lenore malen
samantha modder
debra pearlman
amy yoes

Lenore Malen and Debra Pearlman present a joint exhibition of their photographic work in the Eastern Gallery on the ground floor. The two artists have been deeply engaged in each other's work for several years and share an interest in spontaneous role-playing and play-acting. Additionally, they both explore a quasi-realistic style in painting and photography that skirts around expressionism. For both artists, the photographic image is the source material. In both bodies of work, tension, rules, teasing, order, and violence prevail. The interactions of adults in Malen's images and children in those of Pearlman's illuminate the complexities of conflicts and provisional, always fragile, resolutions in our current culture. 

Samantha Modder’s digitally printed murals on adhesive paper from her recent body of work exploring a subjective Black woman's fairytale, processing structures of oppression. The narrative installations are made of digitally manipulated ballpoint pen drawings that follow a Black woman in her nightdress and striped socks in a world of only her and her duplicates. Through flying hairballs, commoditized socks, and characters like the ever-present "Source of All Hair," and her materially minded counterpart, the "Wearer of All Socks," the work serves as an allegory for our contemporary condition, confronting questions of power, exploitation, and resistance. Black hair is a powerful protagonist, pushing the narrative forward in soft curls and defiant shapes. The work is positioned in the speculative practice of the Black imaginary—a centering of Black dreams and fantasies to create alternate spaces of both comfort and confrontation.

Amy Yoes created a site-specific installation, using strategies she used in her concurrent exhibition, Hot Corners, at MassMoCA. Sculpture, paintings, works on paper, and photographs co-exist in spaces, encouraging visitors to engage with the work. She utilizes sculptural vitrines of vibrant colors, repetitive design motifs, and exuberant materiality that explore the language of ornament and pattern throughout history and the specificity of spaces. The artist's multi-faceted practice employs installation, photography, video, painting, and sculpture, often within the same project. It merges in environments and images that suggest the creation of a particular universe with its logic, codes, and syntax.

About the Artists

Lenore Malen is a New York-based artist and writer who draws on mythic stories interpreted through installation, performance, and film. Past exhibitions and performances include The Fields at Art Omi; Tufts University; Wesleyan University; Cue Art Foundation; CR10; Studio 10 N.Y.; Art in General; Wave Hill; Hudson Opera House; Film Columbia; Pierogi's The Boiler; Slought Foundation; Participant Inc.; Printed Matter; Locks Gallery; Skidmore College; Rutgers University; Exit Art; Apex Art; Uppsala Konstmuseum; Brecht Forum; The Finnish Cultural Institutes (with Samir Bhowmik); The B.B.C. (Lion TV); France Fiction, Paris. Projects have been reviewed in BOMB, Art in America, Artforum, Brooklyn Rail, Umbrella, The Village Voice, Art on Paper, and the New York Times. She's attended residences at Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, and The Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Mass. Malen is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, NYSCA and NYFA Grants recipient. 

 Samantha Modder is a Nigerian-Sri Lankan artist who works figuratively in pen, collage, and digital media to portray larger-than-life Black female characters taking up space in real and imagined worlds. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2017 with a B.A. in Studio Art and Engineering and from Washington University in St. Louis with an M.F.A. in Visual Arts in 2022. She currently works as an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at the University of Tampa. 

Debra Pearlman is an artist based in Brooklyn. Current and recent exhibitions include a one-person show, Roundabout, Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn, Everywoman Biennial at LaMama Galleria, NY, South Brooklyn Salon, Thomas VanDyke Gallery, Holiday at Labspace, Hillsdale, NY, First Come, B Dry Goods, Brooklyn, Exquisite Codes, ODETTA Gallery and National Printmaking, William Paterson University Wayne, New Jersey. Her work has also been seen nationally and internationally at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and galleries in New York, SLAG Gallery, Sue Scott, Exit Art, the International Print Center, and Richard Anderson Gallery. Reviews include the New York Times, Print Collector's Newsletter, Art in America, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Pearlman received an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, New York Public Library, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland, and Smith College Museum. She has received a Meredith S. Moody Residency at YADDO, a grant from The Peter S. Reed Foundation, Special Editions, Individual Artist grants from the Lower East Side Print Shop, and a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Her public art project with Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn will run through the 2024 election.  

Amy Yoes works multi-faceted, alternately employing installation, photography, video, painting, and sculpture. Yoes's ongoing research into craft, architecture, and decorative art has been furthered by travel and research opportunities that included residencies at the Maison Dora Marr / Brown Fellowship Award Residency (Menérbes, France); the A.I.R. Krems Residency (Krems, Austria); The British School at Rome Abbey Award Residency (Rome, Italy); and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Artist in Residence Program. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.; Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA; Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit, MI; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; the Carpenter Center, Boston, MA; and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK. She is the recipient of residencies at the Maison Dora Marr / Brown Fellowship Award Residency (Menérbes, France); the A.I.R. Krems Residency (Krems, Austria); The British School at Rome Abbey Award Residency (Rome, Italy); and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Artist in Residence Program. Yoes has shared her work as a visiting artist at over 50 institutions nationally and abroad. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Sculpture, Photography, Fiber and Material Studies, and Contemporary Practices. Since 2014, she has also co-taught a study trip for SAIC in Siena, Italy, focusing on the relationships between the city's geology, local materials, and historical cultural production. She lives and works in Narrowsburg, New York. Amy Yoes received her fine arts degree from the School for the Art Institute of Chicago.