The exhibition RE-FRAME: A COLLECTIVE PERSPECTIVE OF AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN WOMEN ARTISTS brings together more than forty works by twenty women artists working in a range of media and styles. What unites this diverse body of work is the genre – that of portraiture. However, these images of people do more than present us with a variety of human faces: the sheer abundance of approaches, both stylistic and technical, reveals, by contrast, as much about the artists as it does about their models. From cubist self-portraits by Khromin and cosmist collages by Stanislav to comic book heroes by Bombi and well-ordered oils by Ingalls, these works plunge into the exploration of contemporary women’s worlds–so strikingly different–and at the same time so connected. We find ourselves in the midst of an international community of artists who dare to be radically innovative, or, on the opposite end of the scale, traditional–to the point of being old-fashioned. And being traditional takes more guts than being boldly experimental in the contemporary art world.

This century’s portraiture has broken out of the narrow confines of the genre. A number of works in the exhibition reveal the extensive storytelling potential of the rethinking of this venerable art form, portraying their subjects through a tell-tale absence. In Bikkina’s charming Let’s Go, the portrait becomes a relationship, a connection between the artist (whose face we do not see) and her dog. Caldwell’s photos of candy wrappers, picked up in urban debris across Europe, generate a vivid visualization of her scavenging for tiny slips of colorful paper on Athenian sidewalks or St. Petersburg’s stone embankments. And in Sarycheva’s witty video, the invisibility of the artist looking for a ghost in the dark building becomes a palpable presence.

Showcased in the digital gallery, these fascinating works unfold the universe of ingenuity, humor, sadness, empathy, and more, under the umbrella of unbounded creativity.

Curator – Maria Zavialova.

The exhibition features original three-channel sound by composer Jesse Gelaznik.