Stories Unfolding: A Tapestry of Narratives at Art Gotham

Under Us, 2025 by Cloe Galasso

The show's standout piece comes from Chloe Galasso, whose work "Under Us" demonstrates how powerful things can come in small packages. This modest square canvas features Galasso's signature orb motif, through which a hand reaches out – a gesture that carries remarkable emotional weight despite its compact size. Her larger piece "Odyssea" further develops this visual language, depicting two crossed hands suspended within an orb floating above water. Galasso's mastery of her chosen imagery speaks to the exhibition's broader themes of transformation and interconnection, with her orbs serving as portals through which energy and time seem to flow freely. It's no surprise that one of these pieces sold before the show even opened.

Maria Paula Suarez at the opening of Stories Unfolding

Maria Paula Suarez brings a different kind of delicacy to the exhibition with her embroidered text works on paper, which draw inspiration from Ed Ruscha's word-based paintings while carving out their own distinct aesthetic territory. Suarez showed three pieces from her Tangled Thoughts series, a series created in 2022, embracing lingering thoughts that invite moments of pause, reflection, and healing. Her piece "Walking Time," executed in purple monochromatic tones, encourages viewers to engage more intimately with the imagery and engage in silent dialogue with the work. This piece is part of a five-piece series she developed for her first NYC solo show, HABITAT, at the See Me Gallery in New York.

The work serves as both a meditation on and prescription for navigating life in fast-paced urban environments like New York. The piece's message about taking time to breathe and reflect feels particularly poignant in the context of the bustling opening reception, where the constant flow of conversation and connection could easily overwhelm. Grounded in psychological research, this pieces highlights language as a powerful tool for self-discovery.

Her more recent works from 2024, featuring phrases like "relax" and "release," suggest an artist who has found her own sense of peace while continuing to offer gentle reminders to her audience about the importance of pause and reflection.

Rosa Maria de Meglio's contributions to the show stand out not only for their artistic merit but for their innovative approach to sustainability in art-making. Since 2019, de Meglio has been developing her own sustainable materials, creating works that speak to environmental consciousness both in their message and their medium. Her displayed pieces, though modest in size, represent a significant statement about the responsibility of artists to consider their environmental impact. By repurposing paper and clay to create her own "canvases" which she then embellishes with oil paint, de Meglio demonstrates how artistic practice can align with ecological values without sacrificing aesthetic quality.

Among the more intriguing works in the show is Karine Locatelli's ink piece "Christmas Trees," which plays with perception in fascinating ways. At first glance, the work appears to be executed in embroidery, perhaps in dialogue with Suarez's pieces. However, closer inspection reveals a series of ink dashes that, when viewed from a distance, coalesce into images of discarded Christmas trees. While the artist's hometown of Deposit, NY, might have inspired these images of post-holiday disposal, the work transcends its specific origins to speak to broader themes of temporality and the bittersweet nature of celebration. The piece serves as a poignant reminder of how quickly cherished moments become memories, linking perfectly with the exhibition's overarching exploration of time and impermanence.

What makes "Stories Unfolding" particularly successful is Duval’s careful curation, which allows these diverse approaches and mediums to engage in meaningful dialogue with one another. The conversation between Suarez's embroidered texts and Locatelli's deceptively embroidery-like ink work, for instance, creates an interesting commentary on perception and medium. Similarly, the juxtaposition of Galasso's mystical orbs with de Meglio's sustainability-focused pieces speaks to different ways of envisioning transformation and change.

The exhibition title proves particularly apt, as each work indeed tells its own story while contributing to a larger narrative about human connection, memory, and the passage of time. The works on display remind us that stories are not static things but living, breathing entities that continue to evolve through our engagement with them. In this sense, the exhibition itself becomes a meta-commentary on the act of storytelling in visual art.

As visitors move through the space, they become part of this unfolding narrative, their own memories and interpretations adding new layers to the works on display. This participatory aspect of the exhibition reinforces its themes of connection and community, suggesting that the stories we tell through art are never truly complete but continue to grow and change through each viewer's engagement.

"Stories Unfolding" succeeds in creating a space where time seems to dissolve, allowing visitors to explore the intersection of personal and collective experience through the lens of contemporary art. In doing so, it reminds us of art's unique ability to forge connections across time, space, and individual experience – a reminder that feels particularly vital in our increasingly fragmented world.