A groundbreaking exhibition at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects brings together two artists whose work creates an unexpected dialogue between traditional mediums and contemporary vision. "Abigail Dudley and Elise Siegel: Painting and Sculpture" marks the first time these two artists have been shown together, creating what one critic described as reminiscent of French poet Comte de Lautréamont's famous phrase about "a chance encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella."
Abigail Dudley, an observational painter who has been gaining recognition since her appearance in the 2023 Miami University Young Painters Competition, continues to push boundaries between the seen and imagined in her latest works. Over the past three years, Dudley has developed a distinctive approach that dissolves the conventional limits between observable reality and dreamlike imagination. Her recent paintings, including "Farmers Market Bouquet," "Four Faces," and "Studio in Spring" (all dated 2025), demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of spatial relationships that echoes Henri Matisse's "The Red Studio" (1911).
In "Farmers Market Bouquet," Dudley masterfully employs the painting's rectangular format to frame a deep interior space while simultaneously using six four-sided objects of varying sizes to emphasize the work's two-dimensional surface. A large square occupies the lower left corner, featuring a bouquet of red, yellow, orange, and white flowers in a glass jar set against pink and yellow grounds. The contradiction between the shadow cast by the jar's bottom and the flatness of the rendered flowers creates an intriguing ambiguity about whether viewers are observing a still-life arrangement, a painting of one, or both simultaneously.
This spatial complexity extends throughout Dudley's recent work, where she explores the relationship between a room's box-like three-dimensional space and the painting's flat surface. While she clearly loves depicting objects ranging from dirty paintbrushes and cans to plaster casts and flowers, her devotion to subject matter isn't the primary driving force. Instead, her astute inclination to explore formal possibilities while following an internal logic elevates her beyond mere observational artistry. Her artistic ambition, deep engagement with art history, creative restlessness, and masterful paint handling position her as an emerging major artist capable of transforming conventional artistic education into something unexpected and compelling.
Elise Siegel's ceramic sculptures provide a striking counterpoint to Dudley's paintings, though both artists share an absorption with traditional materials—oil paint and clay respectively. Siegel's works take the form of busts set on shelves or simple wooden pedestals, executed largely in single colors, particularly the blue that dominates many pieces in the exhibition. These intimately scaled works range from approximately two feet high to just six inches, with closely cropped hair reminiscent of bonnets or leather helmets that direct attention to facial features.
The gender-neutral busts possess a haunting quality enhanced by Siegel's matte glazes, which make the ceramic surfaces feel more like vulnerable skin than fired clay. Eyes appear as either hollow openings or shallow cavities, creating an unsettling yet compelling presence. Though unrealistic in their representation, each bust seems to possess a distinct personality and untold story, drawing viewers into prolonged contemplation through what can only be described as the silence of their melancholia.
"Baby Blue Portrait Bust with Square Eyes" (2018) exemplifies Siegel's approach with its small square eye openings and erect, proud, elegant bearing. Blue rivulets run down the chest, suggesting the head is simultaneously bleeding and dissolving. Similarly, "Portrait Bust with Lavender Hair and Black Base" (2015) features a white-glazed face like frosting, with a triangular bib-like shape extending from the neck, while black matte glaze spreads upward from the narrow base to meet the descending white triangle.
These works transcend traditional portraiture, functioning more as mirrors reflecting broken lives and silence. They emanate complex emotions—pain, muteness, bewilderment, stoicism—that invite both speculation and self-reflection. The sculptures don't simply represent human forms; they embody universal experiences of vulnerability and isolation in ways that feel both ancient and utterly contemporary.
What ultimately connects Dudley and Siegel's seemingly disparate practices is their shared tenderness and respect toward their subjects, along with an understanding of what remains fundamentally private in human experience. Both artists work within traditional frameworks—observational painting and figurative sculpture—yet push these mediums toward new expressive possibilities. Their commitment to oil paint and clay respectively might seem old-fashioned in contemporary art contexts, but their unironic embrace of these materials yields surprisingly fresh results.
The exhibition layout reinforces the dialogue between the two bodies of work, with Siegel's contemplative busts creating intimate viewing experiences that contrast with Dudley's expansive painted spaces. This juxtaposition highlights how both artists navigate between interior and exterior worlds, between the tangible and the imagined, creating works that demand slower, more attentive viewing.
"Abigail Dudley and Elise Siegel: Painting and Sculpture" continues at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, located at 208 Forsyth Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, through October 15. The exhibition demonstrates how traditional artistic practices can be revitalized through contemporary vision, offering viewers an opportunity to engage with work that bridges historical techniques and current sensibilities in genuinely meaningful ways.
