Setting Intentions For A Paradigm Shift

As we are all well-aware, I went to NYC a couple of weeks ago for Armory week. It would have been easy to get wrapped up in the cycle of VIP previews, being the first to post favorites, and hoping to place a few works. That’s usually how these things go. But I was anticipating the fairs and shows and exhibitions to be lackluster and so I shifted my intentions. Instead of walking the fairs looking for works that might be well-placed in this or that collection, I simply sought inspiration. I just wanted to see something I hadn’t seen before and engage with art and artists that were new to me. When I was speaking with someone about this change, it occurred to me that the new mindset allowed me to see the art through my own eyes rather than filtering them through the lens of this or that client. That realization really punched me in the gut. Honestly, it made me feel guilty that I had not been allowing myself to fully engage with the art I was seeing with my own trained eye and brain. What have I been doing to myself?!!

Despite the aggressive talking-to I gave myself, the mindset shift really yielded miraculous results, not least of which is that I felt so much calmer and less stressed the whole time, which allowed me to connect more deeply with the art I was seeing and artists I was meeting. But this slowdown also translated into not feeling like I had to get my recap out immediately last week. Instead I decided to sit with it for a bit to see what bubbled to the surface and stuck around in the ol’ brain trap.

And on that note, much to my delight, galleries came to play this fall, y’all. My love for Armory was reified by the stellar presentations the participants put forth. Some of the usual suspects played it safe but I did not bother to engage with them. The ones that stopped me in my tracks were…

Bongsu Park at Gallery Rosenfeld

Gallery Rosenfeld out of London is quickly becoming a fair favorite for me. Their presentations have taken the top spot for me, now twice in the last year. In this latest edition at Armory, I discovered Bongsu Park, a thoughtful artist and lovely human. Bongsu’s work engages with nature and memory in a multisensorial, experiential, temporal way. Yeah, she takes flower art to a whooollle new level. She has an incredible garden in London, where she tends and grows flowers and plants year round. These are the specimens she then uses to create her work. But in addition to creating the paintings, she is also interested in the way scent conjures and affects memory. So, after the flowers have yielded their color to the painting, she removes the dried petals and places them in a small ceramic pot (which she made) and then adds a cocktail of essential oils to each pot. With only very small apertures in the pots, one has to get very close to enjoy the smell. With the purchase of the painting comes a vial of the essential oil concoction so the owner can continually add to their pot. And to take it one more step, the artist then provides the owner with the recipe so that they can then recreate the essential oil cocktail on their own, should they so choose.

So many layers here. The aesthetically pleasing visual aspect of the work is really the least of my concerns here. What I really love is how she has found a sensorial way to explore how smell creates and affects our memories. Much like a memory may shift and morph over time, so too does the scent she has created, as she accepts and welcomes the idea that the second and third and fourth versions of the essential oil cocktail may or may not smell exactly like her original.

Mehrali Razaghmanesh at O Gallery

Untitled from the Seven Weepers series, 2025, digital photography, print and aquarelle on handmade paper, 28 pieces (16.5 x 11.5 in each, 166 x 206.5 in overall), $12,000

I love the way the gallery describes his practice so I’m not going to try to improve upon it.

Mehrali Razaghmanesh (b. 1983 Tehran, Iran) is a photo-based visual artist based in Paris, France.

Positioned at the threshold between photography and painting, Razaghmanesh challenges the boundaries of these two mediums with a thought-provoking focus on nature. Through a painterly reimagining of landscapes in photography, he seeks to revive a world of imagination. Rather than merely capturing nature, he searches for a visual interpretation—one that moves the image toward imagination itself. In pursuit of realizing the precise vision he holds for each piece, Razaghmanesh employs a variety of printmaking and photographic techniques. This experimental approach to materials and processes enables him to achieve nuanced textures and effects that deepen the conceptual impact of his work.

Razaghmanesh’s practice reflects a sustained inquiry into duality, displacement and the fragile relationship between human presence and the natural world… In his most recent series, created during a residency in Paris, Sept Pleurers, Razaghmanesh turns to the solitary weeping willows along the Seine, drawing connections between botanical migration, poetic melancholy and the inner states of exile and reflection. Across these works, the artist’s aim is not to resolve contradictions but to inhabit them—to find form in fragmentation and presence in what is fading.

Razaghmanesh’s work has been exhibited internationally at Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles; Rencontres d’Arles (2019), Foam Photography Museum, Netherlands; On Earth: Imaging, Technology and the Natural World at Lieu Unique, Nantes; Photolux Festival, Italy and CLB Berlin. Among his accolades, he was recognized with an award at the 14th edition of the prestigious Talents Contemporains competition (2025), affirming his position as an influential voice in contemporary visual arts.

Here’s a detail. When you look close, it’s clear that it is neither photography nor something else. It hovers in a weird liminal space.

Sarah Walker at Pierogi

Sarah Walker comes from a background of abstract paintings. These color pencil drawings mark a shift in her practice in which she applies her signature layered geometric abstraction to these natural forms that we at once read as a leaf, but are in fact rather organic abstract shapes themselves. The drawings remind me of a line from a book I recently read in which the narrator observes that under a microscope, a green leaf ceases to be green. There is so much more to the world around us than meets the eye, whether we are talking about the microscopic infinities of nature or the silent suffering of a friend or neighbor.

Detail of Book 3, Leaf 22

Well, that’s all I got yall! Thanks for reading all the way to the end. I’m headed to Houston for the inaugural Untitled Houston fair. It will be fun to be in my hometown and show my sister and her pals around the fair. Plus I’ll be doing a fun install. More details on that in the coming weeks!