Allouche Gallery is pleased to present its first solo exhibition of paintings by Sissòn, opening in New York on Thursday, March 21st through April 16th. The exhibition is an exercise in breathing and birthing.
Holding your breath suggests anticipation. But to wait to exhale is so much more loaded. The sensation is one of withholding more than anticipating. You want to dance, but only when you can do so with reckless abandon, without surveillance or interruption, or judgement. You want to live, but only on your terms. A real life, not a half life.
In Sissòn’s first solo show with Allouche Gallery, the pregnant space of a breath is explored. Portraits of acrylic on canvas depict Black women in their variance and range. The quiet tension that precedes a revelation swirls through their paintings, all of which center the Black woman. Oxygen is the medium of life, and here serves as a metaphor for the richly varied expressions of Black female interiority. In their sumptuously textured compositions, figures that populate the artist’s physical and spiritual lives are frozen perfectly for the viewers’ benefit. Each static stroke is a gesture of gratitude.
