canvas
94" h x 105" w

Kelly Sinnapah Mary is interested in the processes of domination that affected thousands of men and women in the formation of Caribbean minority communities during the Indian Labour diaspora. Her work explores ideas of silence, seclusion, and identity reconstruction, primarily through the visual metaphor of hair braiding.
Kelly Sinnapah Mary
Untitled
2015
Ink on paper
24"h x 18"w
Responding to the legacy of European colonial rule in the African diaspora, Smith’s work considers imperialist practices of oppression, violence, and intergenerational trauma. He is interested in ritual and sacred practice rooted in African spiritual systems and how they are employed as coping mechanisms and tools for collective empowerment.
Nyugen Smith
Le Fleur Noir
2011
Oil stick, oil pastel, metallic marker, graphite, gesso watercolor, acrylic and ink on paper
30" h x 22" w

More works by Lorna Simpson

Lorna Simpson is an American artist best known for her black-and-white photographs and works on paper—both of which explore the interplay between historical memory, culture, and identity.
Lorna Simpson
Untitled
1995
Electrostatic heat transfer on felt
Edition 247/300
12" h x 15" w

Oswaldo Vigas was a Venezuelan artist, best known as a painter and muralist. His work was created between France and Venezuela, an original synthesis of the cultural roots of Latin American and the latest artistic currents of modernity.
Oswaldo Vigas
Untitled
1965
Oil on paper laid down to cardboard
26"h x 19"w
Suzanne Jackson is an American visual artist, gallery owner, poet, dancer, and set designer with a career spanning five decades. Her acrylic washes from the 1960s employ figurative idioms that influenced the development of an expressionist language often found in her later work.
Suzanne Jackson
Untitled (5)
c. early 1960s
Ink, crayon, graphite on paper
23.5" h x 15.5" w
_early%201960s.jpg)
"In the context of this series, the word ‘young’ does not refer to an artist’s age, but rather to the new ways in which artists are claiming their voice and proclaiming their existence in the art world."

Born in Haiti and later based in both Port-au-Prince and New York, Paul Gardère addressed the tensions inherent to “belonging” in paradoxical social spheres and “opposing” cultural groups, often juxtaposing Euro-American and Afro-Haitian imagery, refined and rustic materials, and representational and expressionistic painting styles.
Paul Gardère
Speak Destiny
2000
Acrylic, cement, glitter, and mixed media on wood
50" h x 64" w x 3" d

Tessa Mars is a Haitian visual artist living and working in Port-au-Prince. Her recent work explores the fabrication of identity through the lens of language and gender, examining how Haitian history, customs and rituals inform the expression of collective and individual identity.
Tessa Mars
Rêve de liberté
2016
Acrylic on canvas
50"h x 40"w
Amani Lewis graduated with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016.
Ambrose received her BA in African-American studies from Yale College in 2018.
Amani x Ambrose
THE CITY PLANNER
(Mark 4: 30-32)
2020
Acrylic, pastel, glitter, textile and digital collage on canvas
52" h x 52" w
Original photo by @thugm0m Amira.


Stan Squirewell examines the relativity of global indigenous geometric patterns, specifically West African Kente schema, as a possible progenitor of modern digital cultures. The vividly bold colors, precise hard lines, sequential rhythms and movements attest to the high intellectual capacity of those whom were called “Primitive.”
Stan Squirewell
Shekinah
2020
Mixed media collage with carved Shou Sugi Ban frame
49"h x 36.5"w
Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and was educated at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, from which he received a BFA, and an honorary doctorate (1999).
Kerry James Marshall
Keeping the Culture
2011
Color linoleum cut and screenprint on Arches
Edition 82/100
17.5" h x 28" w


Driven by a fascination with ancient mythologies and scientific theories, Sunstrum muses on the origins of time, geological concepts, and ideas about the universe. Her works on paper, large-scale installations, and stop-motion films are rooted in autobiography, addressing the development of transnational identities, human connections, and cross-border rituals.
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum
Parallel 01
2016
Mixed media on paper
28"h x 19"w
"OpenArt’s aim in organizing the exhibition along with Fridman Gallery, is to provide multiple entry points into the understanding, engagement, and appreciation of contemporary art."










