ATM gallery NYC is pleased to present My Moon, a solo exhibition of new work by Talia Levitt, curated by Ché Morales. On view at 54 Henry Street from March 25 through April 25, 2021. This will be Levitt's first solo exhibition at ATM. 

In this exhibition Levitt transforms canvases into distressed, patterned tapestries decorated with tenderly rendered suggestive objects. These diaristic trompe l’oeil still lives openly relate to menstruation and birth control, evoking the paradoxically gender inclusive history of still-life in European academic painting due to the genre’s anti-intellectual status. 

 While these paintings rarely depict the artist herself, they often operate as self portraits of her anatomy, and exude an encrypted sense of humor. Many of these paintings contain belt trims, to equate the still lives with reproductive organs.

 Levitt and Morales have transformed the cold gray tile of the gallery’s front room into a warm pink carpet that pays homage to the artist’s childhood bedroom; the place where she experienced her first period. The carpet provides a felt, sensory experience mimicking the textures found in the work itself. 

 As you enter the back room of the gallery, the space takes a turn from domestic and bodily to the studio, the site of process. Here, her paintings are installed amongst ‘scraps of paper’ that Levitt convincingly cast out of paint, and hung with facsimile tape. These generous details share a glimpse of the materials from which the work was referenced.

 Materially, Levitt plays with trompe l’oeil by using the properties and potential of acrylic paint to both describe and become the objects that she is mimicking. She uses a variety of inventive procedures to manipulate the paint to become textures such as crochet, glass, screen, jewels and fabric. 

 In My Moon, Levitt and Morales create a personal space that gives the viewer more insight, not only into Levitt’s personal life but her practice behind the work as well.

Talia Levitt (b. 1989) lives and works in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York. She attended MFA at Hunter College, 2019 where she received a Goldberg Presidential scholarship, and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, 2011. Levitt has attended residencies and apprenticeships at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture 2019, Mass MoCA Assets for Artists Program 2020, The Vermont Studio Center 2016, Rancho Linda Vista 2015, and The Bread and Puppet Theater 2008. She received a Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant in 2019, a Kossak Travel Grant in 2016 and a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Grant in Painting in 2015. Her work was featured in the #141 Northeast and #140 MFA 2019 issues of New American Paintings.

 Ché Morales (b. 1980) is a Manhattan-based curator, experiential designer, and self-proclaimed art junkie with an insatiable appetite for unique, mind-blowing aesthetics. Morales' curatorial approach is to present groundbreaking material in new and thought provoking ways. He believes art should be a seismic experience to remember. Ranging from large-scale murals and art installations to branded cultural events, Morales’ curatorial work has been covered by Artnet, Juxtapoz, The Creators Project, The Huffington Post, W Magazine and Whitewall Magazine. In 2017, he housed his practice by founding ABSTRKT, a creative studio with a focus on art, design, and experiences. Clients include Nike, New Balance, Adidas, The Standard Hotel, VR’t Ventures, StockX, New York City Ballet, and more.