Joan Brown, Woman waiting in a restaurant 1975
Venus Over Manhattan is pleased to return to TEFAF New York for the second consecutive year, presenting a carefully curated selection of significant historical and contemporary works. Encompassing both monumental paintings and intimately scaled pieces, the gallery’s presentation in Historic Room 103 at the Park Avenue Armory spotlights gallery artists whose practices have garnered substantial critical acclaim through recent institutional exhibitions and retrospectives Central to the presentation is a monumental painting by Sally Gabori, titled Thundi (2009). Spanning nearly ten feet, the painting features bold vertical bands of red, white, and black, translating Gabori’s vivid recollections of Thundi, a significant ancestral landscape on Bentinck Island in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria. Following major international retrospectives at Fondation Cartier, Paris, and the Triennale di Milano, this painting testifies to Gabori’s status as a transformative figure in contemporary painting. Also prominently featured is Joan Brown’s large-scale self-portrait Woman Waiting in a Restaurant (1975), which highlights the artist’s signature blend of autobiographical reflection and art-historical inquiry. Rich in symbolic allusions—from Renaissance perspective to Egyptian hieroglyphics and Henri Matisse’s cutouts—the painting exemplifies Brown’s career-long exploration of human-animal relationships, cultural symbolism, and flattened pictorial space. This presentation follows Brown’s major retrospective organized by SFMOMA, which traveled to the Carnegie Museum and Orange County Museum of Art. Highlighting the gallery’s continued dedication to historical masters, Venus Over Manhattan presents two significant works by Peter Saul. Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror (1978) playfully subverts one of modernism’s most iconic images, while the early drawing Untitled (1960) showcases Saul’s distinctive synthesis of Abstract Expressionist techniques and emergent Pop Art imagery—elements that established his provocative visual language. In tribute to the late Richard Mayhew (1924–2024), the gallery will feature the evocative, intimately scaled painting Mission Valley (1993). Rendered in luminous blues, greens, and soft peach tones, this atmospheric landscape references a tranquil region north of the Mexican border near San Diego, reflecting Mayhew’s characteristic exploration of color and place, informed by his African American and Native American heritage. The presentation further spotlights Brad Kahlhamer’s large-scale painting American Horse II (2022), previewing his anticipated first solo exhibition with Venus Over Manhattan since joining the gallery last year. Blending references from Plains Indian winter counts, pop-cultural imagery, and Manhattan’s post-punk aesthetic, Kahlhamer creates richly layered visual narratives that articulate his concept of identity as a “third place”—at the intersection of personal mythology and cultural history. Following her current debut solo exhibition with the gallery, Elizabeth Colomba is represented by two compelling works. Spring (2018) is the first in a quartet of paintings that recasts the traditional allegory of the seasons through powerful representations of Black femininity. Accompanying this painting is Colomba’s new drawing Study for Ourika (2025), inspired by the poignant historical narrative popularized in Claire de Duras’ novel. The gallery further highlights Maryan’s expressive canvas, Personnage (1975), executed during the artist’s influential residency at New York’s Chelsea Hotel. Exemplifying the vivid, psychological intensity characteristic of his later works, this painting is deeply informed by Maryan’s experiences of trauma during the Holocaust—themes extensively revisited in his recent major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Additionally, the gallery will debut two striking new paintings by Susumu Kamijo—Blossom by the Sea (2025) and On the Hilltop (2025)—previewing his upcoming June exhibition. These works showcase Kamijo’s evolving approach to form and composition, characterized by bold graphic elements and vibrant palettes set within open landscapes. Rounding out the presentation is a suite of new, intimately scaled paintings by Seth Becker, whose work recently featured on the cover of The Paris Review’s 250th anniversary issue. Becker’s new works, rendered on wood panels, exemplify his evolving approach to surface and narrative.

ABOUT ARTISTS : Seth Becker,Joan Brown,Elizabeth Colomba,Brad Kahlhamer,Susumu Kamijo,Maryan,Richard Mayhew,Peter Saul,Sally Gabori

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