Saturday, August 2, 2025

Jeff Bailey in Conversation with Zohar Lazar: Sunday, August 3 at 2pm

Jeff Bailey in Conversation with Zohar Lazar: Sunday August 3 at 2pm

Jeff Bailey in Conversation with Zohar LazarSunday, August 3 at 2pm

Conversation with 

Jeff Bailey and 

Zohar Lazar

2PM SUNDAY




Zohar Lazar:

UTOPIA PKWY

Saturday and Sunday 1-5pm

through August 24




Click here for Detour Map of Route 23

Taliesin Thomas reviews Zohar Lazar: UTOPIA PKWY in Chronogram



Jeff Bailey was the owner and director of Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, New York (2014-2018) and New York City (2003-2014). He served on the Shaker Museum, Chatham board (2012-2024) and is a current board member of Millay Arts, Austerlitz.





Zohar Lazar has exhibited his paintings and drawings at The Jewish Museum, Sara Meltzer Gallery, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Morgan Lehman Gallery, Andrea Meislin Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Hudson Opera House, Bernay Fine Art, and LABspace. He has also contributed illustrations and comics work to The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Wired, The Atlantic, Apple, Microsoft, and Fantagraphics. Lazar lives and works in Great Barrington, MA.




Zohar Lazar writes:


My work is most informed by the cartoons I consumed as a child. I loved their use of violence and misfortune for a laugh. Innocent schmoes blindsided by the horrors that befell them felt like animal versions of the people around me. For my purposes, it is the ideal visual language for its light touch with subjects that might otherwise feel self-serious or overly morbid. A rotating cast of characters are deployed to act out the scenes and daydreams of my youth. 


Speedy calligraphic lines and passages of bright, flat color are used to evoke the pop sensibility of comics and children’s book illustration. Watercolor and acrylic applied in thin brushy washes are deployed with the graphic punch informed by artists like Tomi Ungerer, Gladys Nilsson and Ludwig Bemelmans. 


A more austere style appears in reference to slick album cover art. Depictions of ecstatic motion are achieved through the geometric abstractions loosely informed by Italian Futurist painting or Art Deco illustrations found on early New Yorker covers. Hipgnosis music industry graphics, with their free-looting from art history, lends a guiding hand in leapfrogging from style to style. Whiffs of Karl Wirsum and John Wesley's pristine surfaces are deployed when a more devotional message is called for. The paintings freely slip between styles like my characters’ desires to slip into the worlds they imagine. 


Deploying different styles is a method I have readily used as a commercial artist. It’s an efficient shortcut for viewers to enter my work, equipped with their own art historical knowledge and inferences. Stylistic hopscotch serves several purposes. Pragmatically, it keeps me interested in different materials and techniques. Exercising a variety of visual styles also allows me to stay engaged in the task of image-making without getting overly bogged down by its content. I can surrender authorship and get lost in the act of making. This approach is informed by the punk ethos of my youth (as I understood it).


The UTOPIA PKWY images are dominated by a longhaired punk in torn jeans and chuck taylors stumbling through 1980s Queens, NY.  He seeks refuge from his home-life in the natural world. An unheard classic rock and punk soundtrack accompanies our guy on his lonely excursions. We witness him quietly musing or violently crashing through his days. At times he wishes for a canine companion or dreams of being a dog himself. He believes he can talk to the animals and listen to the trees. He’s quietly inventing a spiritual practice, complete with ritual and wonder. These paintings are a tribute to teenage isolation and boredom. 



LABspace

2642 NY Route 23, Hillsdale NY 12529

julielabspace@gmail.com


Temporary road work between Hudson and Hillsdale, please follow Google Maps for fastest detour



LABspace is located below Hillsdale General Store and Cook & Larder


17 miles east of Hudson NY

13 miles east of The Campus

17 miles north of Millerton NY

11 miles west of Great Barrington MA



LABspace was founded and directed by artist Susan Jennings 2014-2018, and has been the curatorial project of artists Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres since April 2018.


We are now in our 8th year of programming since taking the reins, thanks to all of you and to SJ!

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Zohar Lazar: ‘UTOPIA PKWY’ Opening Reception: Saturday July 12th, 1-5pm

Zohar Lazar, The Dead Know What They’re Doing, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

Zohar LazarThe Dead Know What They’re Doing, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. Solo Exhibition, UTOPIA PKWY, opens Saturday July 12th, 1-5pm. Click here for Exhibition Checklist.

Zohar Lazar:

UTOPIA PKWY



Opening Reception

Saturday July 12th

1-5pm


Detour on Route 23 July-August

Hello friends!


Please join us on Saturday July 12th, 1-5pm for the Opening Reception of Zohar LazarUTOPIA PKWY


We are thrilled to present all new paintings that Zohar Lazar has made specifically for this solo exhibition


The full exhibition checklist is available here


Thank you Zohar for this beautiful work!


Please Note: There is construction on Route 23 heading east between Hudson and Hillsdale. Click here for the best route.


Thank you all and see you soon!

XO Ellen + Julie

Zohar LazarUTOPIA PKWY Opens Saturday, July 12th, 1-5pm. Click here for Exhibition Checklist

Zohar LazarUTOPIA PKWY
Solo Exhibition of Paintings

July 12-August 24, 2025
Saturdays and Sundays 1-5pm


Full exhibition checklist



Opening Reception with the artist: Saturday, July 12th, 1-5pm


Conversation with Zohar Lazar, led by Jeff Bailey: Sunday August 3rd at 2pm


Closing Reception with the artist: Sunday August 24th, 1-5pm



Zohar Lazar writes:

My work is mostly informed by the cartoons I consumed as a child. It is the ideal visual language for its light touch with subjects that might otherwise feel self-serious or overly morbid. A rotating cast of characters are deployed to act out the scenes and daydreams of my youth. These paintings are a tribute to teenage isolation and boredom.

LABspace is located below Hillsdale General Store, and Cook & Larder



17 miles east of Hudson NY

13 miles east of The Campus

17 miles north of Millerton NY

11 miles west of Great Barrington MA



LABspace was founded and directed by artist Susan Jennings 2014-2018, and has been the curatorial project of artists Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres since April 2018.


We are now in our 8th year of programming since taking the reins, thanks to all of you and to SJ!

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Closing Party Sunday June 29th, 1-5pm

Susan Meyer: Group Chat Installation View

Susan MeyerGroup Chat Installation View. Exhibition checklistFinal Weekend! 

CLOSING PARTY

SUNDAY 1-5PM


🎉


On View Saturday 1-5pm



Susan Meyer:

Group Chat



Carlton Davis:

Humble Beauty



FINAL WEEKEND

Carlton Davis: Humble Beauty Installation View

Carlton DavisHumble Beauty Installation View. Exhibition checklistFinal Weekend! 

Hello friends,


Hope you are all staying cool this summer!


We look forward to seeing you here this FINAL WEEKEND of both solo exhibitions:



Susan Meyer: Group Chat


Carlton Davis: Humble Beauty



Please join us for a CLOSING PARTY with both artists on SUNDAY 1-5PM


Exhibitions are on view Saturday 1-5pm


If you are planning to attend the opening at The Campus on Saturday, we are located just 13 miles east


Huge thank you to Susan Meyer and Carlton Davis for their exquisite work, and everyone who has visited us these past two months


See you here this weekend for your last chance to see both shows!


XO Ellen + Julie




Susan MeyerGroup Chat


Solo Exhibition of Mixed Media Sculpture


Full exhibition checklist



FINAL WEEKEND!


Saturday 1-5pm


Closing Party with Susan Meyer: This Sunday, June 29th, 1-5pm




Group Chat, a solo exhibition of new work by Susan Meyer, brings together a number of quasi-figurative sculptures of varying shapes and sizes and material compositions. Like the text-based conversations that pepper our contemporary discourse, the sculptures seem to communicate with one another in ways both fluid and disjointed. Referencing popular culture, utopian communities, scholar’s rocks, architecture, and mid-century playground/park structures, the works evoke a range of tenuous relationships – between the natural world and the built environment, growth and decay, aspiration and failure.



Susan Meyer’s work has been featured in solo and group shows across the United States, including the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs NY; Flinn Gallery, Greenwich CT; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver CO; The Korean Cultural Center, NY NY. She has held residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village CO; Sculpture Space, Utica NY; Ucross, Clearmont WY. Meyer received a BS in art from Skidmore College and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. She teaches at Monmouth University in New Jersey and lives and works in Hudson NY.






Carlton DavisHumble Beauty

Solo Photography Exhibition


Full exhibition checklist



FINAL WEEKEND!


Saturday 1-5pm


Closing Party with Carlton Davis: This Sunday, June 29th, 1-5pm




With this selection of photographs, Carlton Davis features seemingly mundane grocery items such as fruit, botanicals, eggs, and chickens. With a focus on composition and mood, Davis elevates these humble subjects and encourages contemplation of the photographs individually, and in conversation with one another. Through these images, Davis inconspicuously explores concepts of power, diversity, beauty, and equanimity.


Carlton Davis (b. Philadelphia) is a New York-based photographer known for his ability to uncover extraordinary beauty in the ordinary. His work, spanning both commercial and personal creative practices, highlights the essential and often overlooked elements of his subjects, inviting viewers to slow down and see the world anew. In his art practice, Davis focuses on the richness of the quotidian world. The depth and complexity of humble subjects are revealed through Davis’ rigorous attention to composition and light. Davis employs the same approach in portraiture. Intentionally simple backdrops and minimal to no color allow Davis to pare down distractions and create images that offer viewers space for thoughtful focus, visual exploration, and contemplation. Davis’ photography transforms the familiar into something timeless, encouraging a quiet, deliberate appreciation for objects and moments that sustain us.



Carlton Davis writes:

The botanical images included in ‘Humble Beauty,’ my solo exhibition at LABspace May 3rd-June 29th 2025, are part of a series inspired by the oil paintings of Charles Ethan Porter (b. Hartford, CT 1847- 1923). Reimagining Porter’s work offers me a vehicle to explore ideas of imperfection, the passage of time and the effects of aging. I convey the beauty and elegance of these themes through the depiction of fruits and flowers. To make a visual connection between our bodies of work, I chose to restage a selection of Porter’s paintings. However, many of the photographs are entirely my own design. For these works, Porter’s images are only source material used to explore my own contemporary aesthetic.

Porter’s influence is significant not only because we share the same hometown, but more importantly because we are both African American artists working in still life. Similarities in our professional trajectories provided the crucial point of departure that sparked this project.



LABspace is located below Hillsdale General Store, and Cook & Larder



17 miles east of Hudson NY

13 miles east of The Campus

17 miles north of Millerton NY

11 miles west of Great Barrington MA



LABspace was founded and directed by artist Susan Jennings 2014-2018, and has been the curatorial project of artists Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres since April 2018.


We are now celebrating our seventh year of programming since taking the reins, thanks to all of you and to SJ!