Exhibitions
ON PAPER: AUXIERKLINE 2025
Group show with Milton Sonday, Alexandra Smith, Logan T. Sibrel, Emila Olsen, and Hank Ehrenfried
Install
WORKS ON PAPER: SOOT 2024
Group show with Sakura Abdel-Raman, Josh Alford, Lulu Bonfils, Michael Cuadrado, Alice Gong Xiaowen, Andrew Hildenbrand, Sam Heim, Caroline Hill, Aidan Lapp, Shuyao Huang, Kassia Karras, Naomi Larson, Claire McElwee, Kennedy McNeil, Jeffrey Marchetti, Seiji Murakarni, Ruby Mumik, Mika Nida, Jack Ramsell, Chioe Rees, Luca Rekosh, Ariel Rich, Simon Rosenthal, Cecily Russo, Toni Sennett, Hill Spriggins, Eliana Szabo, Ethan Tate, Poppy Tingley, and Scott Vander Veen
Install
WrittingIn collaboration with SOOT is a new way of mapping information visually. This digital and physical exhibition celebrates the voices of 30 artists under 30 in New York.The physical exhibition is a wide selection of works on paper, from drawing and collage to printmaking and sculpture. Paper finds itself in an interesting place in the fine art world. For some, it is a place that holds ideas for projects“ a preliminary step, or a first draft”; to others, it is a medium of finality. No matter the relationship between maker and paper, there is a direct correlation between working on paper and youth. SOOT allows a wider selection of these artists’ practices to be shown to a global audience. The show was curated with people I knew from school, residencies, fruitful conversations at parties, and word of mouth from others in the show. I am hopeful that the digital components of SOOT, combined with the traditional gallery display let you look at these artists and works on paper and holistic practices in an exciting way.
SOOTS WORK ON PAPERS
PORTRAITISTS (Pratt BFA) 2023
Group show with Jeffrey Marchetti and Tatjana Mia Cartlis
Install
Writing
Writing
Cohort is the first solo presentation of works by Aidan Lapp, a Brooklyn-based artist and current Senior at the Pratt Institute. Cohort features portraits of the artist and his peers in charcoal and watercolor. Cohort is on view at Room 482 by appointment from November 11 to November 20, 2022. An opening reception will be held on November 11th from 4–8PM.
Room 482 bears witness to the artist’s process. Stray brushstrokes dot the walls, and paint peels off the walls, revealing the outlines of once-mounted frames. Traces of the domestic, too, are present in the converted studio and gallery. It’s only fitting that in this intimate environment, Aidan Lapp shows his first solo presentation of works, Cohort.
Cohort consists of watercolor and graphite portraits of the artist and his friends and lovers. Lapp turns social gatherings into life-study classes, coaxing Polaroid portraits out of his muses in dramatically-lit bedrooms, his own overgrown backyard that boasts a yurt. These moments of connection feed his practice, and are the basis of the works on view.
Lapp’s exploration of intimacy is nowhere more evident than in his subjects’ expressions. Lida and Lida in Backyard feature the same subject in two different settings and mediums. In both works, the subject’s gaze appears almost distant, disinterested. The lack of expression should not be read as aggression or confrontation, though, but rather authenticity and friendship. In the company of friends and peers, we are free to abandon the performances we play in public spaces. Lapp, with the permission of his subjects, gives viewers glimpses into his subjects’ inner worlds, depicting with care not only their physical forms but also taxidermied crocodile heads and still-wet laundry, hanging dry.
Materiality is of significant interest to the artist, who challenges perceived limitations of mediums like watercolor and graphite. Lapp applies watercolors like oils, bringing out an unexpected vibrancy and opacity from the paints. This technique lends a weight and presence to his works rarely found in conventional watercolor paintings. Lapp’s confident brush strokes weave colors of the Viennese Secession—visceral burgundies, gunmetal blues, decadent golds—throughout his compositions, echoing the artist’s woven garments that clothe many subjects. In this way, Lapp cuts his subjects out of his cloth, creating a tribe, a cohort of otherwise strangers.
The artist’s graphite drawings pose a counterpoint to Cohort’s watercolor paintings. Midtones continue to dominate the canvas, but Lapp exercises less control in his drawings, leaning toward the abstract sketchiness associated with underdrawings. Works in graphite are rarely perceived as finished works; they are, to most painters, a means to an end. Yet Lapp hangs his graphite portraits amongst painted ones, disregarding historical hierarchies of form.
Self in Foliage, and its painted mirror Yours Truly, also demonstrate Lapp’s recent movement towards abstraction. Subjects are recognizably themselves, and yet are interpreted in his new visual code. These abstracted figures are the apotheosis of Lapp’s career thus far, and mark a shift in the way the young artist sees and will continue to see his Cohort.
Isabel Gilmour is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She recently graduated from Columbia University, where she majored in Art History.
Booklet
AXA Art Prize 2023
The AXA Art Prize is one of the leading student art competitions in the United States. The competition is open to any style of figurative paintings, drawings, and original printmaking created by undergraduate and graduate art students.
Selected Work
