Shapeshifters

July 10, 2025-August 23, 2025

In “Shapeshifters,” Martha’s presents the work of Greg Piwonka and Payton McGowen, two artists who work across abstraction, whether through the fitting together of irregular shapes or through the loosening of familiar figures.

Piwonka’s paintings strike a delicate balance, seeming to come to the viewer at a moment—though fully dry, his brushstrokes appear still wet; his shapes, Tetrised together like luggage in an overhead bin, seem to just fit together, ready to fall apart with any movement. When taken with the title of the exhibition, “Shapeshifters,” these works display an ambivalence: Are these shapes about to shift, breaking this momentary stability, or have they shifted, changing their edges and corners so as to adhere, granting a homeostasis to the composition?

Payton McGowen’s works, created with colored pencil in a technique that seems to mimic yet exceed both the freedom of watercolor and the saturation of acrylic—an arduous process with a delicate finish—abstract nature through a process of magnification; flowers, insects shift as the artist zooms in. And yet she does not offer a dissecting view, opting instead for an impression; it is the magnifying gaze of a lover who has gotten too close to their object of desire that their eyes can only waver in and out of focus, not that of the scientist. These works beg the question: What changes with our gaze? Like the observer effect of quantum physics, displayed in the double-slit experiment, our surveillance alters that which we surveil. McGowen demonstrates the power of sight—and requests that we use that power wisely.

Across the work of both Piwonka and McGowen, our vision is challenged. Can we trust what we see? If we see, as in the work of Piwonka, balance, can we trust that it will continue? And if our gaze has a physical effect, as demonstrated in the work of McGowen, how can we continue to trust it? Such questions are not answered, only put forth, asking the viewer to consider them, come to their own conclusion. Not didactic but provocative, “Shapeshifters” hopes to leave its audience with more awareness than it found them.

Writing by Grace Sparapani