Massey Klein is pleased to announce our participation in Untitled Art, Miami Beach at Booth A56 with new and recent works by Bethany Czarnecki. Untitled Art 2024 will take place during Miami Art Week from Wednesday December 4 through Sunday December 8, with a VIP and Press Preview on Tuesday December 3. For inquiries regarding the fair including works available, please email info@masseyklein.com.
Bethany Czarnecki’s newest body of work, including her largest paintings to date, continues her investigation into themes of gender, identity, the human psyche, and sensuality through an in-depth exploration of light and shadow. Her multiple layers of concentric, biomorphic shapes radiate vibrant chromatic planes and project an atmospheric sense of place while exploring the paradoxes and complexities of the female form, its representation, and its unbounded affinity for renewal.
Czarnecki’s abstract paintings are indisputable examples of how traditional East Asian art has influenced modern and contemporary American art, and they facilitate a compelling dialogue on how that influence has taken shape (consciously or unconsciously) as it has been passed down through time. Two of Czarnecki’s most evident influences, Georgia O’Keeffe and Agnes Pelton, studied under Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow championed East Asian aesthetics in his teachings and promoted the theory that line, color, and nōtan (the Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark elements) are the three principal elements in visual art.
These principal elements are vigorously apparent in Czarnecki’s work. The artist’s calligraphic brushstrokes are slow, meticulous, and technically sophisticated. As she paints, visceral movement informs every action, allowing the spontaneous gesture of the artist’s hand to be readily apparent. Reminiscent of kinesthetic expression, her intuitiveness extends into her mastery of color, achieved through her savvy layering of viscosities, pigments, and light and dark hues, embedding her works with a never-static sensorial, immersive, and vibrational life force. In line with fundamental East Asian aesthetics and philosophies, Czarnecki’s work unites matter and spirit. Her rhythmic forms, rich and subtle, exude a spiritual and almost supernatural presence. Her paintings are infused with deliberate tension and transcendental ambiguity, each work presenting a controversy that aims to shift the viewer through an intimate and individualized experience.
Bethany Czarnecki has presented three sold-out solo exhibitions with Massey Klein Gallery. Her work has been exhibited by the gallery at the Dallas Art Fair (in 2024 and 2023) and in a solo presentation at Future Fair in New York City, where the sold-out booth received a press mention in Artillery. Czarnecki has exhibited internationally, with notable recent exhibitions including a solo exhibition at Public Service Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden, a group exhibition at Andrew Reed Gallery in Miami, a two-person exhibition at F2T Gallery in Milan, a group exhibition at Jack Siebert Projects in Los Angeles, and a solo viewing room presentation of six paintings at NIGHT Gallery in Los Angeles.
Last year, Czarnecki was featured in New American Paintings, Northeast, Issue #164, selected by juror Leile Grothe of The Baltimore Museum of Art. The artist has additionally appeared in numerous print and online publications, including BOMB Magazine, Forbes, The Brooklyn Rail, Interlocutor Magazine, HypeBeast, Artillery, ArtPlugged, Metal Magazine, Widewalls, Elephant (where she was featured as October 2021’s ‘artist to watch’), Two Coats of Paint, and ArtZealous. Her work is in the permanent collections of Capital One Bank and Citizens Bank, and several noteworthy private collections.
