New York, NY, September 26, 2016 — Albertz Benda is pleased to present Ali Silverstein: To Put on the Edge, a Table, the Los Angeles-based artist’s first solo exhibition in New York, on view from October 27 through December 17, 2016. For this inaugural show at the gallery, Silverstein will debut a vibrant new body of work rooted in her practice of gesture and response. Through a continuous process of painting, cutting, and layering canvas, she explores impulse and desire.

This series emerged from an unexpected collaboration between Silverstein and dominatrix Kasia Urbaniak, sparked by a conversation after they met during an exhibition of Silverstein’s work in Miami. After attending several of Urbaniak’s workshops on “Power Dynamics for Women,” Silverstein applied the exercises in her own studio—not practicing with men, as originally intended, but with her paintings themselves. For instance, where one workshop involved discovering the “right slap” by testing the edges of “too soft” and “too hard,” Silverstein adapted the approach to her work, deliberately entering the “no-go” zones of her own process: “too ugly,” “too cute,” and other internal prohibitions. The aim was to dismantle unconscious fears that distort expression.

At the heart of these works is Silverstein’s pursuit of ever-expanding freedom—a legitimizing of desire, and a deliberate probing of the spaces we are afraid to be seen. Each painting begins with improvisational mark-making—an process of negotiation with herself as inner resistance pushes back against gestural impulse. From there, she cuts into the painted surfaces—often shaping them into loose, vessel-like forms—before collaging them together. In this way, wildness becomes a method for exploring the domestic: pattern, vessel, still life, decoration.