As the blooms of spring emerge, so does a fresh wave of artistic brilliance in the heart of New York City. This season, the cultural landscape is filled with groundbreaking exhibitions that not only captivate the senses but also honor the remarkable contributions of female artists. In honor of the abundance of art to go see, we rounded up four remarkable shows to see this month. From art pioneer Yayoi Kusama to contemporary trailblazer Hortensia Mi Kafchin, these exhibitions all engage in a profound exploration of each artist’s vision, creativity, and impact.
Hortensia Mi Kafchin: Years of Bad Hair
At Hortensia Mi Kafchin’s first solo show with PPOW, her avatars are set in paintings of collage-like worlds that meld together Surrealism, technology, and fantasy in a contemporary mindset. Mi Kafchin is a Romanian artist who grew up in a post-Communist and post-Chernobyl Romania. At the time in Romania, there was an influx of Western culture that was set alongside the traditional Eastern Orthodoxy. Mi Kafchin was inspired by this melding of cultures, and her paintings can be read as a journal chronicling a story or dream. In the painting, Years of Bad Hair (2022-23) we are met with the backside of a character, perhaps a self-portrait of the artist, who has technicolor angel wings. She is surrounded by a plethora of hair and beauty products: from a box of tissues to nail polish, a hair dryer and scissors, boxes of pills, presumably hair growth ones, and shampoo, the main character clearly struggles to find a cure to her scraggly hair that cascades down her back. With her brownish-yellow hand, she holds a hairbrush and turns to it, almost as if it were a mirror or looking glass.
P.P.O.W. Gallery, 390 Broadway, 2nd Floor, April 28 - June 3, 2023