Exaltation, at Plato Gallery in the LES
Plato owner Elena Platonova. Photo courtesy Plato Gallery
Group shows are a summer tradition for many galleries—a time to try new artists and explore innovative themes. One such exhibition is currently on view at Plato gallery on the Lower East Side. Exaltation, curated by Plato owner Elena Platonova, is framed as a contemporary take on Mannerism, the art historical movement that emerged between the High Renaissance and the Baroque period. Platonova takes an expansive view of the term, describing Mannerism as “artists imitating their predecessors—who adhered to a more harmonious, classical tradition—in exaggerated and exalted ways.” Drawing parallels to historical moments of upheaval—such as pre-revolutionary France and pre-WWI Europe, eras when neo-Mannerist movements flourished—Platonova sees contemporary echoes of those same cultural anxieties and hopes in the works on view.
Many of the artists in the show draw visual and conceptual inspiration from art historical styles that clearly predate digital technology. What’s particularly interesting is the way some of them incorporate digital elements—such as eye-tracking software, LEDs, sensors, and AI—not as endpoints, but as tools for developing their ideas. Despite these technologies playing a role in the creative process, the final works are overwhelmingly hand-painted and deeply rooted in traditional media like oil or acrylic on canvas. This tension between the digital and the handmade reflects a broader desire to reconnect with the materiality, symbolism, and emotional resonance of painting traditions, while still speaking to the complexities of our present moment. In doing so, these artists blur the boundary between past and future, creating a hybrid aesthetic that is both historically aware and technically forward-looking.
Vickie Vainionpää’s The Swing. Photo courtesy Plato Gallery
A case in point is Vickie Vainionpää’s The Swing, which uses Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s iconic Rococo painting as a reference. Fragonard’s 18th-century work, commissioned by a member of the French royal court for his private home, was considered provocative for its time—bordering on soft pornography. It depicts a young woman in a frivolous, flowing pink dress on a swing. She is being pushed by an older man (originally a pastor) while her suitor hides in the bushes to catch a glimpse under her dress as she swings forward. The painting also includes several sexually suggestive renderings of sculptures. Despite the problematic subject matter, it remains an exemplar of the Rococo style. Vainionpää’s painting subverts the male gaze implicit in Fragonard’s work, replacing it with her own investigation into “the gaze.” Using eye-tracking glasses and software, she recorded her eye movements as she studied the original painting, then mapped the results using Bézier curves to generate balloon-like, curving forms. One is rendered in soft pink, echoing the color of the woman’s dress in Fragonard’s painting; the other is translucent and bubble-like, reflecting elements of the original painting as she viewed it. In her version, the woman’s bare foot—exposed as her shoe flies off—is reflected back to the viewer, highlighting one of the most sensual and suggestive details of Fragonard’s scene. Describing her approach, Vainionpää says: “In this case, [I recorded] my vision as I look upon canonical works by painters like Rubens, Tintoretto, Bronzino, and others. Throughout history, painterly tropes such as the female nude have been intensely tied to the male gaze. These works aim to subvert such traditions by mapping my own gaze and translating it into an abstract representation of viewership.”
Leda, lex Sutcliffe. Photo courtesy Plato Gallery
Several other artists also use historical paintings as stepping-off points, including Alex Sutcliffe. His painting Leda was inspired by Peter Paul Rubens’ rendering of the Greek myth Leda and the Swan. In the myth, the god Zeus takes the form of a swan to seduce—or rape—Leda, the human queen of Sparta. From the encounter, Leda lays two eggs, one of which hatches Helen of Troy. Rubens' painting, in turn, was based on a now-lost work by Michelangelo that Rubens had seen on a trip to Italy. Both versions depict a female figure sensually entwined with a swan. Sutcliffe’s Leda is a technical tour de force that must be seen in person to be fully appreciated. He painted two versions of the piece, one in oil and one in acrylic (interestingly, Rubens also created two versions of his Leda). Sutcliffe then cut into one of the paintings with an X-Acto knife, removing freeform shapes that reveal sections of the other painting beneath. The two works were then joined together. When viewed from an angle, the differences in surface sheen—oil’s satin finish and acrylic’s glossier texture—become apparent. The result is mesmerizing, slightly Cubist, and vibrant. Sutcliffe’s second painting in the show, Long Way, is based on Hercules at the Crossroads by Pompeo Batoni.
École des Beaux-Arts Painting Studio, Gretchen Scherer. Photo courtesy Plato Gallery
Taking historical reference to an extreme, Gretchen Scherer’s École des Beaux-Arts Painting Studio includes a dozen or more historical paintings within a single composition. She offers a fantastical reimagining of an 19th-century Beaux-Arts studio. Rendered in an intentionally naïve style with distorted perspective, flat color, and lighting that casts no shadows, the scene depicts a bright white studio filled with multiple paintings set on easels—all being worked on by an unseen artist or artists. The works in progress, as well as those hanging salon-style on the walls, are based on paintings from the period. One painting in the back even shows the Paris Salon, with works hung floor-to-ceiling in a grand arched room.
In contrast to Scherer’s flat modeling, Alic Brock—a self-taught artist—uses an airbrush to create highly modeled, dimensional surfaces. His painting Lady and Mouse features a Michelangelo-esque figure squeezed into the rectangle of the canvas. The squatting figure buries her head in a cluster of white tulips, inhaling their fragrance. She wears a long gray satin dress, while a white mouse climbs up its folds. A lit cigarette is held in her gloved left hand, which also holds a red bandana. A pair of scissors rests on the white cloth beneath her. The symbolic elements—the mouse, tulips, scissors, and a single drooping red flower—read like iconographic attributes waiting to be decoded, much like flowers and objects used to identify religious figures and allegories in Renaissance and Mannerist paintings.
Lady and Mouse, Alic Brock. Photo courtesy Plato Gallery
Brock’s second painting in the show, The Fruit Basket, appears to be inspired by Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio. In this version, Bacchus—the Roman god of wine, fertility, and ecstatic celebration—is reimagined as a muscular male figure, a toga draped over one shoulder, holding a basket of fruit, from which a fish head emerges.
Draped Threshold, Maude Corriveau. Photo courtesy Plato Gallery
Canadian artist Maude Corriveau contributes a pair of paintings that are less overtly historical. She paints colorful, iridescent drapery with technical finesse, though the meaning of the work remains ambiguous. The larger of the two, Draped Threshold, depicts what appears to be a wall of drapes, possibly concealing windows. Swags run across the top; quilted fabric appears on the left, with gathered and puckered panels in the middle. The drapery looks almost metallic, as if made of mylar, with purples, greens, and pinks reflecting across its surface. Like icing on a cake, the paintings are a visual delight.
The lone sculptural piece in the show, Sea Heart Cradle, is an organically shaped ceramic form that houses a real sea urchin shell. Inside are pulsing LED lights activated by the viewer's heartbeat.
Stass Shpanin’s Horn Angel is a bold, linear painting inspired by Pennsylvania German Fraktur—illuminated documents that were popular among German-speaking immigrants in 18th- and 19th-century Pennsylvania. The work appears to depict the Archangel Gabriel, traditionally shown blowing a horn to announce significant events. In this context, the angel may serve as a symbolic stand-in for the artist himself, perhaps heralding Shpanin’s upcoming solo exhibition at Plato. Shpanin’s practice explores the intersection of folk art and technology. As he explains, “I use the paradox of the digital intangibility of computer-generated images and the objectivity of a physical canvas and paper to create paintings and drawings that examine contemporary issues related to public memory and art-making traditions.”
As the show's curator, Elena Platonova says the idea for Exaltation had been developing for some time, sparked by a wave of contemporary art “charged with a certain electric energy [that responds] to the current moment.” She observed a recurring visual language—diagonals, twisted forms, exuberant textures—used to convey heightened emotional states. These works, she notes, are also engaged in a layered dialogue with art history, referencing movements from the Baroque and Rococo to the Renaissance and Modernism. While Platonova believes critics have “tended to focus on the Rococo references”, Platonova intuitively recognized a broader, more encompassing trend—what she now considers a contemporary form of Mannerism.
Platonova officially opened Plato on the LES in March 2024, though the gallery began taking shape in 2023. After moving to the U.S. following her undergraduate studies, she built a career in the art world spanning nearly every aspect of the industry—from sales and artist relations to appraising and advisory work. She has worked with galleries in Europe, California, and New York, and holds a master’s degree in art history from the Courtauld Institute in London. With a deep understanding of the art market and a focused curatorial vision, she founded Plato as a space to support artists and bring their work into meaningful dialogue with art history and contemporary culture. Marking a major milestone, Plato gallery will make its debut at the Armory Show this September.
With the last few weeks of summer approaching, this show should be on your must-see list before it closes on August 23.
Participating Artists: Alic Brock, Maude Corriveau, Kim DeJesus, Ákos Ezer, Yoon Hyup, Darina Karpov, Mevlana Lipp, Erik Nieminen, Marlon Portales, Vadim Pugin, Jacob Rochester, Gretchen Scherer, Guillermo Serrano Amat, Stass Shpanin, Alex Sutcliffe, Takura Suzuki, Vickie Vainionpää, and Andrew Woolbright.
Exaltation July 11 – August 23 Plato 202 Bowery, between Spring and Prince St. New York, NY
