French poet Comte de Lautréamont’s well-known description, “beautiful as a chance encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella,” got here to thoughts after I encountered the exhibition Abigail Dudley and Elise Siegel: Portray and Sculpture, at Steven Harvey Fantastic Artwork Initiatives. I’m glad that I didn’t learn the press launch, which tells us that the exhibition is the primary time the pair has been proven collectively, and that “their practices are in close conversation,” till after I noticed the work. Their works are way more expansive than the directive of the textual content.
I initially considered the pairing of Dudley and Siegel as two artists having solo exhibits in a slim house. Initially, I went to take a look at Dudley’s work, as I’ve been following her profession since I first noticed her work within the 2023 Miami College Younger Painters Competitors, for which I used to be the juror. However seeing Siegel’s ceramic busts for the primary time was an sudden revelation.
Dudley is an observational painter who, over the previous three years, retains discovering methods to dissolve the boundaries between the seen and imagined, in addition to attain a fluid house wherein the close to and much, observable and the dream-like, can believably coexist. I don’t know if Henri Matisse’s “The Red Studio” (1911) is one in every of her inspirations, however she appears to be transferring alongside a parallel path in a few of her current work, comparable to “Farmer’s Market Bouquet,” “Four Faces,” and “Studio in Spring” (all dated 2025).
Abigail Dudley, “Farmer’s Market Bouquet” (2025), oil on linen
In “Farmer’s Market Bouquet,” Dudley makes use of the portray’s rectangular format to border a deep room, whereas concurrently depicting six four-sided objects of various sizes to underscore the portray’s two-dimensional floor in numerous methods. A big sq. is tucked within the decrease left-hand nook. A bouquet of pink, yellow, orange, and white flowers in a glass jar is about in opposition to the sq.’s pink and yellow floor. The contradiction of the shadow solid by the jar’s backside and the flatness of the flowers raises a query: Are we taking a look at a still-life association, or a portray of 1, or — the extra doubtless case — each? This contradiction is enhanced by the shadow the picket ground to the fitting of the sq. casts on a blue rug under it.
In “Farmer’s Market Bouquet,” “Four Faces,” and “Studio in Spring,” Dudley finds other ways to discover and imaginatively tweak the connection of a room’s box-like house to the portray’s two-dimensional floor. She loves depicting issues, from soiled paintbrushes and cans to plaster casts to flowers, however that devotion isn’t the driving power behind her work. Moderately, it’s the astute inclination to discover completely different formal prospects whereas following an inner logic that makes her greater than an excellent observational artist. Certainly, Dudley’s inventive ambition, deep engagement with artwork historical past, restlessness, and delicate, masterful paint dealing with, prime her to grow to be a significant artist who is ready to rework her standard training into one thing sudden and compelling.
Left: Abigail Dudley, “Studio in Spring” (2025); proper: Elise Siegel, “Black and Pale Blue Portrait Bust with Hollow Eyes” (2018)
I didn’t deal with any connections between Dudley and Siegel till I began scripting this overview. The primary ones that got here to thoughts needed to do with their absorption with conventional supplies, particularly, oil paint and clay, respectively. As well as, they each discover topics deemed old style, particularly if they’re unironic, which they’re.
Siegel’s works take the type of a bust set on a shelf or an unadorned wooden pedestal, finished largely in a single coloration, comparable to blue, which she makes use of in lots of the works within the present. The busts — whose gender will not be evident — are intimately scaled: The biggest is round two ft excessive, and the smallest is round six inches excessive. The hair is carefully cropped, paying homage to a bonnet or a leather-based helmet. Siegel desires to direct our consideration to the face, eyes, nostril, and mouth. The matte glaze makes the heads really feel susceptible, extra like pores and skin than ceramic, which Siegel subtly enhances via her consideration to telling options and use of various viscosities in her glazes.
The eyes are both holes or shallow cavities. The busts should not of people as a result of they’re unrealistic. And but, I felt like each had a selected character and story to inform. What held my consideration, made me look longer and more durable, slower, was the silence of their melancholia. “Baby Blue Portrait Bust with Square Eyes” (2018) has small sq. openings for eyes. The pinnacle is erect, proud, elegant, and understated. Blue rivulets ran down the entrance of its chest, as if the pinnacle had been bleeding or dissolving or each.
Set up view of Abigail Dudley and Elise Siegel: Portray and Sculpture with Elise Siegel, “Baby Blue Portrait Bust with Square Eyes” in foreground (2018)
“Portrait Bust with Lavender Hair and Black Base” (2015) is armless. The face is glazed with white, like a layer of frosting, which is echoed by a triangular, bib-like form extending down from the neck. One layer of black matte glaze extends up from the slim base, spreading out till the highest of its spherical edge meets the white triangle’s descending level.
Every thing about this and different works pulls you in deeper, results in hypothesis and self-reflection. They don’t really feel like busts, however fairly mirrors of our damaged lives and silence. They emanate ache, muteness, bewilderment, stoicism, and silence. I didn’t know Siegel’s work earlier than this exhibition, however now I’ll observe it as carefully as I can. In my eyes, what Siegel and Dudley share is a tenderness and respect in direction of their topic, a way of what stays non-public.
Abigail Dudley, “Gardener’s Gift” (2025), oil on linen
Abigail Dudley, “Be Mine” (2025), oil on linen
Left: Elise Siegel, “Gray and White Head” (2018), ceramic, underglazes; proper: Elise Siegel, “Iceberg Blue Head with Red Features” (2025), ceramic, underglazes (each images courtesy Steven Harvey Fantastic Artwork Venture)
Abigail Dudley, “Four Faces” (2025), oil on linen
Set up view of Abigail Dudley and Elise Siegel: Portray and Sculpture, with works by Siegel within the foreground and a portray by Dudley within the background
Abigail Dudley, “The Florist and Blue Couch” (2025), oil on linen
Abigail Dudley and Elise Siegel: Portray and Sculpture continues at Steven Harvey Fantastic Artwork Initiatives (208 Forsyth Avenue, Decrease East Facet, Manhattan) via October 15. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
