Press Release
For immediate release
Figurative as Concept
A Group Exhibition
Artmetod Art Project in collaboration with Aspace Gallery NYC
Venue: Aspace Gallery NYC — 13 Grattan St, #402, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Opening Reception: April 21, 2026, 7:00 PM
Exhibition: April 22 – 24, 2026
Gallery Hours: 12:00 – 6:00 PM daily
Public Discussion: April 24, 2026, 4:00 – 5:00 PM
Artmetod Art Project and Aspace Gallery NYC are pleased to present Figurative as Concept, a group exhibition bringing together sixteen artists for whom figuration is not a style inherited but a method chosen — a way of thinking through the visible world. The exhibition opens on the evening of April 21 and runs through April 24, 2026 at Aspace Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.
Figurative as Concept takes figuration seriously as a contemporary practice: not as nostalgia, not as craft revival, but as a deliberate way of making meaning from the observable world. The artists gathered here do not treat the figure as a subject among others; they return to it as the central instrument of their thinking. Some study the figure in movement and tension, some build it with classical rigor, some push it to the edge where it nearly disappears. Behind every work stands an artist who does not turn to the figure occasionally, but thinks through it across the whole of their practice.
The exhibition brings together: Anna Plavinskaya, Fedele Spadafora, Sophia Chizuco, Dionisio Cortes Ortega, Yue Yuan, Maxwell Stevens, Lana Stalnaya, Brigitte Bentele, Natalie Straton, John Davis, Claire Harpel, Manas Ranjan, Malaya Bengel, Ruoyu Gong, Aksinia Kupriianova, and Kim White.
Maxwell Stevens, Last Days of Summer 1, 2023, oil on canvas, 20 × 27 in. Courtesy Galerie Bruno Massa, Paris.
Ruoyu Gong, Mr. Donkey’s Death, 2024, oil and pastel on canvas, 48 × 36 in. Courtesy of the artist.
“Technical mastery was for me evidence of seriousness of intention. In the hands of these artists, technique is a language, and one they take seriously — because through it they speak about what matters most and what lasts.”
— Alina Khalitova, Curator
On April 24 at 4:00 PM, the exhibition will close with a public discussion between the curator and selected participating artists — on the variations of the figurative in contemporary art and on the personal experience of working with figuration as a practice.
Figurative as Concept is curated by Alina Khalitova, independent curator and artist based in New York and London, and is produced by Artmetod Art Project in collaboration with Aspace Gallery NYC.
Press Contact
Alina Khalitova
Artmetod Art Project artmetod.com
Aspace Gallery NYC aspacegallery.net
Instagram: @aspace____
Instagram: @artmetod_artmetod
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