New York, NY: Pen + Brush’s fall show spotlights the work of three contemporary female artists who take a daring approach to subjects of domesticity, time and memory. This exhibit marks an encore appearance at Pen + Brush for all three artists – Donna Festa, Jee Hee Kang and Tricia Wright – as part of an expanding visual arts program in keeping with the non-profit’s mission to offer deeper consideration for the work of talented yet under-recognized women artists, to a broader audience. While each artist makes clear her desire to confront societal assumptions and universal contemplations of the human condition, these solo exhibitions illuminate three distinct points of view and entirely unique aesthetics.

“After these artists were selected by Pen + Brush visual arts curators to appear in our previous shows Domesticity Revisited and Broad Strokes, we immediately saw a depth and breadth of talent that we wanted to explore in more detail,” said Executive Director Janice Sands. “We hope this show will not only further the careers of Donna Festa, Jee Hee Kang and Tricia Wright, but that it will bring attention to the influence of powerful imagery by women who challenge the contemporary art canon.”

Donna Festa is a painter who lives and works in Bangor, Maine. In a culture obsessed with images of youth and perfection, Festa paints gestural portraits that unexpectedly avoid the tendencies of realistic, life-like depiction found in traditional portraiture, opting instead for weighty abstractions forming dramatic compositions, that capture the encumbrance of a life lived, indicative of the twentieth-century expressionists.

This aesthetic is reflected as she displays complex emotions through clay, ink, watercolor, crayon and oil paint. Her work, like that of Lucian Freud before her, is defined by the use of impasto and an earth-toned color palette reminiscent of Rembrandt.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Jee Hee Kang is heavily influenced by feelings of loss and authenticity as she confronts memories of paintings seen in her grandfather’s house and objects that no longer exist. Her contemplative pieces specialize in finding inventive ways to tackle, and even defy, the canonical Euclidean perspective of the two-dimensional canvas.

This approach is epitomized in her series The Poetry of Transcendence, in which she takes found—or discarded—paintings and casts them in concrete. Altering what once was, Kang encourages the viewer to imagine the painting in its original state. This Duchamp-like way of intervening with found objects and repositioning or modifying them through her art practice which is at once personal and universal.

Kang’s series For All The Vanished Things, which was first exhibited at Pen + Brush in fall 2015’s Domesticity Revisited, is also on view and preoccupied with the finite life of objects. Instead of using sculptural elements to defy the flat canvas and pull the object away from the wall, she masterfully combines elements of drawing and painting – such as refrigerators and chairs – to flatten once three-dimensional objects.

The third artist featured at Pen + Brush this fall is Tricia Wright, an artist known for her exquisite contemporary assemblages that examine the home via a meticulous and intellectual aesthetic. Premiering in this show is her Late Mirror Stage series, which explores the elusive nature of identity with a nod toward French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s term for the developmental phase when we become aware of the self as an individual. Wright asks viewers what it means to look in the mirror as adults while capturing fragments of light, fleeting moments and familiar domestic objects.

Also featured Pen + Brush’s fall exhibit is Wright’s series of painting-based assemblages titled Marginalia, which highlights, as she says, “the sidelined status of the home and those who work in it, despite its critical influence on us as individuals and as citizens.” Wright’s Tru Valu series considers the relationship between decoration and function and the value judgments attached to each utilizing hardware-store items that create objects of protest, consideration and formal beauty.

Wright, originally from England, is also an author and editor of several art history books and a museum educator. Her work first gained notice in 1993 while she was living and working in London.

The fall exhibition will be on view at Pen + Brush, 29 East 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010, from September 29 through December 11, 2016 during gallery hours. Please visit the events page for a full calendar of reading, events, discussions and more.