Massey Klein
Lower East Side, Downtown, NY
124 Forsyth St
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Exhibitions
- On viewNature Bends for You
Jude Griebel
Apr 25 – Jun 18
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Nature Bends for You, a solo exhibition of new sculptures and works on paper by Jude Griebel. This is the artist's second solo exhibition with the gallery. Jude Griebel's work is known for its mischievous and morally pointed whimsy. In his new work for the gallery, human forms are again merged with the natural world in amusing and troubling ways. But Nature Bends for You ups the visual and emotional ante. Fresh from a residency at Kohler Pottery Studios in Wisconsin, the artist's new Vitreous China pieces have a deceptively beautiful lustre. Shining green hands, rather than a fibrous husk, enclose a cob of corn. Oranges engage in sacrificial juicing, flowers amputate themselves, and a fried egg teeters on legs as existentially spindly as Alberto Giacometti's Walking Man. While it goes without saying that the natural world has been devastated by human greed and consumption, Griebel's work operates in a further emotional sphere. His work can be read as an expression of deep nostalgia. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," wrote Shakespeare. "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Griebel's work speaks to a universal longing for such an impossibly alive and integrated world. If there is any hope in Griebel's art, it lies in its sense of childhood imagination. Children play with the food on their plates and so does Griebel in his ceramic work Broken Circle. A sprig of parsley for a nose, lemons for cheeks, two ramekins of cocktail sauce for the all-seeing, blood-red eyes. Broken Circle appears guileless and innocent. But the face is also a record of trauma. As Griebel's characters feel plucked from the pages of fairytales, they're also enveloped in visceral and emotional horror. Children internalize the plight of the runaway gingerbread man, fleeing for his life. They'll also admonish each other for ripping the papery "skin" from Birch trees. Griebel's work, then, is about what many children innately know. Everything is alive. Animals, trees-obviously. But also dishes running away with spoons. When we mature into rational adults, we lose our magical thinking. The kind of empathy we lack, and the instrumentalization of all beings, stems from the enlightened stripping away of sentience from creation. When anthropomorphism is used tactically, as it was in KFC's "chicky" mascot of the late 1990's, it becomes, according to Griebel's research, a "troubling projection of our entanglement with the natural world." It cute-i-fies the slaughterhouse, the processing plant. But in his work, Griebel uses anthropomorphism as a wake-up call, a siren from the remote depths of childhood. Through the realization of Griebel's imaginary friends, we feel a touch of magical affinity again. —Sarah Swan Jude Griebel graduated with a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. He later completed an MFA International Exchange at the University of Lapland in Finland before completing his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Ceramics from Concordia University in Canada. In the last year alone, he has participated in artist residencies at the John Michael Kohler Foundation, Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, and the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), and has been awarded grants from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Calgary Arts Development. The artist has been announced as a finalist for the David Suzuki Foundation's Rewilding Arts Prize. Nature Bends for You is Griebel's second solo exhibition with Massey Klein Gallery. His first solo exhibition, Revenants, was on view in 2024. In the Fall of 2024, two sculptures by the artist were featured at NADA House on Governor's Island, and in the Spring of 2025, the gallery featured a solo presentation of the artist's work at NADA New York. Recent institutional exhibitions include those at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Le Carmel Pamiers/Les Abattoirs, Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives, Alberta Foundation for the Arts Art House, IA&A; at Hillyer Contemporary Art Center, Leitrim Sculpture Center, Rochester Center for Contemporary Art, Whyte Museum, and International Museum of Surgical Science. Griebel's work is in permanent collections at John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Kohler Co., Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Le Carmel Pamiers, Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary, Art Gallery of Alberta, Frans Masereel Centrum, Colart Contemporary Canadian Art Collection, Sakima Art Museum, Equitable Bank Group, Silvercorp Mining, and Volpert Foundation. Having grown up on a family farm in rural Alberta, the artist now lives and works in New York City.
PastMy Arms Fit You Like a SleeveAmelie Mancini
Feb 28 – Apr 19
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present My Arms Fit You Like a Sleeve, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Amelie Mancini. "My arms fit you like a sleeve, they hold catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms of your nerves, each muscle and fold of your first days." —Anne Sexton, “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward” Amelie Mancini’s paintings are emotionally charged depictions of women, often mothers, who are exploring the confines of their world. Working primarily in oil, Mancini’s work explores the joys and pangs of attachment. The paintings are visual and legible records of the actions and decisions taken throughout their making. In her most recent series, Mancini depicts female figures engaged in familiar acts of care: holding, carrying, supporting, nurturing, cradling–their pets, their children, their homes, themselves, and ultimately the world at large. Contending with a hectic world, these women act as keystones, building space for themselves and theirs. Under Mancini’s brush, her figures turn into vessels of light and color, their bodies pulsating with an otherworldly energy. On a formal level, Mancini constructs her paintings layer after layer, in a way that mirrors how we construct ourselves. Personal and collective experiences stack up to create a fragile equilibrium. Remnants of the making appear through the use of expressive brush work, playing with spatial and optical ambiguity, and a loose back and forth between planning and improvising. Led by her materials, the artist uses an unrestricted color palette to create a sense of collision within the picture plane. Oscillating between figuration and abstraction, she builds her surfaces from scratch, starting with thin washes of bright color and instinctive gestural marks, later adding line and form, then layers of transparent or opaque pigments that are scumbled, blended, or glazed. Geometric motifs recalling textile or wallpaper patterns are printed directly on the surface with hand-carved linocut blocks. With the ground under our feet constantly shifting, the care we give and receive–however imperfect, flawed, or maybe exactly right–is a powerful steadying force, and, out of the chaos of the world, allows us to reach for new states of balance and grace. Amelie Mancini is a painter, printmaker, and textile designer. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Visual Arts from Sorbonne University in Paris, France. In 2022, she was the recipient of both the RWS Award and the Publicity Award from the Royal Watercolor Society in London, and in 2024, she completed the Canopy Program at the NYC Crit Club under the mentorship of Matt Phillips and Catherine Haggarty. Mancini has exhibited widely, with recent shows including Wedding Party at Gallery 198 in Brooklyn, Fuzzy Wheel at The Canopy Studio in New York, Lushat Hashimoto Contemporary in New York, and Summer Show at Maake Projects at State College, Pennsylvania. The artist and her work have been featured in I Like Your Work (online exhibition), Friend of the Artist (Vol. 16), New Visionary Magazine (Issue 5), and No Business Magazine. Born and raised in Lyon, France, the artist now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
PastSekvenssiSami Havia
Feb 28 – Apr 19
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Sekvenssi, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Sami Havia.This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Sekvenssi presents a new series of paintings built on the foundation of repetition and rhythm, with a focus on ambient, ethereal, and spatial moods. Havia uses line as both a subject and as a visual element. As the core visual motif in this new series of works, line carries the artist forward, allowing his thoughts to move freely and, through its variations, generate meaning. Music and movement, neurotic behavioral patterns, everyday routines, the artist’s running practice, and ultimately, beneath it all, existential questions and concerns about the world, inform each work. The artist’s process is organic yet deliberate, with each work part of a sekvenssi, or sequence. Havia starts with one canvas, and as he senses the composition needs more space and expansion, he creates another canvas next to it, and then another, and another, until each piece reaches its final form. The series presented in Sekvenssi assembled itself through this process of sequential growth, with repetition at its center while capturing the layered and evolving nature of each work. The carefully selected colors arise from memory, mostly from Åland, where Havia has spent much of the past two summers. Running trips, pauses at the ferry, an electronic music festival in the middle of nowhere, nights spent on the shore sitting on cliffs, watching the shifting colors as the sun sets—these moments have deeply shaped the series’ palette. Havia’s new series at first appears minimalistic and calm. However, a closer inspection reveals fast, chaotic lines swirling beneath each surface, offering an alternative perspective on the ongoing, restless motion of the world. Sami Havia graduated with an MA from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011. He was selected for a Cité des Arts artist residency in Paris in 2017 and was awarded the William Thuring Prize from the Finnish Art Society in 2022. Sekvenssi is Havia’s second solo exhibition with Massey Klein Gallery. His first solo exhibition, Estranged, was on view September 2 through October 8, 2022. In 2020, the artist’s work was featured in the group exhibition Fluid Structure, his first exhibition in North America. In 2024, the Gallery presented works by the artist on David Zwirner’s Platform. Havia has presented multiple solo exhibitions in Helsinki, including those at Gallery Halmetoja, ARTag Gallery, tm•gallery, Korjaamo Gallery, Gallery FAFA, and Myymälä2 Gallery, and his work has been featured in recent notable group exhibitions in Finland at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, A Playful Space, and the Runo Biannual Exhibition VI. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions at cultural institutions across Scandinavia, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki, 2020), the Exhibition Laboratory at Uniarts Helsinki (2018), the Jyväskylä Art Museum (Jyväskylä, Finland, 2017), Fullersta Gård Art Gallery (Huddinge, Sweden, 2016), Lapinlahti Lähde (Helsinki, 2016), the Hämeenlinna Art Museum (Hämeenlinna, Finland, 2016), the Salo Art Museum (Salo, Finland, 2015), The Aine Art Museum (Tornio, Finland, 2015) and Pyhäniemi Manor (Hollola, Finland, 2015). The artist has been featured in numerous print and online publications, such as Creative Boom, Around Journal, Edit, Chicago Reader, AS|MAG, and Vice. His works have been placed in prestigious private and public collections internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Finnish State Art Deposit Collection, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Galerie Anhava collection, the Hämeenlinna Art Museum, the Vantaa Art Museum, the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts collection, the Keva collection, and the Seppo Fränti collection, to name a few. The artist lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. The new paintings featured in Sekvenssi were created with the generous support of a three-year artist grant, awarded to Sami Havia by The National Council for the Visual Arts in 2024. The Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) is a funding agency providing expertise and services for the promotion of the arts.
Past
Twilight HourJan 21 – Feb 7
Chrissy Angliker Sami Havia Kate McQuillen Will Sears Joe Warrior-Walker Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Twilight Hour. Twilight Hour brings together a curated selection of works from gallery artists who have mastered light as both material and metaphor. Each artist, though distinct in choice of media, technique, and intention, explores light's ability to shape perception, atmosphere, and emotion. The exhibition invites viewers to slow down and experience light as an active, transformative presence rather than a passive illumination. Chrissy Angliker's investigation of the push and pull between control and chaos is depicted through intentional marks, each mark challenged by the nature of the medium. The transitional and oscillating tension between these two opposing elements is representative of Angliker’s light-filled search for a sense of grace. Sami Havia explores the relationship between the accidental and deliberate, the abstract and figurative, with a focus on light and observation. The artist's newest series of paintings is built on the foundation of repetition and rhythm, with a focus on ambient, ethereal, and spatial moods. Kate McQuillen's paintings are rooted in action painting and abstraction. Her brushstrokes, however, are compressed through printmaking processes, creating a super flat surface into which marks, shapes, colors, and light seem to be embedded. Their unified surface quality and use of implied texture complicate notions of what gestural markmaking can be. Will Sears' work is composed of restrained color palettes and repetitive construction. Each composition explores how color, light, and material relate to space in different ways. The gradually unfolding color relationships create a sense of push and pull, which yields a perceived sense of depth as the viewer tries to make sense of the hierarchical relationship between colors. Joe Warrior-Walker's paintings are playful yet poignant studies of the cultural impact of contrasting environments. Operating in the realm of abstraction, each painting is a visual translation of landscape, memory, and identity, an accumulation of observations interwoven to communicate a personal experience through color, light, and form.
Past
Upon & WithinWill Sears
Oct 25 – Dec 14
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Upon & Within, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Will Sears. Upon & Within presents a series of new abstract artworks from artist Will Sears. Assembled from small painted wood pieces, the artist’s compositions function as fields of color that create an optical space. Each echoes the concerns of the color field movement while also asserting its material surface as another kind of spatial condition. Described as calming and meditative, Sears’ work is composed of restrained color palettes and repetitive construction–a repetition that parallels meditative practices of rhythmic breathing and the tactile counting of prayer beads. Each composition presents a duality that is revealed over time, exploring how color and material relate to space in different ways. The gradually unfolding color relationships create a sense of push and pull, which yields a perceived sense of depth as the viewer tries to make sense of the hierarchical relationship between colors. The artist embraces the inevitable imperfection of the human hand while crafting each assemblage. The slightly misaligned corners and the burnished edges of the tiny wood components offer a reminder of surface; a different function of space than the perceived one. Sears starts each composition by painting sheets of plywood in latex paint, applied with a heavy-nap roller to create a pronounced texture. After the paint dries and has been lightly sanded, he cuts the sheets into smaller, thin rectangular pieces on a table saw. The slightly textured surface allows him to rub colored pencil over the raised grain part of the paint, producing a layered, dual-color ‘noise’ that activates the surface and can subtly push or pull the hue of the underlying color. Once cut and colored, the blocks are assembled like a mosaic but set flush against one another, without grout lines, so the seams read as intentional edges. Handmade frames are integral to each piece, reinforcing the object's presence as an art object while containing the visual field. Sears’ work draws on both color field and op art strategies, and the artist frequently references Bauhaus ideas of design and structure—simple geometric elements used to explore color and spatial relationships. Important influences include Paul Klee, Anni Albers, and Josef Albers, as well as Agnes Martin, who has been particularly influential in regards to Sears’ line and grid-based compositions that offer a seemingly endless field for play. Will Sears holds a BFA from the School of Art and Design, College of Visual and Performing Arts, at Syracuse University, NY. He has participated in artist residencies at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Residency in Rockland, ME; at IAPP in Washington, D.C.; at Hewnoaks in Lovell, ME; and at Quimby Colony Salt Water Farm in Lincolnville, ME. The artist is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT; a Maine Arts Commission Individual Project Grant; and a Kindling Fund Grant through Space Gallery and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Sears’ work has been featured in solo, two-person, and group exhibitions in cities such as Tokyo, Washington, D.C., Boston, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as throughout his home state of Maine. In 2026, the artist’s work will be featured in a solo exhibition at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland. Sears has been commissioned for a number of public murals, which can be found throughout Maine in Biddeford, Portland, and Augusta, and his work has been in numerous publications, including Art Maze Magazine, Downeast Magazine, Art New England, and Maine Home & Design. The artist lives and works in South Portland, ME.
Past
Ley LandsJoe Warrior-Walker
Oct 25 – Dec 14
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Ley Lands, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Joe Warrior-Walker. Ley Lands presents new paintings from artist Joe Warrior-Walker. His paintings are playful yet poignant studies of the cultural impact of contrasting environments. Operating in the realm of abstraction, each painting is a visual translation of landscape, memory, and identity—an accumulation of observations interwoven to communicate a personal experience through color and form. This latest body of work, slowly developed over the last couple of years, is quintessential of the artist’s exploration into painting as a medium. Referential and colloquial, the artist’s work maintains a conscious dialogue with the language of painting itself. Each composition is built up by layered areas of color and form, a continuation of the artist’s diverse use of materials, comprising raw pigments with oil and acrylic paints, resulting in unexpected interactions. The current exhibit references the concept of ley lines; loose line drawing navigates a journey through each painting like winding pathways leading up to a horizon line. Ley lines are theoretical, invisible straight lines that connect both man-made and natural ancient and prehistoric monuments. Some believe these lines are a way in which to navigate the landscape, while others believe they carry rivers of supernatural energy, with pockets of concentrated power located at places of intersection. The artist’s childhood home sits upon a hill that is considered by many to be a significant site for ley lines connecting the landscape of Cornwall. The exhibited painting Torr Crobm is the original Cornish name for this site, now known as Trencrom Hill. Warrior-Walker’s process is iterative and physical—palimpsestic and archaeological. Each painting is built up slowly, then knocked back, taken through an intuitive process of layering, erasing, scraping, and rebuilding, always leaving traces of previous layers. Each composition becomes a terrain in its own right. The artist’s paintings are indefinite, deliberately kept in a state of flux. Warrior-Walker is not interested in fixed representation. Rather, he allows each painting to encapsulate the different environments he experiences, past and present, a collage of memory and place. Joe Warrior-Walker completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at The Chelsea School of Art, during which he was awarded The Brenda Landon Portrait Prize, and later won a scholarship to complete his Master's Degree in Creative Entrepreneurship at UEA London. The artist has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows in cities such as Paris, London, Milan, Los Angeles, and Miami. Recent notable solo exhibitions include those at Coates & Scarry in Bristol and Septieme Gallery in both their Cotonou and Paris locations, and notable group exhibitions include Informality Gallery in London, Gurr Johns in London (curated by Lewis Dalton Gilbert), Marlborough Gallery in London, Durden & Ray Gallery in Los Angeles, Breach Gallery in Miami, and Hastings Contemporary. This year, new work by the artist was featured in Septieme Gallery’s booth at Art Paris. His debut solo exhibition with Massey Klein Gallery is his first time exhibiting in New York City. The artist has been interviewed for Traction Magazine and Drake’s and has work publicly installed as part of the permanent collection of Watt Plaza in Los Angeles. The artist lives and works in Bristol, UK.
Past
AberrationNick McPhail
Sep 6 – Oct 19
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Aberration, a solo exhibition of new paintings and ceramics by Nick McPhail. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Aberration presents two new bodies of work from artist Nick McPhail. Created through recent material experimentation, the new paintings and handcrafted ceramic vessels are representative of the artist’s evolving conceptual focus on spatial perception, memory, and temporality. In addition to his ongoing painting practice, McPhail has recently developed a new series of hand- built ceramic vessels that explore how image and form can interact in three dimensions. These sculptural works often begin with a domestic reference point—most commonly the shape of a milk jug—that anchors each piece in a familiar or utilitarian form. The artist then wraps each vessel in imagery drawn from real or remembered landscapes, using a painterly approach that resists fixed perspective. As the imagery bends and folds around each form, it takes on a perceptual fluidity— mirroring the way the world is experienced not as static, framed images, but as something seen in motion, filtered through memory and physical presence. This body of work pushes McPhail’s practice into a more sculptural and architectural realm, while still remaining grounded in painterly concerns of surface and color. It creates a new vocabulary through which the artist can explore how place, memory, and perception interact. The second, more expansive body of work, is McPhail’s most recent painting series. Here, the artist experiments with layered imagery that compresses multiple places, temporalities, and modes of seeing into a single visual field. His process has become slower and more durational, allowing time itself to become a structural force in the work. Rather than beginning and completing a painting in a single arc, he returns to each piece over weeks or months, letting accumulated memory and new visual impressions guide the evolving composition. McPhail’s new approach allows memory to surface more freely—often in unanticipated ways. Images shift, dissolve, or return in altered forms, and the final works become records not just of place, but of the experience of remembering place, intertwining time and perception. Through his process, McPhail explores how a painting can hold not one fixed moment, but multiple temporalities—layered, and at times, unresolved. Both bodies of work reflect a shift in McPhail’s practice toward deeper investigation of spatial and perceptual experience. Whether through ceramics or painting, the artist explores how imagery can function beyond representation—how it can hold and alter our sense of time, place, and self. Nick McPhail graduated with a BFA with a focus in Painting and Ceramics from Michigan State University in 2006. He has been selected for numerous artist residencies, including those at Maple Street Construct in Omaha, NE in 2025; Amélie Maison d’Art in Paradou, France in 2022; Untitled_1983 in Geneva, Switzerland in 2019; the Holiday Forever Residency in Jackson, WY in 2019; Ochi Gallery in Ketchum, ID in 2019; 100 West Corsicana in Corsicana, TX in 2018; and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT in 2017, and was chosen as a Hopper Prize Finalist in 2023. McPhail has exhibited internationally in San Francisco, Richmond, Paris, Los Angeles, Geneva, Düsseldorf, Arles, Berlin, Stockholm, Geneva, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, and New York City, among others. Additionally, the artist’s work has been featured at The Dallas Art Fair, Untitled, the London Art Fair, the Seattle Art Fair, and Future Fair’s presentation at Villa Tigertail in 2025. In 2019, the artist’s commissioned public work, Power Lines, was permanently installed on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park (measuring 12 feet by 10 feet and painted in acrylic on aluminum). The artist and his work have been published in noteworthy publications including New American Paintings (Issue #175 curated by Jerry Saltz), San Diego Magazine, Style Weekly, Literary Hub, Wrap Magazine, The American Scholar, Art Now LA, Booooooom, Art Maze Magazine, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, Two Coats of Paint, San Francisco Chronicle, and Art Business. His work is found in the permanent collections of Morgan Stanley in New York City, Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, and the Center for Ethics at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.
Past
WildflowersJun 14 – Aug 3
Heather Drayzen, Ramiro Hernandez, Andrew Leventis, Lucia Rodriguez Perez, Conrad Ruiz, Paige Turner Uribe Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Wildflowers, a group exhibition featuring works by six artists. The flower is one of the oldest and most-used symbols in Western art history. Imbued with personal, cultural, and religious significance, the flower has been interpreted and reinterpreted, assigned and reassigned meaning, for millennia. From the lotus flower in Ancient Egyptian art to the decaying bouquet memento mori of the Renaissance to the abstracted technicolor depictions of Pop Art, artists have forever engaged and celebrated the flower’s ability to communicate. Artists have not only been responsible for disseminating the flower’s symbolic meaning at any given time in history–they are the pioneers who have continually shifted its interpretation. Informed by developing religions, political dominance, scientific inquiry, societal customs, and a deep curiosity in nature, artists have challenged the way in which flowers can be portrayed and interpreted in art. These re-interpreters are names readily recognized - Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Maria van Oosterwijck, Eugène Delacroix, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Kehinde Wiley. Across time periods, religions, cultures, geographies, and artistic styles, the flower has always been, and remains to be, a powerful, relatable, and personal symbol. The six artists in Wildflowers continue the millennia-old tradition of depicting, interpreting, and (re)assigning meaning to flowers. The exhibition weaves together different perspectives shaped by diverse backgrounds and identities, styles and techniques, and intentions and influences, encapsulating the complexities of artistic expression and human experience. Wildflowers challenges the viewer to set aside preconceived notions and abandon expectations in order to view the world through another’s eyes. Just like a meadow filled with wildflowers, there is irreplicable beauty in diversity.
Past
Even a Worm Will TurnPeter Frederiksen
Apr 26 – Jun 8
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Even a Worm Will Turn, a solo exhibition of new embroideries by Peter Frederiksen. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. “To whom do lions cast their gentle looks? Not to the beast that would usurp their den. The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.” —William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3 (Act 2, Scene 2) What constitutes a bad day? What’s the cause? It’s different for everyone, probably, but I doubt that any day truly starts bad. It grows. It builds to bad. There’s a proverbial last straw, a boiling point, but the fallacy of the single cause warns against oversimplification - no one thing can be assumed to be the sole reason for any single outcome. Instead of looking at blaming the last straw, we should hope to look at the untold many straws that came before it. Our understanding of our worlds should be cumulative, but as detail-oriented animals it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. Of course, when looking at the state of things in our world, when seeing the forest, it’s hard not to see the flames. Every day feels like a bad day. And none of this feels new. What’s happening has been going on for years, and it won’t stop. Collectively, we’re waking up every day about one stubbed toe away from having a bad day. It is taking less and less to cause a break. Even a Worm Will Turn is fifteen new embroideries showing breaking points. These are works showing thrashing, flailing, punching, piling, and spinning. Some - like “Every day there’s a new and exciting challenge.” - are abstracted, showcasing messiness and emotion; not quite a dance, but a spiral - the kind of spiral you go through out of exhaustion, frustration, burnout, taking up about as much space as is physically possible, limbs overextended and whipping around. The same blurring effect is utilized in other works, as in “It doesn’t matter what I do, I just keep seeing nails.” These are tight snapshots of action, emphasizing quickness to act, or maybe more specifically lacking the hesitancy and tempering that comes with experience. Many of the titles of the works harken to self-help style phrases, like “Trusting the process.” and “It might shock you how quickly you can change your mind.”. These titling conventions, sardonic as they may be, call loosely to the specific brand of assistance that is being afforded to people, the kind of pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps ideology that is cementing our collective status as being left to ourselves to figure it out. This sentiment is most-clearly seen visually in both “Fighting for scraps.” and “Everyone wants to help build the coffin.”. These two pieces show two different piles of people: one working against each other, and one working together. Neither seems very productive, both feel pretty violent, and the ultimate goals are kept from the viewer, the pointlessness on full display, screaming out that there is no right answer. The titular concept is an old one: first recorded in 1546 in a collection of proverbs by English writer John Heywood and made more famous by William Shakespeare, “even a worm will turn” is the simplified version of the expression, conveying that even the most docile of creatures will retaliate or seek revenge if pushed too far. I saw this phrase a few years ago, on Twitter of all places. I couldn’t get it out of my head, the visuals it conjured up and the short Wikipedia article that scratched the surface of the history it held. I spent a lot of time rolling it over and over in my mind, the beautiful simplicity of the flow of the sentence in its dumbed-down state, a quiet profundity. Take from that what you will. —Peter Frederiksen, 2025 Peter Frederiksen champions the art of embroidery. Throughout his exploration of the medium, the artist has developed a free-motion machine technique, commonly working on a standard sewing machine that has been altered by removing the presser foot and lowering the feed teeth, allowing Frederiksen to engage tension while moving an embroidery hoop around freely. The result is dense embroidery stitched onto linen canvas, which is then stretched onto a wooden panel as a nod to traditional painting. Described by the artist as “drawing with a sewing machine,” Frederiksen produces scenes with subtle gradients and uniform textures that closely resemble colored pencil drawings when viewed from a distance. The nostalgic, soft-edged scenes are born from the artist’s love of cartoons (notably post-war Warner Brothers and the Simpsons) and come together through a fervent editing process. Beginning with screenshots taken from old cartoons, often focusing on the smallest of elements while featuring as much action as possible, Frederiksen crops, edits, and adds additional details, be it from other cartoons, eclectic designs or abstract images, before tracing, sketching, and eventually stitching his creations onto linen. The artist places great importance on the titles of his work, often giving the title as much thought as the image itself. His titles can be ciphers, descriptors, or sometimes just something that he considers humorous, but all serve to provide a jumping-off point for the viewer’s interpretation of the work. While trying to match the poetics of the image with the poetics of the words, the artist maintains that much is open to interpretation - he is as interested in what others feel from the work as that which was intended. Peter Frederiksen attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with a focus on painting, drawing, and fibers. It was during these years that the artist explored the techniques of other mediums and expanded his painting practice to include soft sculpture and fiber art. Following his time at SAIC, Frederiksen worked at ad agencies as an art producer where he fostered his passion for promoting and representing other working artists. He is currently a partner, representative, and producer at RAD Represents, an artist representation company located in Chicago, IL. Frederiksen’s embroideries have most recently been featured in exhibitions at Union Gallery in London, Hunt Gallery in Toronto, The Flat in Milan, Galleri Urbane in Dallas, PostMastersRoMA in Rome, Haverkampf Leistenschneider in Berlin, Daniel Raphael Gallery in London, and Bulls Fest in Chicago, curated by All Star Press Chicago. The artist’s work has been presented at several institutions in Chicago including the Chicago Athletic Association (solo exhibition, 2020), the Hyde Park Art Center (group exhibition, 2019), and the Arts Club of Chicago (group exhibition, 2018). Frederiksen has appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Creative Boom, Varyer, The Guardian, Colossal, It’s Nice That, gallerytalk.net, Textiel Plus, The Fiber Studio, Composite Arts Magazine, and Chicago Art Review. The artist lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Past
Realms Beyond the VisibleRachel Cope
Apr 26 – Jun 8
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Realms Beyond the Visible, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Rachel Cope. The exhibition marks Cope’s first solo show with the gallery. Rachel Cope’s paintings explore themes of transformation, fragility, and the interplay of light and form. Rooted in liminal spaces between reality and illusion, her compositions weave together recurring motifs, holographic effects, and imagined ethereal landscapes. Each work is anchored by elements of the natural world, creating realms suspended between memory and vision—where the boundaries between physicality and spirituality, interior and exterior, dissolve. Central to Cope’s visual language is the motif of the prism, refracting light into spectral fragments that suggest unseen dimensions of human experience. Faces and figures emerge and recede within these dreamlike spaces, as fluid and elusive as identity and emotion. Swans glide through the compositions, embodying grace, vulnerability, and a reverence for nature. The shifting notion of home is explored through abstracted dwellings, shelters, and thresholds—spaces that feel both familiar and otherworldly. Drawing from her background in sculpture and Art Therapy, Cope’s mastery of materiality is evident in each painting. Working with acrylic and pencil on clay coated panels, she layers translucent washes of pigment over finely drawn lines, creating works that seem to emit their own inner light. Iridescent surfaces catch and shift with changing perspectives, infusing each piece with a sense of presence and impermanence. Inspired in part by the spiritual and esoteric philosophies of Rudolf Steiner, Cope’s paintings seek to balance structure and fluidity, inviting viewers to contemplate the delicate interplay between the tangible and the transcendent. Rachel Cope holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MPS in Art Therapy from the School of Visual Arts. In 2024, she completed a residency with The Villa Lena Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at KDR305, Internationally at Galerie DYS, Roll & Hill Gallery, Friedman Benda, The Future Perfect, and Egg Collective. She has also participated in leading design fairs such as Design Miami, Salone del Mobile, and Maison et Objet, and her work is part of the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cope’s practice has been featured in Architectural Digest, Business of Home, Coveteur, Curbed, Dwell, Elle Decor, Forbes, Galerie, Interior Design, Livingetc, Mother Tongue Magazine, The New York Times, Veranda, and Wallpaper Magazine, among others. In addition to her artistic practice, Cope is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Calico Wallpaper, a design studio dedicated to integrating artistic expression into interior spaces. She lives and works in Ghent, NY.
Past
Spirit WaveJoshua Drayzen
Feb 8 – Apr 13
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Spirit Wave, a solo exhibition of new drawings by Joshua Drayzen. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery. Joshua Drayzen's highly detailed works on paper explore the passage of time, ceremony, and transformation, all themes that stem from a compulsive impulse to draw. Drawing every day is a personal ritual for the artist, allowing him to conjure images that echo his internal world. Each day's work builds upon the last, creating a process where the repetitive act of drawing morphs into a form of introspection, giving form to an ever-evolving self as motions transform into a space for personal discovery. Recurring motifs such as a humanoid owl-avatar that serves as a guide through magical spaces and (dead) nails that emanate occult power act as ethereal guides into an inner world. These protective spirits are manifested through a rigorous, transformative drawing ritual that reflects Drayzen's exploration of self and identity through the supernatural. This supernatural energy is infused into each of the artist's drawings through a distinct combination of pen, pencil, Magic FX pencils, and multi-chromatic pearlescent watercolors. Many of Drayzen's drawings draw inspiration from the rich historical imagery found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's extensive online archive. For the artist, drawing is a meditative process that creates a transformative space, where intricate details and symbolism invite viewers to explore his interest in the mystical. This daily custom blends his personal cosmology with the act of creation, becoming an ongoing engagement with both his art and spiritual exploration. The drawings presented in Spirit Wave have been selected from a body of work produced during 1000 consecutive days of drawing. The 1001st day will coincide with the exhibition's opening. Joshua Drayzen graduated with a BFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has recently completed a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. His work has been included in several two-person and group exhibitions, including recent exhibitions at The Middle Room Gallery in Los Angeles, the NYC Crit Club in New York City, Ortega y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, and My Pet Ram in New York City. The artist was a member of Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival), a collective that collaboratively created and exhibited work with several notable galleries, including Lehmann Maupin Gallery and Galerie Eva Presenhuber. Joshua Drayzen lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Past
The Walled GardenRoberta Gentry
Feb 8 – Apr 13
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present The Walled Garden, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Roberta Gentry. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery. Roberta Gentry’s work is inspired by the natural world’s balance of order and chaos. Her paintings incorporate color and contrast as rhythmic elements, explore the connections and conflicts that occur between architecture and biology, and question the divide between natural and artificial. The new paintings presented in The Walled Garden were created during the artist’s pregnancy and in the days following the birth of her daughter. During this period, Gentry became interested in Marian art, with one 15th-century painting capturing her attention. Madonna on a Crescent Moon in Hortus Conclusus, painted by an unknown artist, features the Virgin Mary sitting in a hortus conclusus (Latin for walled garden) surrounded by stars with smaller figures in the foreground adoringly gazing up at her. The idea of the Virgin Mary, a well-known fertility icon, as a living, breathing garden enclosed by a seemingly impenetrable wall, captured the artist’s imagination and set off a new exploration into the boundaries architecture imposes on the natural world. Gentry imagined all the living things that could keep the Virgin Mary company inside her walled garden: birds, insects, various plants, maybe a snake. Notions of the body as architecture and vice versa occupies the artist’s mind while she works. Her larger paintings are more structural, with more room to explicitly explore the balance (and imbalance) of order and chaos. Her smaller paintings have become more botanical, more intimate, and closer to the ground. But for the last several years, her work has almost always featured symmetry. Sometimes her figures have roots, limbs, or even a flowering head, but they each represent a bi-lateral, symmetrical stability born from a central line or “spine.” Is the body, in essence, a walled garden? And is it an impenetrable stone barrier or does it simply provide form and symmetry to compliment the biological, and at times celestial, world within it? Gentry begins each painting with a grid and proceeds to grow and nurture each composition through it. Akin to gardening or weaving, the grid is important to the artist as a way to form the vertical and horizontal movements of the painting. Gentry often works with thin, washy acrylic, building up the surface of each painting with multiple translucent layers. In this way, she paints with openness and manipulates the experience of time. At any given point, one can see the beginning and the end of each painting, with each layer staying transparent enough that the canvas ground is always visible, even deep beneath the color. Roberta Gentry received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in two-dimensional studies from the University of Arizona, and her Master of Fine Arts in painting from the State University of New York. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Ladies’ Room LA, Elephant Art Space, and Joyce Goldstein Gallery, among others, and she has been featured in group exhibitions at Reynolds Gallery, My Pet Ram, Ruth Gallery, Scotty, and Bozomag, and elsewhere. Gentry curates exhibitions through Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles, where she has been a member since 2015. Her work has been featured in publications such as Voyage LA, Flaunt Magazine, Shoutout LA, Fabrik Magazine, LA Times, and Maake Magazine. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Past
Love GaloreRiley Holloway
Dec 14 – Feb 2
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Love Galore, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Riley Holloway. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery. Love Galore presents nine new oil paintings from contemporary portraitist Riley Holloway that explore the themes of intimacy, connection, and the subtle language of touch in relationships. By focusing on moments of embrace—whether it’s a hug, a hand resting on a shoulder, or a kiss—the artist aims to convey the quiet strength and comfort that physical closeness can provide. The figures in Holloway’s paintings are intentionally cropped, removing the context of identity and leaving only the gestures of affection. In doing so, the artist emphasizes the universality of human connection, inviting viewers to reflect on the significance of physical closeness and the ways one expresses love and care. This work is a reminder to cherish those we hold dear and to find solace in the simple act of touch. The artist works in traditional oil paint, mastering its malleability and combining the traditional technique with elements of charcoal and graphite drawing to produce bold lines that create depth within each portrait. Each intimate moment captured by the artist is presented in a soft, compassionate palette, projecting a sense of introspective nostalgia and creating a visual language that communicates authenticity, emotional vulnerability, and loving observation. "What caught our eye about Riley's work was the technical quality of his portraiture and his viewpoint depicting quiet moments. The embraces shown in his work feel universal and his language, often incorporating oil pastel in the works, captures a wonderful tension between the painterly brushstrokes of oil paint and drawn lines of the oil pastel. He is depicting people and scenes from his life that have inspired and influenced him. We were drawn to the loving quality of his paintings, themes of embrace and love, which everyone needs right now." —Ryan Massey & Garrett Klein Riley Holloway studied Graphic Design at The Art Institute of Dallas, during which time he completed a Portrait Workshop at The Florence Academy of Art in Italy. Following his studies, Holloway was awarded a 3-month artist residency at The Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, which culminated in his first solo exhibition in the hotel’s gallery. The artist is a Hunting Prize finalist. Holloway has exhibited internationally, with recent notable solo exhibitions including those at backs/ash in Paris, Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas, Bloom Galerie in Geneva, Bode Projects at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, The African American Museum of Dallas, and First Amendment Gallery in San Francisco. Love Galore at Massey Klein Gallery is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York City. In 2023, Holloway’s Records on Repeat was one of twelve works selected for acquisition by The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) through the Dallas Art Fair Foundation. The artist’s work is held in other prominent collections including The University of Oregon, Stanford University, The Dean Collection, and The Fairmont Dallas. The artist lives and works in Dallas, TX.
Past
SonnetLydia Baker
Oct 26 – Dec 8
"The second half of my life will be water / over the cracked floor of these desert years." —Joyce Sutphen, “Crossroads” Sonnet is a discovery and a personal r/evolution. Whereas the drawings in Baker’s debut solo exhibition In Between (2022, Massey Klein Gallery) depicted a sharply focused, somber world—small and distant female figures were often shown navigating difficult terrain on their own, despite their proximity to one another—the paintings in Sonnet realize the artist’s fantasy: a once-sought utopia, now discovered. The painter’s surrealist eye takes on a softer glow, as if gazing through a foggy, winter window to look upon the warmth inside a family home. “I have an image in my mind, where I am forehead to forehead with my partner; we’re sometimes asleep or just paused momentarily, taking each other in. Our bodies create a shape that holds everything,” the artist writes. Unlike the third-person drawings set in Baker’s anthropomorphized landscapes, these first-person paintings bring two female figures to the fore. Sonnet’s protagonists become a cistern in which expansive, romantic love runs to reservoir. Emotional security, previously depicted as elusive and ephemeral, can now be captured (seen most directly in “A pool of our hopes and dreams,” where the composition and color overlay impress certain intimacy, and gesture toward multiplicitous futures). Each painting is a crucial component of the whole Sonnet, fourteen pieces in which the two women traverse an array of environments and imaginations together: ovum both literal and figurative in “Bird nest inside a flower” symbolize the birth of family, and also the creative ideas of artistic muse; arched, layered bodies create a haven in “Forming a window for previous selves,” protecting the children they once were; and “Daughters and cells flying side by side” casts the figures into a speculative future of queer reproductive possibilities. An obsessive color theorist, Baker continues to challenge her palette in her latest exhibition, drawing inspiration from painters like Lisa Yuskavage and Matthew Wong. With Sonnet, Baker employs jewel tones across textured surfaces, favoring a range of blues and ochres, to create new visual harmonies and vibrations. The effect is both dreamy and visceral, sensual and cerebral. Lydia Baker (b. 1990 Virginia) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Baker received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013 and MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2020, where she was awarded the Merit Scholar Award (2018-2019) and the Post-Graduate Chubb Fellowship (2020-2021). She has been awarded numerous artist residencies, including the High Line Nine x Sugarlift Residency, NYC (2021); the Saltonstall Foundation Residency, Ithaca, NY (2021) and the Vermont Studio Center (2023). Baker was also awarded the IEA Art Heals Grant (2020) and NYFA’s City Artist Corps Grant (2021). Her works have appeared in print and online with publications like West Branch, The Wick, New American Paintings, FAD, Artnet, Juxtapoz, Art Maze and Artsy. Special projects have included David Zwirner’s Platform Pride Curation, in partnership with Gayletter (2024), and their 2022 November Selection. Recent group exhibitions include Charta, Fortnight Institute, NYC (2022); A Suitable Accomplishment, Trotter & Sholer, NYC (2023); The Drawing Stall Fair, Monopo New York, Brooklyn, NY (2023); Future Fair, Massey Klein Gallery, NYC (2023); and Aura, Wilder Gallery, London (2023). Solo exhibitions include In Between, Massey Klein Gallery, NYC (2022), London Art Fair with Wilder Gallery, London (2023) and Sonnet, Massey Klein Gallery, NYC (2024).
Past
Post LiminalChrissy Angliker
Sep 7 – Oct 20
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present Post Liminal, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Chrissy Angliker. — Post Liminal The ripples slice the mirror, Opening the void of duality. In still waters it takes one drip to remember. Whole worlds appear to hold. Walls as solid as light, Flickering within its foundation, The wind carries them like leaves to their future. Arrival and leaving, Rubbing like twigs, Creating that warmth Found in here. — "This being human is a guest house," Rumi told us centuries ago. "Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor." Over the past year and a half, I have encountered many unexpected visitors. The loss of a dear loved one catalyzed the sale of her building, which housed my sacred art studio for 14 years. In a way that felt synchronized, the building where I lived sold soon after. During the pandemic's epilogue, the New York I had known felt as if it was untethering itself from me; and with so many foundations convulsing below, the fragility of sanctuary and illusion of permanence became my fixation. We meet here in the Post Liminal, where much has transpired in rapid succession. The pace was so swift that at times all that was left to capture from each place was a thing on the cusp of change, a moment heated to its limit by transition, a flash of stillness amidst turmoil. My sanctuaries were destinations: my native Switzerland; the homes I've moved to and from in Brooklyn; my new studio; and Casa de Nada, an artist residency in Taos, New Mexico. And as the cut flowers bravely bloom to their wilt within their temporary homes, I know I am them. A known mirage is a gift. We swim, confronting our reflections in the waters, bathing inside the fragile mirrors of the structures we've built and cling to still. I grasped at the ripples hoping I could dive beneath the tenuousness of truth. In my collaborative dialogue with paint, I have always aimed to disentangle the medium from the illusory image. And here, I endeavor to explore the fallacy of permanence, the fleeting nature of all things, and to pause in that liminal glow. —Chrissy Angliker Chrissy Angliker has exhibited extensively in Europe and the United States, with notable recent exhibitions including a solo exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, a group exhibition at Stalla Madulain, inclusion at the Dallas Art Fair, and a group exhibition at Massey Klein Gallery. She presented her first solo exhibition with Massey Klein Gallery, Crazy Says the Daisy, from January 28th through March 5th, 2022, and was featured on David Zwirner's Platform in the fall of 2022. Last year, Angliker exhibited with Massey Klein Gallery in a solo presentation at Future Fair (May 11-13, 2023) and a group presentation alongside artists Bethany Czarnecki and Kate McQuillen at the Dallas Art Fair (April 20-23, 2023). Her work has been featured in numerous international print and online publications, including Interview, Platform, Cool Hunting, Creative Boom, In Style, Forbes online, The Know Culture, The Last Magazine, Bolero Magazine, and Hyperallergic, to name only a few. In 2016, Neidhard & Schoen AG published an in-depth book, Chrissy Angliker PAINT/ING/S, examining Angliker's process and resulting paintings with a focus on her work created between 2014 and 2016. Angliker has been awarded the Rowena Reed Kostellow Award (Pratt Institute) and the International Takifuji Art Award (Tokyo), among other international accolades and nominations, and has had site- and project-specific work commissioned by AOL America Online, Burton Snowboards, and Wired Magazine, among others. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.