Brett Goodroad (1979, Kearney, NE) is an American artist who focuses his practice on en plein air painting. His works capture a simultaneous sense of openness and isolation, reflecting the environment (air, sky, natural light) in relation to the painting and the painting with the environment. The oscillation between figuration and abstraction in Goodroad’s work reflects the artist’s desire to absorb the same themes that inspired him. The fluctuation between hunger and reluctance characterizes the nature of Goodroad’s image-making: a symbiotic relationship between surface, brush, paint, and idea, where metamorphosis becomes the very subject. Rather than trying to reconcile the tension between form and content through illusion or inescapable objectivity, Goodroad’s approach focuses on emergence, an invitation to witness and to be.
Recent solo exhibitions include Greene Naftali, New York (2024, 2022; in collaboration with Cushion Works, curated by Hilton Als); Cushion Works, San Francisco (2024, 2021, 2017); ADZ Gallery, Lisbon (2022); Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco (2019, 2015); and Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, UK (2018). Notable group exhibitions include Greene Naftali, New York (2024); Karma, New York (2021); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley (2019, 2018); and The Drawing Center, New York (2014), among others. His work is part of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Menchu Lamas (b. 1954, Vigo, Spain) is a Spanish artist based in Madrid. Her work blends figurative and abstract elements, exploring universal symbols and themes connected to cultural roots. Her artistic career began in Galicia, where she returned after emigrating to Venezuela with her family at a young age, an experience that left a lasting mark on her practice. Lamas trained as a graphic designer at the Art Instructional Institute in Madrid and made her debut in a group exhibition at Plaza de la Princesa in Vigo in 1974. Since then, she has been recognized as part of the Galician movement in Spain, establishing a dialogue between tradition and modernity. Her work explores indigenous roots, referencing primitive cave art and iconography that includes animals, human figures, and natural elements.
Lamas has held solo exhibitions in numerous galleries, museums, and institutions such as the Galería Marta Cervera in Madrid (2022), the ARTIUM Museum in Vitoria (2017), and the Galería Juana de Aizpuru in Seville (1985), among others. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Santander (2010), the Identity/Modernity: Contemporary Artists from Spain exhibition at the CAC Málaga (2015), and Arte Español Contemporáneo at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid (1985). Her works are part of collections such as the Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid), and the Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo (Madrid).
Jonathan Lasker (b. 1948, Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American painter whose work has been essential in redefining the possibilities of contemporary painting since the late 1970s. Lasker has created a unique formal language that combines abstraction with a clear structure, using processes like scribbled lines, structural forms, and thick brushstrokes. His work is characterized by a dialectical interaction between figure and ground, a relationship that, though intuitive, is deeply controlled. His paintings invite viewers to actively interpret abstract forms and their relationships within the composition, making them part of the pictorial experience.
Lasker’s career began after studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the California Institute of the Arts, after having been a rock musician in his youth. Since his first solo exhibition in 1992 at the ICA in Philadelphia, Lasker has continued to stand out with exhibitions at major museums and galleries worldwide. In 1997-98, his retrospective traveled to institutions like the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Germany, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Kunstverein St. Gallen in Switzerland. In 2003, a major retrospective was presented at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. His work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions, with recent presentations like Paintings from Five Decades at MARe, Bucharest (2024) and Jonathan Lasker: Paintings 2001–2014 at the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain in Saint-Étienne (2015).
Paul Pagk (b. 1962, Crawley, UK) is an abstract painter based in New York, known for his exploration of geometric form and a minimalist approach to his work. His art invites viewers to "inhabit" the pictorial space, creating a sensory experience that oscillates between physical and mental perception. Pagk seeks to articulate notions of time and space: “the viewer accesses the painting while remaining suspended by the events occurring within it; the original perception of body and mind is a starting point for a journey into the painting.” Through a language of freehand lines and subtle gestural abstraction, his work challenges the flatness of the canvas and conveys a dynamic of opposing forces and personal geometries.
Pagk has had solo exhibitions in prominent spaces such as Wacław Szpakowski in Continuity with Paul Pagk, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2024), Drawing Past and Present: Paul Pagk with Master Works from Durer to Matisse, Joe Project, Montreal (2023), Paul Pagk: Interaction, Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris (2019), and 18 Drawings and 1 Painting, Studio 10, Brooklyn (2013). His work has been featured in important group exhibitions such as Schema: World as Diagram, Marlborough Gallery, New York (2023), and Abstract Art from the Miettinen Collection, Miettinen Collection, Berlin (2020). Pagk has received significant awards and fellowships, including the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Painting (2018), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship (2014), and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Fellowships (2012).
Raha Raissnia (b. 1968, Tehran, Iran) works at the intersection of media, exploring painting, drawing, and film. Her practice, deeply influenced by her cultural heritage and experience of displacement, reflects an intimate relationship between the past and the present. Raissnia’s work oscillates between abstraction and figuration, where the boundary between the personal and the collective blurs, inviting the viewer to reflect on temporality and transformation. The use of music and visual projections in her performances adds a sensory dimension that amplifies this exploration of identity and memory.
Recent solo exhibitions include Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2015, 2013, 2011); Galería Marta Cervera, Madrid (2020); and Thomas Erben Gallery, New York (2005). Her work has been featured in major group exhibitions such as Schema: World as Diagram, Marlborough Gallery, New York (2023); Abstract Art from the Miettinen Collection, Miettinen Collection, Berlin (2020); and EXIL, Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris (2017). Raissnia has collaborated with artists like Aki Onda, Panagiotis Mavridis, and Charles Curtis on film and slide projections performances, presented at spaces like AB-ANBAR (London), Empty Gallery (Hong Kong), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), among others. Her work is part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), M+ (Hong Kong), and the Pinault Collection, among others. The Pejman Foundation, Tehran, INELCOM Collection, and Pinault Collection also house her work.