Karina Sharif | In Her Absence: Matriarchal Musings
September 5-7, 2025 | The Armory Show Booth P30: Javits Center, New York
Gallery 495 is proud to present In Her Absence: Matriarchal Musings, a solo presentation by Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Karina Sharif at The Armory Show 2025. Sharif’s practice centers on the divine multiplicity of Black Femme-hood, explored through sculptural works made of natural elements. Her sculptures present a tactile and luminous exploration of lineage, legacy, and the unseen bonds between women across realms. Inspired by oral histories of her maternal ancestors from 19th and 20th-century rural Jamaica, Sharif transforms memory into sculptural forms that bridge spiritual and physical worlds.
The collection—comprising ceramic, steel, paper, ink, and family-found objects—draws on matriarchal traditions of farming, weaving, sewing, and craft. Stones gathered with her mother by the sea during childhood travels become embedded in lamps, incense holders, wall sculptures, and beaded totems. These works function as transmissions, offering a visual language for intergenerational care and guidance.
Sharif references the Lukasa board of the Luba people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a mnemonic device used to preserve genealogies and cultural history through touch. Similarly, her works invite viewers into active communion rather than passive observation.
“In this body of work, I wanted to articulate the sacred lines of communication between realms—how they inspire groundedness, joy, love, and expansion,” says Sharif.
Ellon Gibbs|Ambush in the Night
May 8–11, 2025 | Independent: Spring Studios, New York
Gallery 495 is proud to present a solo booth by Brooklyn-based artist Ellon Gibbs at the 2025 Independent Art Fair, running from May 8–11. Gibbs, 29-year-old artist from Brownsville, NY, brings a striking new body of work that explores the primal relationship between humanity and nature—raw, unfiltered, and urgent.
Gibbs' paintings feel both ancient and contemporary, existing in an enigmatic space that is unplaceable yet deeply familiar. His figures are locked in moments of survival—running, attacking, clinging to life—set against landscapes saturated in color, almost aflame. The unseen presence of fire and destruction hints at an underlying unraveling, a reflection of societal fractures and looming crisis.
Subtle yet unflinching, Gibbs' work offers a brutal commentary on contemporary life. His dystopian environments speak to a learned disconnect—between ourselves and nature, between our food sources, between our fellow humans. Growing up in the populated architecture of New York City, he reflects on the paradox of urban life: millions living side by side, yet isolated within their own apartments or screens.
Within the chaos, there is a call for return, a return to something instinctual, rooted in our mammalian nature. This series, while dark and evocative of end times, suggests a path forward: a reckoning with what we’ve lost and what we might reclaim.
