Beginning April 6, 2023, Fort Gansevoort will present The Arrival of Foreign Professionals, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Ukraine-born, Israel-based artist Zoya Cherkassky. In her latest works, Cherkassky offers up vibrant figurative compositions to depict scenes of African diasporic communities in Europe, Israel, and the USSR from the 1930s to the present day. Based upon historical research and the artist’s own memories, these paintings examine cross cultural encounters from disparate times and locations. Cherkassky’s personal experiences as the wife of a Nigerian emigrant and mother of a mixed-race child simultaneously inform her perspective and complicate her relationship to the subjects she portrays. Aware of the challenges that come with presenting these works in America—a nation whose own history of African enslavement and white supremacy remains entrenched— Cherkassky aims to engage viewers in open conversation about the aftermath of failed colonial projects.
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