NEW YORK, NY.- Massey Klein Gallery is presenting Elemental, a two-person exhibition featuring sculptures by Claire Lieberman and paintings and works on paper by Louis Reith. The gallery also announced, enouement, a solo exhibition of new work by Bethany Czarnecki. Hosted in Massey Klein’s intimate east gallery room, enouement runs concurrent to the two person exhibition, Elemental. Both exhibitions are on view by appointment from Friday, June 26th until Saturday, August 1st.

Elemental pairs two artists, Claire Lieberman and Louis Reith, based on their engaging use of materials, geometric forms, and monochromatic color palette. In both Lieberman and Reith's work, careful attention is given to the natural properties of the materials where decisions made by each artist challenge perception and elevate these materials to a higher level. They express a unique relationship between mechanical forms and nature.

Lieberman, a dedicated sculptor, crafts elegant yet complex three-dimensional forms out of marble. Through her work, the artist is engaged with playful imagery that often crosses over to precarious structures, evoking beauty, delight, and danger within each piece. Lieberman pushes the marble to exciting and thought-provoking forms with her mastery of geometry and articulation of shape. Lieberman’s works indicate the hand of an expert sculptor with each line, curve, and surface clearly articulated and brought to a high polish.

Lieberman’s work has been reviewed in Sculpture magazine, The New York Times, Art on Paper, and ARTnews. Lieberman has received awards from The Arctic Circle, Territory of Svalbard; Seaside Institute, FL; National Endowment for the Arts; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Friche La Belle de Mai, Marseilles; Künstlerhaus, Salzburg; Yaddo; and MacDowell Colony. The artist attended the Boston Museum School (BFA) and Pratt Institute (MFA with distinction).

Conversing with Lieberman’s marble sculptures are large-scale paintings and intimate works on paper by Louis Reith. Reith’s sculptural paintings are constructed of wooden panels that have been carefully carved and stained with soil. The artist divides his panels in a precise manner, leaving clean edges and depicting geometric shapes that suggest architectural structure. Reith’s work focuses on two-dimensional forms while alluding to three dimensionality, allowing positive and negative space to play an integral part in the series. Also on view by Reith are collaged works on paper created from repurposed vintage books. The composition of these works on paper echo the artist’s larger panel paintings. The vintage paper also captures a similar visual effect as the wooden panels, adding warmth to the precise lines and hard edges.




Louis Reith lives and works in Zetten, the Netherlands. The artist received his BA from the AKI Academy for Art & Design in Enschede, NL. Reith's work is included in the permanent collection of the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland. He has exhibited extensively in Europe and the US.

This is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.

Massey Klein Gallery is also thrilled to announce, enouement, a solo exhibition of new work by Bethany Czarnecki. Bethany Czarnecki creates abstract paintings that project an atmospheric sense of place while exploring the paradoxes and complexities of the female form and its representation. Her swirling compositions investigate themes of gender, identity, sensuality, and the human psyche. Working slowly with oil paint, Czarnecki carves out multiple layers of concentric, biomorphic shapes that radiate chromatic planes. Ranging from opaque color fields to translucent overlays, nested silhouettes bend and bloom as they foster complex relationships within each composition. The artist’s use of repetitive forms signifies a distortion of time and place that allude to dreamscapes, while color becomes a carrier of emotion that ultimately reveals the unseen.

The works included in enouement continue the artist’s language of abstract painting while exploring internal thoughts of experience, place, memory, and time. The word, enouement, refers to a bittersweet feeling of arriving in the present day coupled with the longing to share the gained knowledge of the present with the past self. This poignant reflection is evidenced in Czarnecki’s paintings through her complex use of color, dimensionality, and careful attention to the edges and intersections of oil paint. These pseudo-landscapes, forms, and narratives allow for an imaginative and contemplative space rich with energy.

Czarnecki has exhibited nationally at galleries and museums, including Amy Simon Fine Art, Westport, CT and The Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY. Her work is in the collection of Citizens Bank Corporate Office, Bentonville, AR. This is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.

Please email info@masseyklein.com to schedule an in-person viewing or visit the gallery’s website to experience a virtual walk-through of both exhibitions.