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Persona

Caroline Absher, Ashley Bickerton, Cristine Brache, Charlotte Fox, Jenna Gribbon, Jasper Johns, Mary Reid Kelley, Sean Landers, Katelyn Ledford, Julia Maiuri, Cristina de Miguel, Amélie Peace, Anastasya Peña, Marika Thunder, John Wesley, and Xu Yang

February 13 – March 15, 2025

Persona
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Persona
Caroline Absher, The Key, 2025

Caroline Absher

The Key, 2025

Oil on canvas

54 x 42 inches

Mary Reid Kelley, Personae, 2024

Mary Reid Kelley

Personae, 2024

Oil on canvas

12 x 9 inches

Sean Landers, Snowflake Catcher, 1999

Sean Landers

Snowflake Catcher, 1999

Oil on linen

27 x 23 inches

Cristine Brache, Dorothy, 2024

Cristine Brache

Dorothy, 2024

Oil, ink, and encaustic on cotton and wood

43 x 59 inches

Marika Thunder, Grace, 2024

Marika Thunder

Grace, 2024

Oil on canvas

56 x 48 inches

Ashley Bickerton, Tropohead, 2011

Ashley Bickerton

Tropohead, 2011

Bronze

Jenna Gribbon, Honeymoon gaze, 2023

Jenna Gribbon

Honeymoon gaze, 2023

Oil on linen

14 x 11 inches

Amélie Peace, Reins of Affection, 2024

Amélie Peace

Reins of Affection, 2024

Acrylic on canvas

71 x 55 inches

Xu Yang, Warm Liquor Cools with Time, Soft Silk Renders without End, 2024-25

Xu Yang

Warm Liquor Cools with Time, Soft Silk Renders without End, 2024-25

Oil on linen

31 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches

Charlotte Fox, Inseparable, 2025

Charlotte Fox

Inseparable, 2025

Oil on canvas

48 x 46 inches

Anastasya Peña, Alien, 2024

Anastasya Peña

Alien, 2024

Oil and acrylic on canvas

72 x 50 inches

Marika Thunder, Car Doors, 2024

Marika Thunder

Car Doors, 2024

Oil on canvas

24 x 36 inches

Anastasya Peña, Shimmer, 2025

Anastasya Peña

Shimmer, 2025

Oil and acrylic on canvas

80 x 80 inches

Jasper Johns, Savarin, 1977-81

Jasper Johns

Savarin, 1977-81

Lithograph on Rives BFK paper (ULAE)

50 x 38 inches

Julia Maiuri, The Letter, 2024

Julia Maiuri

The Letter, 2024

Oil on canvas

16 x 20 inches

John Wesley, Birthday, 1990

John Wesley

Birthday, 1990

Acrylic on canvas

23 x 54 inches

Katelyn Ledford, Veil of Artist at Home, 2025

Katelyn Ledford

Veil of Artist at Home, 2025

Acrylic and oil on canvas

60 x 48 inches

Mary Reid Kelley, So Blonde, 2024

Mary Reid Kelley

So Blonde, 2024

Oil on canvas

12 x 9 inches

Cristina de Miguel, Cama de mar, 2024

Cristina de Miguel

Cama de mar, 2024

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 20 inches

Press Release

Taking its name from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, this exhibition explores the fluid and fractured nature of identity as shaped by the presence of "the other." Through the work of 16 emerging and internationally recognized artists working in figuration, abstraction, and conceptual practices, Persona considers how selfhood is constructed, performed, and disrupted by relational dynamics, societal expectations, and the psychology of difference.

 

The works in the exhibition collectively navigate the tension between authenticity and artifice, interior and exterior selves. Marika Thunder’s fragmented machine parts and car crash imagery suggest a body in flux—both mechanical and organic, colliding with forces beyond its control. Mary Reid Kelley’s layered portrait of Camille Paglia fused with religious iconography transforms a historical figure into a hybrid identity, shaped by discourse and mythology. Sean Landers’ text-laden painting of a frog-like man exposes selfhood as an ongoing narrative, written and rewritten through personal history.

 

This instability extends into the physicality of the works themselves. Cristina de Miguel’s expressive, fluid figures seem to waver between emergence and dissolution, their forms breaking apart as if caught in the act of transformation. Caroline Absher’s self-portrait blends into atmospheric abstraction, where script-like markings suggest identity as something porous, shaped as much by language and memory as by the body. Amélie Peace, in turn, captures figures locked in an uneasy exchange—one grasping, the other pulling away—dramatizing the tension between intimacy and autonomy.

Jenna Gribbon and Xu Yang engage in complex acts of looking and being seen—Gribbon painting moments of intimacy, while Yang stages self-portraits that question gender, theatricality, and the power of presentation. The psychological depth of Ashley Bickerton’s sculptural Blue Man and Cristine Brache’s haunting portrait of Dorothy Stratten point to personas forged through violence, beauty, and myth.

 

Throughout the exhibition, doubling acts as both a formal and thematic device. The echoes of Edvard Munch layered with the artist’s own persona in JasperJohns’ Savarin find an unexpected counterpoint in Julia Maiuri’s layered portrait of cinematic icons, where faces collapse into one another. John Wesley’s signature flat composition offers a wry, enigmatic take on psychological “otherness” and recognition, while Anastasya Peña’s abstract pours, adorned with precise hand-painted embellishments, toy with the instability of form itself.

 

The exhibition also examines how identity is shaped by social structures, memory, and cultural narratives. Charlotte Fox’s dreamlike, intertwined figures juxtaposed with a set of Cinderella-style glass shoes allude to gendered myths of transformation, while Katelyn Ledford’s trompe-l’œil painting disorients perception, blurring illusion and reality.

 

Throughout the exhibition, identity is revealed as an ongoing negotiation rather than a fixed state. Whether through historical archetypes, self-referential gestures, or conceptual distortions, the works in Persona explore how we construct and perceive ourselves and each other in an increasingly hyper-connected world.