A Group Show during Ridgewood Open Studios
Curated by Becky Yazdan
Tigerforce Interboro
5950 Summerfield St, Ridgewood, Queens
Friday, May 16, 2025 - Sunday, May 18th, 2025
Beatrice Modisett
Benjamin Pritchard
Elisa Lendvay
Elise Thompson
Esther Ruiz
Jane Cleveland
Jeffery Morabito
Polly Shindler
The work in this show is a direct reflection of the state we find ourselves in today - we’ve come out of the surreal covid years, but what lies ahead is unclear. Biding our time, holding our breath, waiting to see where we will land. As artists, we grapple with uncertainty, try to understand and process that which is out of our control, and find our footing through the making of work. The artists in this show vary in their coping mechanisms: introspection, fantasy, humor, nature, filth, fire, connection, reclamation.
I imagine Beatrice Modisett in the woods, contemplative. Reconnecting with nature, burning wood then reconstructing the charred remains into a structure (nest-like) to hold sensitive, delicate drawings made from charcoal from the same fire. Engaging with the natural world, transforming it, returning to basic elements and then starting again with a clean slate.
Elisa Lendvay takes ordinary objects and reshapes them, makes them human, warm. She marks the passage of time by repeating, stacking, shaping, seeking solace through natural form. She treats ordinary detritus with love and care, turns wire and bottle caps into something organic and soft, creating a bridge between the human body and the object.
Elise Thompsen explores the nuances of experience and emotion. Her work is layered, giving us some of the story, but not all, inviting us in but then pushing us away. She is coy - allows us a partial glimpse, but it is filtered, and on her terms. She controls the narrative, what is seen and what is not seen, allowing, even forcing the void, lest we get too comfortable.
Esther Ruiz is an alchemist. Combining materials, bending light, creating portals to another dimension. It’s as if she is trying to build a spaceship to return to her home planet (can we come too?) She’s a scientist dissecting, testing, observing. If the concrete is bathed in warm light will it still skin my knees?
Jane Cleveland’s work explores desire, exposure, and fear. The work navigates the uneasy coexistence of conflicting emotions and the impossibility of certainty. Nothing is clear - who is the predator, and who is the prey?
I picture Jeffrey Morabito walking the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, finding comfort in seeing weathered “Lost” posters on telephone poles, and a rat dragging a piece of pizza across the subway tracks - somehow these things mean more now; there’s an innocence and nostalgia, familiarity.
Benjamin Pritchard is the most introspective of the group, finding calm through the act of making, shedding the mundane details of the day to day to get closer to something intangible, yet ultimately the most real, the most true. Humbly seeking to express something that can’t be expressed through the very real act of creation.
Polly Shindler finds beauty in the mundane by documenting the every day spaces we occupy with great sensitivity. There is a strange loneliness and longing in her depictions of the daily routine - do the laundry, make the bed, stop to see the moonlight on the flowers. Repeat.
Beatrice Modisett
Beatrice Modisett
Benjamin Pritchard
Benjamin Pritchard
Benjamin Pritchard
Benjamin Pritchard
Elisa Lendvay
Elisa Lendvay
Elisa Lendvay
Elisa Lendvay
Elise Thompson
Elise Thompson
Esther Ruiz
Esther Ruiz
Jane Cleveland
Jeffrey Morabito
Jeffrey Morabito
Jeffrey Morabito
Jeffrey Morabito
Polly Shindler
Polly Shindler
Polly Shindler