"Dogwalked" by Christl Stringer, oil on canvas, 2"x 28"x1.5", 2025
(JERSEY CITY, NJ) -- Novodo Gallery presents "Object Permanence" from May 9 through June 6, 2026. This is a group exhibition curated by Nicole Basilone and Daniel Morowitz.
Where are we left when our senses fail us? Does something become real based on how it looks? How does it feel? What does it smell like? Or how are you able to remember it? Are any of these things actually important in an age of self consuming simulacra; where can an object begin if it may never end?
Object Permanence as a phenomenon is described as "the understanding that whether an object can be sensed has no effect on whether it continues to exist." Gathering 14 artists with a diverse group visual strategies, Object Permanence is not attempting to find an answer to these impossible questions, but rather commonality employed in diverse visual strategies that carry this thread within the contemporary moment.
Surface comes into question when first noticing an object, while all objects have a surface, painting puts it at the forefront of focus.
Paige Beeber sets the standard for surface, mark making raises and radiates outward, building up depth while approximating the windswept desert landscapes of New Mexico, allowing her paint to become both impasto and dune. Ray Hwang follows this trend with an airy glow, opting for objects that take shape but get undercut by the paint, firelight provides the artificial glow rather than natural sunset colors, and a black square is a redaction, the removal of space becoming the space itself.
Continuing through abstraction, Nicole Basilone pulls more directly from representation in nature rather than reactionary inspiration, floral patterns and fall colors building up her surfaces, falling leaves dip and dissolve, autumn as her painting is titled giving way to a tv static like a forest in November. Moving towards representation, Christl Stringer takes a surreal approach towards contemporary life, lobsters walked on leashes a call back to classical decadence and the absurdity of how privilege can be twisted.
From the floor to the dinner plate, Sarah Mueller and Emma Hapner bring table-scapes front and foremost inviting the viewer to dine, but also transform classical tropes in their own way, pulling from histories like Matisse and Manet. Song Watkins Park rounds out the food by presenting a cabbage, paired with her own body confronting the viewer, identity distilled down to the beautiful and mundane, and homage to tradition but also an unreality of how we perceive the limits of those elements.
Pushing through notions of identity, Paul Anagnostopoulos and Daniel Morowitz reimagine their queer identities as something more mythological. Taking tropes from his greek identity and associated mythologies, Paul puts heroes and figures of those stories in vulnerable settings, his modern prometheus illuminated equally by fire and the day glow colors of our contemporary life. Inspired by painters like Goya and personal experiences on apps, a mirror selfie becomes a colossus in Daniel Morowitz's work, a mundane butt selfie reinterpreted as codex and a reflection of changing societal tides.
Stephen Saliba in literal codex, presents a map charting space as what is or approximating places that may never be, fact by representation, fiction of space. Katie Hector pushes desire with her kissing figures, sprayed on and covered by a sheen of gray, they dissolve into a haze of paint equally as much as a universal memory of a moment of desire. Finally Elliot Purse's overt classical form, a crumbling marble bust rendered in oil paint, is collapse presented with care, solid and stable material made soft and seductive, new oil skin given to cold white marble, operating as both face and facsimile.
"Reflection II" by Elliot Purse, oil on canvas over panel, 14" x 11", 2025
Jumping from marble to material, Rachel Cohen's pulled skin of fabric over her paintings hovers between surface and sculpture. Sequins and flowers catch light as they wrap up layers of paint, a bow on the globby frosting of the cake rather than wrapping on the gift. Bows and Tongues protrude from Judy Giera's painting, femininity as trope squeezed into and pouring out of a rectangle rendered in pink and referencing domestic space, a femininity pushed to the extreme.
Christine Romanell completes the loop and bows with literal loops, mathematical geometry broken down into painted layers, reconstructing fundamental universal concepts into objects that hover between painting and sculpture, complementary colors pushing the forms static-ness into glowing dynamism, evolving more as a fractal than simply an object, layering the potentials of infinity.
"Network States" by Christine Romanell, acrylic on 15 layers of 3/8 inch birch plywood, 40"x 36"x 6", 2025
While the artists all attempt to work through surface, identity, and material in the construction of objects, the ideas behind the work never stay truly permanent. Each piece acts as a boundary, post markers that delineate a space that the ideas can move within. The gallery itself stands in as the physical and metaphorical place for this conversation. By bringing this grouping of artists together, the attempt is to find the thread that connects disparate visual languages and establish a commonality among individual thought processes. Ultimately the conversation attempts to be more spiral than circle, allowing ideas to loop back around but at ever changing vantage points, although the ideas never permanently exist, they can be sensed in ever repeating points of return.
"Object Permanence" runs until June 6, 2026. Novado Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday: 11:00am-7:00pm, Saturdays 11:00am-6:00pm, and by appointment. The gallery is located at 110 Morgan Street in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Novado Gallery LLC opened its doors in December 2016. The gallery carries an inventory of artworks on paper & on canvas, and provides a range of art services for corporate and private clients throughout the east coast including art installation, art commissions for specific projects, and museum-quality custom framing. At Novado Gallery, carefully curated programming presents works that encourage dialogue, celebrate the artist’s vision, and challenge conventions. From established to emerging talent, each exhibition in their gallery has been created to resonate with intellectual and emotional depth. The gallery exhibitions also feature insightful events. Whether it's an artist's talk, a panel discussion, or a gallery tour, their aim is to bridge the gap between art and its audience, providing a platform for meaningful interaction.
