Figurative Constructs at MANA Contemporary

 Gabriella Imperatori-Penn, Figurative Constructs

By GARY RYAN April 2, 2025

‘The Self In Flux’ could have been the title of this exhibition, or perhaps, ‘Seven Women Making Sense of their Complex World’. Though the idea was straightforward and simple, it was not a simple show, but had depth and breadth and a clear focus that was at once refreshing, liberating, and provocative. Overall it was a brilliant show, with solid bones in terms of curation and guiding ideas from the gallerists behind it.

Pick up a paper or listen to the news—it’s abundantly clear that who we are, where we are, and where we’re headed is a bit like the proverbial river that cannot be precisely stepped into twice. From one moment to the next the entire river volume in front of us has flowed away downstream and another entire volume has quickly taken its place.

Natural adaptations in the real world, like camouflage on the wings of moths, or like size differentiations within a species take generations - perhaps even eons. Our cultural adaptations are largely determined by the constant flow of new technologies and happen far more quickly. If you keep up with the constant technological changes from paper to PDA to desktop to laptop to smartphone -  it’s easier to find work. Lag behind and it’s almost impossible to fully enter into our shared culture.

Gabriella Imperatori Penn, Figurative Constructs, MANA Contemporary

This show was in its own way about that. How do we adapt our ways, shift our thinking, and continue to engage and interface with each other and with ourselves ensconced within a technologically-driven world that mutates ceaselessly in real time before our very eyes. We ourselves are mere bodies, or perhaps bodies and souls not necessarily designed to incorporate all the adaptations we’re called upon to make in the timeframes thrust upon us. To quote Jessica Holmes in the press release for this show, amidst all this flux “Where does that leave our mortal bodies, the figure itself?”

Yet that is the task we’ve no time to shirk or shrink from.

Shuli Sade’s ‘Night Vision’ super-dense cityscape quickly gets to the heart of the matter—how can we be expected to find sense and meaning or be expected to even survive within the intricate maze-like confines of any modern megacity? Yet we do, as if by miracle, and perhaps even prosper. For the most part. Some of us. Hopefully.

Verdiana Pattacchini’s ‘One Day Ex-Voto’ series is a reminder that despite the intensity of the flux we observe and sense enveloping is, our culture is not an isolate apart from the main flow of history. Our culture is merely the river immediately in front of us now. Yesterday it was behind us, and the time before that it was even further behind us, somewhat like an archaeological site that is a city built upon a city built upon a settlement built upon an even older, smaller settlement.

Figurative Constructs Entrance: Angela China and Yuli Aloni Primor

Kristian Battell’s ‘Anthropocene Cavern, pt.4, 2021’ is a further prompt in a similar direction reminding us that though much in our world might be new and unfamiliar, much of it—the forms and shapes—are familiar and everyday. Even the materials themselves—water bottles, newspapers, paste, and silkscreened images—though modern inventions, now for us have an almost natural world familiarity and acceptance.

MJ King’s ‘Totem’ series, though intended as architectural renderings, reminded me of Joseph Beuys’ performance and subsequent photos “I Like America and America Likes Me”, sometimes called “Coyote” which depicted him huddled under a tent-like felt blanket hiding for three whole days from a live coyote. Visually there is a similar primativeness and primordial sensibility about her work, and with it an awareness that there is no modernity that is not deeply couched within the dispassionate default mode of nature.

Gabriella Imperatori-Penn’s solarized gelatin selenium toned silver prints are delicate and exquisite. Though a series of female partial nudes, they are decidedly, refreshingly not from the vantage of the male gaze. They are however perfect renditions of what could be categorized as ideal beauty. Light of frame with perfect proportions, precise dimensions, and flawless porcelain-like humanity they present as luminescent, albeit perhaps unattainable, Platonic ideals.

Angela China’s contribution was a series of figurative paintings of female forms. Her process evolves through a recurring cycle—at first applying paint without apparent forethought or design in a manner that seems formlessness and void, then later as the build up of ooze and detritus progresses, shapes emerge (or perhaps not shapes exactly, though for this show, yes, shapes emerged) from the dynamic juxtapositions of ideas within, in a kind of constant, recurring creation-generating cauldron.
 

Yuli Aloni Primor (sculpture) and MJ King
 

Yuli Aloni Primor’s work in this show was extensive. Some works on paper, some computer-assisted 2D and 3D renderings, sculptures/installations—her work is partly idealized, partly stylized depictions of the racing thoughts that young girls fixate upon. Thoughts about being a girl, thoughts about being the right kind of person in relation to others, thoughts about burgeoning sexuality, and yes, thoughts about life beyond the edges of polite society.

A standout among her presented works was the oil on canvas piece Domesticity and its companion sculpture version which were both in the show. The oil on canvas version reminded me just a bit of Renoir of the 1890’s, if in fact he had painted Barbie-reminiscent figures, and the monochrome sculpture version reminded me just a bit of Tracy Emin’s ‘My Bed’ of 1997. Primor’s ‘Domesticity’ is in its own way far less straightforward than either Renoir’s or Emin’s work, though for sure all three artists were engaging with their respective societal dialogue threads.

MANA Contemporary in Jersey City, just a short PATH train ride away from Manhattan’s Downtown Westside, is a cavernous jewel box that I recommend to you. With shows like this one, and permanent works on display by the likes of Andy Warhol and Donald Judd, it’s always a worthy venture to go there. WM