Gwendolyn Zabicki began thinking up the exhibition “Fête Galante” while in Paris in 2016 after seeing Antoine Watteau’s Pilgrimage to Cythera at the Louvre. The paintings in that part of the museum are “joyful and beautiful and the first group of paintings in the museum that felt really modern to me,” says Zabicki. After visiting the museum, she began to read up on the artist Watteau and the fête galante. In Pilgrimage to Cythera, figures dressed in lavish clothing are celebrating love, as many cupids fly around the sky, and others are seen flirting with one another in the grass. A statue of Venus, the goddess of sexual love, is seen in the right hand corner with the presence of little cupids urging couples to play together in the hazy landscape.
Brooklyn-based painter Tess Michalik has been painting for 15 years. “As a person that grew up in an unstable environment with PTSD and mountainous anxiety, [I have] a paint practice that feeds my desire to harness and embrace and master such feelings,” she says.
Through 10/25, Fri-Sat 1-6 PM, Sun 1-5 PM, Heaven Gallery, 1550 N. Milwaukee, #2, heavengallery.com.
