

Figurative as Concept
Apr 22 - Apr 24, 2026
13 Grattan St, #402, Brooklyn, NY, 11206
Artists
Anna Plavinskaya
Fedele Spadafora
Sophia Chizuco
Dionisio Cortes Ortega
Yue Yuan
Maxwell Stevens
Lana Stalnaya
Brigitte Bentele
Natalie Straton
John Davis
Claire Harpel
Manas Ranjan
Malaya Bengel
Ruoyu Gong
Aksinia Kupriianova
Yiting Liu
Kim White
Alina Khalitova
Curator
Artmetod Art Project and A Space Gallery NYC are pleased to present Figurative as Concept, a group exhibition bringing together seventeen artists for whom figuration is not a style inherited but a method chosen — a way of thinking through the visible world. The exhibition opens on the evening of April 21 and runs through April 24, 2026 at A Space Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.
Figurative as Concept takes figuration seriously as a contemporary practice: not as nostalgia, not as craft revival, but as a deliberate way of making meaning from the observable world. The artists gathered here do not treat the figure as a subject among others; they return to it as the central instrument of their thinking. Some study the figure in movement and tension, some build it with classical rigor, some push it to the edge where it nearly disappears. Behind every work stands an artist who does not turn to the figure occasionally, but thinks through it across the whole of their practice.

Installation view, Figurative as Concept, A Space Gallery NYC, 2026. Left to right: Ruoyu Gong, Manas Ranjan, Dionisio Cortes Ortega, Fedele Spadafora. Photo: KC Crow Maddux

Installation view, Figurative as Concept, A Space Gallery NYC, 2026. Left: Anna Plavinskaya; upper right: Sophia Chizuco; lower right: Brigitte Bentele. Photo: KC Crow Maddux.

Installation view, Figurative as Concept, A Space Gallery NYC, 2026. Left to right: Lana Stalnaya, Yiting Liu, Dionisio Cortes Ortega, Ruoyu Gong. Photo: KC Crow Maddux

Installation view, Figurative as Concept, A Space Gallery NYC, 2026. Left to right: Dionisio Cortes Ortega, Fedele Spadafora, Malaya Bengel, Natalie Straton, Maxwell Stevens, Kim White, Yue Yuan, Aksinia Kupriianova. Photo: KC Crow Maddux

Installation view, Figurative as Concept, A Space Gallery NYC, 2026. Left to right: Kim White, Yue Yuan, Aksinia Kupriianova. Photo: KC Crow Maddux.

Dionisio Cortes Ortega, Hanging 1, Hanging 2, Hanging 3, 2025, charcoal on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: KC Crow Maddux.

Yiting Liu, Tian Wen, 2023, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: KC Crow Maddux.











