Elena Sisto's New York exhibition explores young women painters through formalist and psychological portraits

Elena Sisto presented her first New York solo exhibition since 2004 at Lori Bookstein Fine Art from April 25 to May 25, 2013. The show featured twenty paintings focusing on young women painters confronting their artistic vocations. Approximately seven works were close-up details of subjects' clothing and body parts, creating nearly abstract compositions through inventive paint handling. These "cropped-in" paintings, such as Frogs (2013), reveal formal structures while complementing more psychologically complex works. Sisto's approach draws from Philip Guston's tradition of generating imagery directly through painting rather than photographic sources. The exhibition's centerpiece, Self-Portrait (with Van Dongen) (2011), depicts a young painter surrounded by artistic influences including Kees van Dongen's Jeune Arabe (1910) and a Picasso figure. This painting employs multiple visual references and a spectral self-portrait to explore artistic identity. Sisto's work uniquely positions female painters as protagonists while creating a parental, sympathetic gaze toward young artists. The exhibition was located at 138 Tenth Avenue at 19th Street in New York City.