George Adams Gallery in NYC is opening “Moments of Being,” its first solo exhibition with Maya Brodsky. The exhibition brings together a series of portrait paintings – intimate in both scale and subject matter – that capture essential moments in Brodsky’s life.
The exhibition title derives from a Virginia Woolf essay in which she describes these consequential ‘moments of being’ as distinct from the ‘scaffolding in the background.’ Here, Brodsky calls out these singular moments that were transformative to her life through paintings created from photographs she took in the moment. The exhibition is on view through April 1, 2023.
The central piece of the exhibition is a series of paintings created around a hospital stay following the birth of her second daughter. The precisely rendered details of the works – wrinkled bed sheets, wilting flowers, coffee growing cold on a tray – contrast with Brodsky’s fractured memory of the moment, despite the significance of the event. Here the process of painting comes to life, a means to distill a single, essential moment and preserve it.
Throughout the works, life, love, and death play a pivotal role, often tied together through paintings that emphasize the power of touch, particularly from one generation to another. Brodsky’s grandmother Dusya, and her daughter Eda, appear frequently throughout the works, often connected through small, intimate gestures.
Taken together, the ebb and flow of images and the inevitable connotations of film emphasize not only the passage of time, but also a transfer from one generation to the next.
For more details: www.georgeadamsgallery.com
Browse more paintings and artworks on view at galleries across the country and beyond here.
