THE WORDS appearing in Sonya’s works take up a most confounding presence in our field. She cycles through these terse fictions–I imagine they first appear as slogans, riddles, or jokes in her filtering mind. It just feels like they have been held for a long time before they are put down. Becoming too anthemic, she empties them. As fabric applique, they fill out again, by themselves, decorated ghosts on a quilt object. Amid the traditional culture revivals happening on Etsy, Sonya calls on an older spirit of crafting, evoking garage sales and hand-me-downs.


Can’t help the adolescent transference from Sonya’s job teaching middle school. DODO, excised, floats amid a landscape decidedly anti-aesthetic, touching something pretty touching something ugly. Anonymous cats and humans animate the soft sheets, with a few sequins to lightly stroke, and quilt binding to tamp down the hyper-optimization beneath. The quilt delivers its social and emotional learning modules, reproducing coping skills. Superstitious layers of meaning and gesture are tucked into pockets in a handbag and held close to the body. School teacher in situ.


CAT DAD. Sonya tells me about her romantic life and we end up talking about books. Several dates she describes to me sound like a mini refusal exercise in preparation for a bigger refusal yet to come. Dating, like quilting, is an everyday frame in which to be negative, to give one’s pessimism a soft resting place.


JOY appears as a blob: cherry patterned JOY, exertions of the nuclear family on the unconscious JOY. She engages the psychic and somatic mechanisms of a culture of women who take their hopes and worries into looping thread, extravagantly claiming the interior spaces, practical and inventive. And the way this material becomes saturated with meaning, with thought, with words measured against the physical memory and detritus of the family: the group which Sonya memorializes through cutting, ripping and re-shaping. She can’t stop attaching two textures, seeing the time in color, and pushing color to coalesce into shorter periods of maximalism.


END OF THE BAR. As I consider the drag of her image words, Sonya passes me a quote from Lauren Berlant which says: the optimistic concept of the later suspends questions about the cruelty of the now. Sonya’s constant fixing on the potential for use: a cheapness rubbing against the horizon.

-Jamie Chan

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Sonya Derman is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her recent work integrates drawing, painting, embroidery, appliqué, and writing into quilted visual fields. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art in London. Derman has been awarded residencies atVermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; her recent exhibitions include a solo presentation at Sunview Luncheonette, a two-person presentation with PAD Gallery at NADA NY, and a collaborative show with artist Jamie Chan at Essex Flowers in 2024.

Walking through a very distinct market that somehow feels foreign to me, I spot someone who  looks as though they might be familiar to me, but I can’t tell if it’s someone I know, someone I  once knew, or simply déjà vu. There is a man in a three-piece suit, trying to sell me fresh fruit,  and who am I to say no? I love sweetness in almost all of its forms. Nearby, there is a woman 

in the most elegant tunic, who makes me feel more unique than I have since I was in art school  and felt like truly anything was possible. But then it just so happened that I graduated in 2008,  and the wealthiest of the world decided they had other plans for me (and for most of the rest of  society, as well).

I learned at an early age that so many interactions in this life are transactional, but I also decided  right around the same time that they don’t have to be. There are exceptions to everything,  though; sadly, there are exemptions to plenty, too. Collaboration and cooperation are the keys  to survival. Forget about quid pro quo; forsake the status quo. From this day forward, let’s  exchange energy, ideas, and experiences out of an authentic sense of decency, mostly because we  acknowledge it is the only way to learn and to love, and ultimately, that is the ideal way to live. 

I’m currently sitting in my home in Los Angeles, eating soup dumplings with my son. I’m  thinking about Josh’s persistent and prolific painting practice; I’m thinking about Katya’s sad  unicorn that will soon be sitting atop dozens of his paintings tightly wrapped to function as table  legs. There is a legitimate balance to this transaction; it is evidence that some transactions are not  only worthwhile, but they are also necessary. I prefer those that offer some semblance of service  and support.

- Keith J. Varadi, September 2026

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Joshua Abelow (b. 1976, Frederick, Maryland) lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He  received his BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998 and his MFA  in painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2008. Abelow is represented by Gene’s  Dispensary, Los Angeles. 


Katya Kirilloff (b. 1976, Frederick, Maryland) lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She  received her BFA from the ArtCenter College of Design in 2006. Her work has been exhibited  at such venues as Gene’s Dispensary, Los Angeles, California; Gene & Fred, Santa Fe, New  Mexico; Parapet Real Humans, St. Louis, Missouri; Freddy, Harris, New York; Romantic  Acquaintances, Great Barrington, Massachusetts; Swanson Kuball, Long Island City, New York;  and OPaf 6, San Pedro, California. She is a 2025 Étant donnés grantee through Villa Albertine  and the Albertine Foundation and has an upcoming solo exhibition at Les-Bains Douches in  Alençon, France in November 2026.


Founded in 2024 and programmed and operated by Keith J. Varadi, Gene’s Dispensary provides  a platform for a wide range of artists to express themselves freely, and it will always attempt  to initiate and facilitate a diverse discourse. In addition to the exhibitions staged at the gallery,  Varadi also routinely organizes off-site exhibitions and events under the Gene’s moniker. Gene’s  has been a proud member of the New Art Dealers Alliance since 2025. The gallery is located at  422 Ord Street, 2B, Los Angeles, CA 90012.


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