Monya Rowe Gallery is excited to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Aubrey Levinthal titled Neighbors, Strangers, Gazers, Bathers. This is the artists’ second solo exhibition at Monya Rowe Gallery. In Levinthal’s previous solo exhibition at Monya Rowe Gallery, the paintings focused on her own daily interiority and the quotidian, mostly situated in the home. For this exhibition, Levinthal reflects on ones’ relationship to the outside world and moves the psychology away from the isolated self to a more unknown drifting space. The paintings are infused with more daylight, color has become brighter, and the figures are larger.
Shared environments, such as neighborhood coffee shops, yoga studios, hospitals, hotels and pools are fraught with nuanced tension and personal connection. Levinthal heightens the psychological space between observing and knowing. The paintings explore a sense of insecurity, self-reflection and curiosity in collective spaces. In Bagel Line (2022), a group of friends situated outside a bagel shop huddle closely together in winter coats. Their expressions range from anxious to annoyed to eager highlighting ones’ own duality.
The artist projects an interior life onto these strangers: a barista, a person standing in line, a blue-haired teenager at a take-out counter, or a shopper in a clothing store. Within the paintings, objects take on abstract shapes and act as barriers. In Crab Shack (2022), two brown paper bags give the impression of a wall in front of a pensive young woman.
