5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries This March
In this monthly roundup, we shine the spotlight on five stellar exhibitions taking place at small and rising galleries worldwide.
Though he first trained as a sculptor, Thai artist Pawarest (Doe) Choksaen worked full-time as an art director at an advertising agency from 1997 to 2019. It was only at the age of 49 that the artist decided to pursue his art full-time. Today, with his solo exhibition at Richard Koh Fine Art, Choksaen presents a series of figurative paintings in “Conversations with Strangers,” where he employs a palette of electrifying hues to illustrate fleeting, often overlooked moments of connection with others. Drawing inspiration from his Bangkok community, his works are often quiet scenes of small groups or a single subject, like The Breakfast (2023), depicting older ladies sitting for a meal against a reddish backdrop. With these dreamlike purples, reds, and blues, Choksaen captures the essence of Thai life while also highlighting the universal human experience of connecting with others.
Born and raised in Japan and later immersed in the Western conceptual art scene, Nishiki Sugawara-Beda experiments with ancient Japanese materials and techniques, including Sumi ink, Kakejiku landscapes, and rice paper. Her solo exhibition at Brooklyn’s Amos Eno Gallery, “Adapt Adopt,” presents a series of monochromatic paintings crafted with Sumi ink, a continuation of the artist’s “KuroKuroShiro” (black-black-white) series.
“Adapt Adopt” is centered on dichotomies—most clearly represented by the sharp contrasts in her black-and-white paintings on muslin or wood. Paintings like KuroKuroShiro XL (2024), a 6-by-12-inch Sumi ink painting on muslin wrapped on wood, gesture to the myriad color gradients between black and white, breaking down this rigid dichotomy. Sugawara-Beda’s work, a testament to the ongoing dialogue between the traditions she inherits and those she encounters, challenges viewers to reconsider static views of culture and identity.
As part of a live performance at the gallery on March 16th, artist Damien Olsen Berdichevsky will interpret the work through a live piano performance entitled “Live Score to Adapt Adopt.”
In 1925, gallerist and photographer Alfred Stieglitz organized the first “Seven Americans” exhibition at his gallery 291. This show was instrumental in introducing and legitimizing American artists as part of the modernist dialogue, setting the stage for figures like Georgia O’Keeffe, who participated in the initial exhibition and would emerge as a leading voice in American modernism. Celebrating this spirit, JC Gallery in London is paying homage to Stieglitz by renewing “Seven Americans” and presenting the works of seven modernist artists: Stieglitz, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Arthur Garfield Dove, Arthur Beecher Carles, Joseph Stella, and Oscar Bluemner.
Key highlights include works by Dove, Demuth, Marin, and Stieglitz, all of whom participated in the original exhibition. With the addition of other works, such as Bluemner’s crayon portrait of New Jersey entitled Belleville, NJ (1917) or Stella’s vivid, fantastical still life Rose and Angel (ca. 1920), the initial exploration of the style is expanded for today’s audiences.
Jackie Milad’s “Undoing the Knotted Parts” references a 19th-century phenomenon in which British aristocrats and scholars would organize “mummy unrolling parties,” drawing in large crowds to observe the unbandaging of ancient Egyptian mummies. At Pentimenti Gallery, Milad’s collaged, sewn, and mounted textile pieces avoid the mere spectacle of these events, offering a commentary on identity, heritage, and the cyclical nature of life and death instead.
As a collage work on paper, What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth (2023) pulls together disparate iconographies into a complex picture. Elsewhere, in the sculpture series “Shabtis Gather,” Milad refers to her Honduran and Egyptian heritage in these sculptural works made of epoxy resin and decorated with acrylic paint. These pieces reimagine ancient Egyptian funerary figurines, which act as symbols of her heritage and remembrance, challenging viewers to reconsider the meanings we assign to cultural artifacts.
This exhibition is a part of (re)FOCUS 2024, a program that celebrates women artists across Philadelphia.
South African artist Senzeni Mtwakazi Marasela introduced the fictionalized character Theodorah into her work over 20 years ago. This figure, a composite of her mother and her own alter ego, helps the artist explore the traumatic history of the apartheid era of South Africa. In “I Write (Stitch) What I Like” at Bode, the artist explores these themes through a range of media, from photography and watercolor to textile and embroidery.
Her textile piece Failing 19 (2017–23), featuring red wool hand-stitched onto a mixed fabric blanket, is evocative of the pain experienced by women during the apartheid era. Her watercolors are also drenched in shades of red: Mine Cleaner 7 (2023) is a figurative painting portraying a woman against the backdrop of industrial structures, more South African historical and cultural references.
Marasela deploys these reds to reference the traditional African shweshwe fabric, as well as her personal memory of historical events such as the droughts in her childhood that caused a red dust to settle over much of her surroundings. Overall, her work is a tribute to a long narrative of resilience in the region.