9 Jan – 24 Feb 2026
Bortolami, 39 Walker Street, New York, NY 10013
Featuring new and recent works by Diana Al-Hadid, Leonardo Meoni, Jonathan Okoronkwo, Claudio Parmiggiani, and Yunyao Zhang, the exhibition centers on two-dimensional artworks that forego painting’s traditional materials. The artists use the titular supports and mediums to expose and explore the limits of pictorial systems, while further emphasizing how context informs material choices—from industrial trade to art historical movements. Felt, velvet, soot, gypsum, and engine oil are all employed by the participating artists in order to break with convention and expand the field.
Yunyao Zhang’s The Connector series investigates the transformation of material and perception through an extended process of drawing with graphite on felt. Repeated application gradually darkens the artist’s surfaces, producing fields of black and grey that foreground materiality as both a physical condition and a visual experience. Defined by organic forms, symmetrical structures, and a consistent scale, the series reflects an interest in rhythm, balance, and repetition emerging from material-driven processes rather than representation. The recent works draw from a fragment of an armchair designed by Patricia Urquiola in 2000, recontextualized within the meditative spatial atmosphere of On Kawara’s gallery at Dia Beacon. Flowing organic lines are counterbalanced by dispersed black rectangular elements, creating a stark black-and-white contrast revealing a quiet, underlying force and inviting sustained, contemplative viewing.
