About
We are excited to present a large body of new work by extraordinary artist Dena Novak in collaboration with the Simone Gad Foundation. A portion of all sales from this exhibition will support the f
oundation: https://simonegadfoundation.org Fearlessly Weighted is the artist’s most recent, body of work, presenting a found freedom that is both harmonious and unleashed. This series manifests in Dena’s work as an intuitive, ritualistic process meditating, dancing and of layering paint onto panels in thick strata that symbolically counteracts the thinning of her body’s connective tissue. In the 1980s, Novak was influenced by second-and third-wave feminism. In our tumultuous early 2020s, her work continues to critique ideas of “the feminine” and the subjectivity of beauty through an autobiographical lens that includes her chronic physical illness she uses heavy impasto to work in deep layers. These paintings challenge conceptions of beauty and investigate ideas of hope, fear, and transcendence through her experience of living with both Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Autism.
“People with EDS struggle daily with the thinning of the proteins and collagens that hold our bones in place. I am not interested in the illusion of space but in the materiality of paint. The finite area of the picture plane compresses the physical and emotional experience of making the work, offering a vital expression of being fully present and alive through the act of painting.”
