Exquisite, Multifarious Visual Narratives Arouse Emotions In Joana Galego’s First U.S. Solo Show

Two nude women sit on rocks gazing down at a body of water, the figure on the right washed in red and dangling one foot in a boot, the other bare. A cracked egg – perhaps symbolizing new beginnings, fertility, the cyclical nature of life, the universe hatching, or an allegory borrowing from pagan, religious, surrealist, or feminist ideas – sits to the left of the ruddy figure as is occupying space reserved for another person, perhaps someone yet to be born or fleeing. In the upper left, the small rough outline of a horse filled in with black diagonal lines races away from the figures like a fleeting or fragmented memory. Shadowy legs outlined in red – indicating a connection to the figure on the right – chase the horse. The azure moonlit night sky in the upper right draws the viewer back to the water, evoking memories of what may have occurred in the simple structure standing on soil. The left of the canvas is framed by a dark blue narrow vertical panel that hints at interior decor and draws together the vast imagery.

Joana Galego originally envisioned Egg Shells (2025) as a larger canvas and the visual narrative revealed itself at five-feet-wide and just over four-feet tall. The colors alone – an array of precise brushstrokes in cerulean, cyan, teal, and azure mingling to form a welcoming body of water – evoke myriad emotions and invite us to dive deeper into the narrative. Warmth is magnified by the lavish textural blend of acrylic, oil pastel, soft pastel, and oil brushstrokes and marks. The painting continues on the sides, extending the story and our interpretive journey.

Galego (b. 1994 in Portugal), who now lives and works in London, greeted an overflow crowd to the opening Thursday night of her first U.S. solo show at Isabel Sullivan Gallery in New York’s Tribeca art and design district. Sullivan, who launched her eponymous gallery in 2023, is committed to championing emerging women artists alongside renowned painters such as Richard Hambleton. Galego’s sensuous, intimate paintings speak loudly as the artist herself engages viewers with a soft, ethereal demeanor, underscoring the dreamy otherworldliness of her work.

“I deeply cherish the rare moments in which a painting looks back at me, surprisingly, presenting me with something I don’t quite feel I had much to do with,” Galego says. “It simply happened, whether by accident, by my stubbornness of keeping trying, by magic.”

Seashells in My Mother’s Garden and The Giant Boulder Rolling Down, featuring eight large-scale paintings and three intricate collage works on paper, is on view through May 31. Galego creates a world of memory and solitude, whimsy and inquiry, combining observational drawing and imagination, often inspired by a personal experience. She borrows heavily from nature, whisking away the viewer on a voyage to Indonesia and Portugal. Galego grew up on the Portuguese Riviera, in Cascais, nestled between the Sintra Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, and once home to abundant kelp forests. The tourist destination exalted for its sandy beaches and busy marina is replete with a former medieval royal retreat, Nossa Senhora da Luz Fort and the Citadel Palace. Ian Fleming fans know the Estoril Casino, Europe’s largest, inspired his first spy novel, Casino Royale (1953), and history buffs recall Cascais as a meeting place for spies during World War II.

Each look, from close or a distance, reveals another layer to her enchanting and deeply personal storytelling, blurring the lines between figure and landscape and defying simple characterization. Her work breathes with the viewer, encouraging a careful study of each composition.

Galego bravely exposes a large swath of the Shadows In The Garden (2025) canvas, revealing the raw, shiny, plant-based bast fiber that’s spun into coarse, strong threads. My son Michael, 15, was immediately drawn to this work, noting the metallic sheen of the naked canvas which evokes vulnerability, while the technique speaks to a sophisticated gesture often reserved for more mature artists. Galego’s demure courage was widely admired, and Shadows In The Garden was among the works to quickly find a buyer on opening night.

Rounded brushstrokes amplify the femininity of two figures, as the exhibition title suggests a mother and daughter, who huddle together to lovingly plant a tree in Planting Our Tree at the End of the World (2025). The lush landscape enriches the fecundity of our imagination, as the women could be partners nurturing a life together. Once again, the painting pours onto the sides of the canvas, a technique reserved for a few of the works on view, and a decorative banner crowns the top of the canvas, pierced by the woody stem, as if connecting the natural world with an interior world. The slender trunk performs like a ladder or a path leading to the banner or the interior realm.

While her paintings are breathtaking, Galego’s works on paper are a force of their own, with multitudinous details presenting asynchronous linked stories. These sinuous visual narratives play with scale, as larger figures seem to be emoting in the present while others appear ghostlike. Some gaze directly at the viewer and others are walking away or obscured, as if lost, forgotten, or lingering between worlds. Galego’s prowess empowers the most delicate marks as much as her often rounded gestural strokes.

The exhibition title borrows from Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, encouraging us to embrace the absurd and find meaning in a meaningless universe. Sisyphus’s eternal task of rolling a rock uphill only to have it roll back down represents the futility of human labor, an idea that resonates deeply amid ongoing global cacophony of chaos, confusion, contempt, and combat.

“To draw and to paint,” Galego says, “is my way of trying to honor some of the value in carrying the absurd boulder all the way up the hill.”

Take time to examine each of the unique artworks, as revelations appear as if they had been hidden at first view, teasing our sensibilities and challenging our perception of real versus imagined and how they co-exist. Galego fluidly marries figuration and landscape to present elegant and cinematic imagery executed with diverse mediums and techniques in an stalwartly curated, celebratory abundance of color. Her vast range of brushstrokes and marks, whether meticulous or unintentional, seems infinite and intrinsically intertwined. Though each work tells its own particular story, they join a larger conversation that harks back to Galego’s childhood and exists on multiple planes of philosophical inquiry.

“Surprise and mystery are important to me,” Galego says. “I look for images that deeply engage the senses, mind, and, for lack of a better word, the spirit. I’m particularly interested in making work that asks questions rather than making statements.”

Previously at Isabel Sullivan Gallery: Three Women Painters Engage In Robust Dialogue At Group Exhibition Showcasing Their Singular Global Talents