Abstract Fabulism: When Expressions Have Two Meanings

Silke Albrecht (born 1986, Germany) is a contemporary German painter known for her vibrant, dynamic works that merge abstraction with elements of figuration, often exploring themes of identity, transformation, and the emotional landscape. Albrecht’s approach to painting blends expressive mark-making with a keen attention to color, texture, and composition, creating works that resonate with both a sense of personal introspection and broader cultural concerns. In her work, Albrecht frequently explores the psychological and emotional aspects of human existence, with a particular focus on themes of self-reflection and transformation. Her abstract paintings often evoke a sense of change, movement, and fluidity, while also referencing organic forms, figures, and landscapes. Her use of color is a key component of her practice, with Albrecht employing both muted tones and bold, contrasting colors to create atmospheric depth and emotional resonance in her pieces. With her distinctive style and conceptual depth, Silke Albrecht continues to be an important figure in contemporary painting, her works contributing to the ongoing dialogue surrounding 

Molly Aubry, born in Denver, Colorado, lives and works in South Florida. She received her BFA from the University of Florida and her MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work explores entangled perceptual worlds through the matrix of print media. Mining the tension between organic materials and digital processes, the work imagines artifacts from a world in which the natural and artificial are inextricably linked. Selected exhibitions include Molly Aubry: Dark Luminosity at the Cultural Council for Palm Beach, Strange Paradise: A Window into Surrealism at the Annmarie Sculpture Gardens and Art Center in Solomons, MD, and Intimacy at Science Gallery of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Aubry was commissioned by the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs Art in Public Places Program in 2022 and in 2023, she was commissioned by the City of West Palm Beach. She has received full fellowships for residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale Foundation, and Shoals Marine Laboratory, and received a Visiting Artist Grant from the U.S. Department of State. Aubry was awarded the 2023-2024 South Florida Cultural Consortium (SFCC) Fellowship and the 2024-2025 Artist Innovation Fellowship from the Cultural Council of Palm Beach. In addition to her interdisciplinary studio practice, Aubry is an Adjunct Professor at the New World School of the Arts in Miami and an Associate with Acquavella Galleries in Palm Beach. 

Seth Bauserman’s pieces are more question than statement. Each work is a series of layers that hide and obscure, blend and conflict—each mimicking in color, texture, and form the process by which people come to understand or remain blind to the truth about themselves. They are portraits of taking on and stripping away, of presentation and concealment. His works begin as layers of individual marks made upon paper. Each layer is then shaped and reshaped to conceal, emphasize, or transform the individual marks. Each is a record of presence and absence; forms made of simple strokes and their own negations. A socio-political moment fraught with caricatures of groups and carelessness with words demands a visual idiom of careful perception and focused intention. These works invite introspection and instead of reaction—a visual space to consider the complex and layered nature of identity as a remedy to the the flattening and simplifying of identity politics. 

Fattovich calls his style Abstract Punk. He deliberately rejects traditional techniques in lieu of brut art strategies. Painting with a mixture of oils, acrylics and other mediums on large-scale canvases, he uses his hands and other tools, like plaster trowels and forks, adding rough textures and dimensions to his surfaces. “I use whatever I can use to make that mark,” he says. “It’s not even a brush stroke.” His compositions evolve according to a subliminal process in which he responds viscerally to the colors, layers, lines and shapes, coaxing each composition along until it reveals itself to him as being finished. This, he says, is the most rewarding part of the artistic process: discovering the moment when the work has become “what is was meant to be” then connecting with a viewer who responds to the work. A self-taught painter, he has always valued self determinism above all else, and spends his studio time alienating himself from the pull of the outside world in order to create from the most authentic inner source. Fattovich’s powerful compositions, eloquent and raw in their palette and gesture, draw the viewer in to sense the often overlooked, and at times overwhelming, energy all around them in the world. The vast art landscape created by a burgeoning Wynwood Art District in Miami became the backdrop to Fattovich’s first fine art exhibitions beginning in 2010. His work has since been included in exhibitions in Miami, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boca Raton, East Hampton, as well as his first solo show in New York at CJ 

Louise Fishman (1939–2021) was a prominent American abstract expressionist painter known for her emotive and deeply personal approach to abstraction. Her work evolved throughout her career, blending influences from the abstract expressionist movement with feminist themes, Jewish identity, and a keen sense of political and social engagement. A central theme in Fishman’s work was the exploration of the body, identity, and the act of painting itself. Her gestural and vibrant use of color and form often reflected a struggle with personal and historical narratives, whether through the lens of gender, sexuality, or her Jewish heritage. Fishman’s engagement with feminism and her desire to create a space for women in the traditionally maledominated world of abstraction was evident in her works, which pushed the boundaries of the genre, incorporating intense texture, calligraphic marks, and spontaneous, bold brushstrokes. Fishman’s impact extended beyond her paintings. She was also a mentor to younger artists, sharing her insights and experiences with the next generation. Her works were not only a reflection of her personal struggles but also a reflection of broader social and political issues. Through her fiercely independent and distinctive style, Louise Fishman carved a lasting place for herself in the history of American abstract painting. Notable exhibitions include solo shows at the Brooklyn Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Fishman’s work can also be found in the collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. 

Chris Hood’s paintings depict layered arrangements of images set against fields of stained color, scattered landscape vignettes, picturesque vistas, “clip art”-style icons and simplified central figures. Painted from behind as opposed to from the front, Hood works in a reverse layering process — as each layer dries it seals the surface, blocking the successive layers from penetrating the canvas. The imagery appears to fracture, double, and dissipate amongst the surfaces. Drawn from an archive of personal photographs, self-portraits, advertising imagery and anatomical studies, the figures that Hood paints seem to be in a trancelike state — dreaming, sleepwalking, or hypnotized — suggesting that the disparate images that make up the compositions may be organized by dream logic or governed by a series of undetermined associations. 

Edd Ravn (b. 1992, UK) is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. His practice spans growing bacteria, painting with rainwater, recording soundscapes, and designing public furniture to co-create animate objects that question perception, connection, and change. Ravn holds a BFA from the Glasgow School of Art and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art. His work has been exhibited at institutions including RAINRAIN Gallery (NY), Norton Museum (FL), and the Brazilian Embassy (London). Ravn has performed poetry at the Barbican Centre (London) and the Ilkley Literary Festival. He has served as visiting artist and critic at Yale University, Princeton University and the University of Michigan. In 2017, he participated in the Porthmeor Studios Residency in St Ives, and in 2020, he received an Art and Social Justice Initiative Award from Yale University.