NEW YORK, NY.- Thierry Goldberg is presenting And The Sun Left, a group exhibition featuring work by Emily Manwaring, Bony Ramirez, Sydney Vernon, Brandy Wednesday, and Connar Weston. The exhibition will run from July 17th to August 21st, 2020. The gallery space is currently open to the public with summer hours: Tuesday to Friday, 12-5p.
Each of the artists in And The Sun Left embrace the figure as a central character in their paintings, using the human form to connect with the viewer on the other side of the canvas. Bouncing between the surreal and the mundane, occasionally multiple times in the same piece, these five artists portray people in unabashedly idiosyncratic styles, sharing an honest, if unsettling, perspective on the human experience.
In the exhibition’s namesake painting, Bony Ramirez depicts a lone figure holding a shell on a pale purple background, and while the character’s stance leans to the right, their eyes are cast quiveringly back and out of frame, turning an otherwise straightforward portrait into something more sinister. This sort of twist is not uncommon for Ramirez, whose objects and symbols—and even hands and feet—quickly reveal that they are not what they seem at first glance.
Unusual symbologies also play a role in Brandy Wednesday’s paintings on wallpaper. Eclectically adorned groups of women circulate among wavy backdrops, pausing to swap trinkets or pass through portals. While mysterious, their connective ties are palpable, echoed in the artist’s stitching that dots the paper. Connar Weston’s “Gorgons: Girls Come in Threes” shares with Wednesday an understanding of the power of intimate group ritual, though her work focuses less on the explicitly odd, and more on the uncertainty lying below the surface of what we think we already know. Her paintings, set on traditional farmlands and homesteads, challenge any preconceptions of place.
Trading amber waves and prairies for mortared brick and shopping bags, the pair of Emily Manwaring paintings are an explosion of color and reference points. Though full of energy, her aptly titled “Can’t let the summer past” feels almost frozen in time, with figures in mid-pose or exaltation. Sydney Vernon portrays a softer side of domestic life, showing a child, attentively supported, wading waist deep in a pool of water. Set against a backdrop both urban and verdant, Vernon’s figures seem to propose the possibility of a harmonious future.
Emily Manwaring (b. 1999, Queens, NY) lives and works in Queens, NY. She has been included in exhibitions at POWRPLNT (Brooklyn, NY); Houghton Jr. Gallery, New York, NY; and 41 Cooper Gallery, New York, NY.
Bony Ramirez (b. 1996, Tenares, Salcedo, Dominican Republic) lives and works in Perth Amboy, NJ. His work has been featured in exhibitions at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY; the Perth Amboy Center for the Arts, Perth Amboy, NJ; and the Shiman Art Gallery, Newark, NJ; including a solo exhibition at the Perth Amboy Center for the Arts
Sydney Vernon (b.1995, Prince George’s County, MD) lives and works in New York, NY. Her work was previously exhibited at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, NY; Peg Alston Fine Arts, New York, NY; Prince George’s County African American Museum and Cultural Center, Brentwood, MD; and The White Room, Washington, DC.
Brandy Wednesday (b. 1982, Atlanta, GA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, and her MFA from Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY. Her work was previously exhibited at BRIC, Brooklyn, NY; Trax Gallery, Lake City, SC; and Mint Gallery, Atlanta, GA; among many others.
Connar Weston (b. 1993, Burlington, VT) lives and works in Providence, RI. They received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and has had work previously exhibited at the Feick Arts Center, Pultney, VT, and Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI, among others.
