Judith Bernstein with EJ Hauser

Since graduating from Yale in 1967, Judith Bernstein has developed a reputation as one of the most unwaveringly provocative artists of her generation. Steadfast in her cultural, political and social critique for over 50 years, Bernstein surged into art world prominence in the early 1970s with her monumental charcoal drawings of penis-screw hybrids; early incarnations of which were exhibited at AIR Gallery; Brooks Jackson Iolas Gallery, New York; Brooklyn Museum; and MoMA P.S. 1, among other institutions.

EJ Hauser is a painter who lives and works in Brooklyn. Her paintings are both graphic and open to interpretation, teetering between iconography and something familiar but abstract. This imagery shifts between omnivorous references both ancient and current, her paintings are a mysterious talisman, employing buzzing pallets and marks that dance. EJ’s source library includes potent power objects, which are cross-pollinated with formal qualities and care found in domestic craftwork, like rugs, fabrics, wallpapers, and mosaics, as well as digital visual characteristics, which she interprets through drawing and then transliterates onto canvas. Each piece is composed of multiple layers of color. The vibrating color connects directly to the energy and aliveness of her nature-based subject matter.