ro art services opens Overhang 2 Friday, August 1st. from 6-9PM at ESSEX FLOWERS’ 19 Monroe St. gallery space in NYC

ro art services is delighted to announce Overhang 2, a continuation of our pop-up exhibitions at partnering galleries. Opening Friday, August 1st at Essex Flowers’ NYC exhibition space, the group show features painting, sculpture, and framed works by Marzena Abrahamik, Leslie Baum, Christina Ballantyne, Jaqueline Cedar, Journie Cirdain, Assaf Evron, Peter Fagundo, Leasho Johnson, MJ Lounsberry, Ricardo Partida, Martha Poggioli, and Dom Smith.

The “Overhang” exhibition series uses the summer group-show trope for fostering collaborative exhibition opportunities. The first iteration was presented with Goldfinch Gallery, and the second iteration is our first pop-up outside Chicago. I am particularly happy to be bringing the exhibition to ESSEX FLOWERS’s Chinatown location, as my experience with Julius Caesar has made me long admire their artist-run gallery’s spirit and longevity. The collective’s endurance is remarkable among artist-run project spaces, whose value to the community is so profoundly enhanced by the decision of so-many for so-long to join and add their dedication to a communal space.

Overhang 2 presents the work of 12 artists who share an intensity in the thoughtful underpinnings of their work, and present them through individualistic style both generous and overt. Themes of the body and landscape both physical and metaphorical wade in and out of focus across the group’s work, made by artists whose collective careers and experience range from the emerging to mid-career. Please join us in NYC for the opening on Friday, August 1st, or come through for weekly hours during the show’s run. The exhibition runs through September 1st with weekly hours Saturday and Sunday from 12-6PM.

Marzena Abrahamik (b. Poland) grew up in Greece before moving to the US. Receiving a BA from Loyola and an MFA in Photography from Yale, Abrahamik is an artist and educator living and working out of Chicago. Visually inspired by others’ personal histories, attachments to unachievable and necessary for survival fantasies, she investigates transformation through the formation of community, paying particular attention to policy, gender, and labor. Abrahamik is a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, and received a "Fulbright Scholar Award," for 2023–2024. Her Solo exhibitions have been at Galeria Szklarnia 1 (Łódź, Poland), EXPO Chicago (Chicago), Soho House (Chicago), Heaven Gallery (Chicago), Hoxton Gallery (Chicago), Lula Cafe (Chicago, Johalla Projects (Chicago), and Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (Boone, NC). Selected Group Exhibitions include MOCA (Westport, CT), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago), 6018|North (Chicago), Millepiani (Rome), Weinberg/Newton (Chicago), Special Feature (Chicago), Ignition Projects (Chicago), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), The Franklin (Chicago), Latitude (Chicago), Firecat Projects (Chicago), Heaven Gallery (Chicago), Chicago Art Department (Chicago), Christine Finley (NYC), Soccer Club Club (Chicago), Gallery of Classic Photography (Moscow). Past awards include "William Bronson Mitchell and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Enhancement Fund Award," Chicago, IL, 2023; "Chicagoland Seen Award," Villa Albertine Foundation, New York, NY, 2023; "Diversity Infusion Grant," Chicago, IL, 2023; "Studies and Research Grant," The Kosciuszko Foudnation, New York, NY, 2022; "Individual Artist Support – Artist Project (IAS/AP) Grant," Chicago, IL, 2020–2022; "Faculty Enrichment Grant," SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2021–2022; "John Ferguson Weir Award," Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2013.

Christina Ballantyne (b. 1990, Houston, TX) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in painting and sculpture. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021 where she was recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler award. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Hair & Nails (Minneapolis, MN), Sulk (Chicago, IL), Martha’s Contemporary (Austin, TX), Julius Caesar (Chicago, IL), and Car Wash (Houston, TX). Group exhibitions include Felix Art Fair (Los Angeles), Make Room LA (Los Angeles, CA), Andrew Raefacz (Chicago, IL), Research House for Asian Art (Chicago, IL), and ro art services (Chicago, IL).

Leslie Baum (b. 1971, NJ). Baum’s painting practice is invitational in nature and informed by her long tenure as museum educator at the Art Institute of Chicago. Baum received her BA from the University of Vermont and studied abroad at the Glasgow School of Art. Her drawings and paintings are in permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Elmhurst Art Museum. Baum’s exhibitions have been reviewed extensively, including in Artforum, Art in America, Hyperallergic, New City, and the Chicago Tribune. She received residencies at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, the Nido project in Monte Castello di Vibio Italy, Yaddo, and the Vermont Studio Center. A 2020 DCASE grant funded the creation of pleinairarchive.com, a site documenting her ongoing painting social practice. In 2023, Baum was named one of 50 key members of Chicago’s art scene by New City Magazine. Recent solo exhibitions include ordinary awe, Goldfinch, Chicago (2024) for IRIS and Other Flowers, Compound Yellow, Chicago (2023); The Plein Air Project, Wege Center, Maharishi International University, Fairfield, IA (2022 ); An Instrument in the Shape of A Woman, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (2022 ); and A Garden in a Vase, the Drawing Room at The Arts Club of Chicago (2022 ). Participation in recent group exhibitions includes ro art services, Chicago (2025, 2024); Friendship’s Death, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago (2023); Nido, organized by Michelle Grabner, Monte Castello Di Vibio, Italy (2022); Wheel of Life, organized by Scott Wolniak, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2022); and Plain Air, Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago (2021).

Jaqueline Cedar (American, b. 1985 in Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA in 2009 from Columbia University and her BA in 2007 from the University of California, Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include Andrew Rafacz, Chicago IL (2025), Shelter Gallery, New York NY (2023, 2021) and Platform x David Zwirner (2022). Group exhibitions include Blah Blah Gallery, Philadelphia PA (2025), mtn space, Lake Worth Beach FL (2025), Serious Topics, Los Angeles CA (2024), Kelly-McKenna Gallery, Spring Lake NJ (2024), TV Projects, Brooklyn NY (2023), Long Story Short, New York NY (2023), Shin Haus, New York NY (2022), Smoke the Moon, Santa Fe NM (2022), Ladies' Room, Los Angeles CA (2021), 11 Newel, Brooklyn NY (2021), Peripheral Space, Los Angeles CA (2021), Hesse Flatow, New York NY (2020), Drawer NYC (2020), Field Projects, New York NY (2020), Underdonk, Brooklyn NY (2018), and David Risley Gallery Velvet Ropes, Copenhagen (2018). Cedar has exhibited at NADA New York and Miami and her work is included in numerous private collections. Press includes Artnet, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, Two Coats of Paint, New American Paintings, Gorky's Granddaughter, Painters' Table, and The Boston Globe.

Journey Cirdain (b. 1993, California) is an artist currently based in NYC. Known for her drawings on paper, Cirdain graduated from SAIC with an MFA from the Painting and Drawing program. She has had solo exhibitions with Western Exhibitions (Chicago) and Gallery A (Seattle), and has a forthcoming solo exhibition at Western Exhibitions. Her group shows include ro art services (Chicago), Color Club (Chicago), Western Exhibitions (Chicago), Bridgeport Art Center (Chicago), Green Gallery (Milwaukee), Gallery 308 (Chicago), Patient Info (Chicago), Pinto (NYC), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst), Mitchell Gallery (Annapolis).

Assaf Evron (b. 1977, Israel) is an artist and educator based in Chicago. He received a BA from Tel Aviv University in 2007, and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 in Photography. He continued his education with a MA in 2017 from The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel-Aviv University. Evron’s work investigates the nature of vision and the ways in which it is reflected in socially constructed structures, where he applies photographic thinking to two and three-dimensional media. Collapsing the relationship between culture and nature, his work takes a critical eye on language, experience, and geology with a sense of loss and melancholy emanating from the Anthropocene. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally including The Museum for Contemporary Art in Chicago, Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem among others. Recent Solo and Two-Person exhibitions include David Slain Creative (Chicago), Arts Club of Chicago (Chicago), S.R. Crow Hall (Chicago), Center for Digital Art (Holon), MCA (Chicago), Elmhurst Art Museum (Illinois), Neubauer Collegium (Chicago), Chicago Architecture Biennial (Chicago), Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago), Haifa Museum for Art (Haifa), Habres + Partner Galerie (Vienna), and The Heder Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv). Selected Group Exhibitions include Gwangju Biennial (South Korea), Julius Caesar (Chicago), Fosdick-Nelson Gallery (NY), Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art (Arkansas).

Peter Fagundo (b. 1971, Minnesota) is an artist and educator living in Chicago. For most of his career, Fagundo has been challenging his painting practice with work on the entanglements and interpersonal gymnastics brought on by a passionate studio practice. He earned his BS from Regis University and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was The Trustee Merit Scholar of 2000. Solo and two-person exhibitions include MLeBlanc (Chicago), Hans Gallery (Chicago), Bianca Bova Gallery (Chicago), The Suburban (Milwaukee), and Devening Projects. Selected group shows include ro art services at Goldfinch (Chicago), Sulk (Chicago), HG Inn (Chicago), Green Gallery (Milwaukee), Shane Campbell (Chicago), The Suburban (Milwaukee), Sugar Gallery (Brooklyn), Three Walls (Chicago), and Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago).

Leasho Johnson (b. 1984, Jamaica) is a visual artist working in painting, installation, and sculpture. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Johnson was raised in Sheffield, a small town on the outskirts of Negril. He obtained a BFA in Visual Communications at the Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts in 2009, and graduated with an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020. He was a Leslie Lohman Museum Fellow from 2020-2021 and a Jamaica Art Society Fellow from 2021-2022. He was featured in museum shows including “The Plural of He,” Leslie Lohman Museum, New York, 2024; “Picasso: Fifty Years Later,” Elmhurst Museum, Chicago, 2023; “Fragments of Epic Memory,” Art Gallery Ontario, Canada, 2022; and ‘Jamaican Routes’, Oslo, Norway 2016. He was also a part of the “Jamaica Jamaica” traveling exhibition at the National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, 2020, SESC São Paulo, Brazil, 2018 and Philharmonie De Paris, Paris France, 2017. Leasho has shown his work in his home country at several National Gallery of Jamaica exhibitions, ‘We Have Met Before’, 2017, and several Kingston Bienniale, from 2012 to the most recent in 2022. His work is also part of various notable private collections, and Museum permanent collections. Solo exhibitions include Mariane Ibrahim Gallery (Chicago), Western Exhibitions (Chicago), Harpers Gallery (NYC), TERN Gallery (Bahamas), FLXST Gallery (Chicago), NLS (Kingston). Selected group exhibitions include Sean Horton Gallery (NY), PMAM Gallery (London), Jupiter Contemporary (Miami), Kavi Gupta (Chicago), TERN Gallery (Bahamas), The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), and Transmission Gallery (Glasgow).

MJ Lounsberry (b. 1996, Iowa) lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received her BFA (2017) and MFA (2023) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Primarily focused on painting and drawing, Lounsberry’s work builds and collapses utopian figurative narratives delving into nature, athletics, and spirituality. Lounsberry had a 2024 solo exhibition with ro art services in Chicago, and exhibited in group shows at Secrist|Beach (Chicago), Rhona Hoffman (Chicago), Goldfinch (Chicago), and Baby Blue (Chicago). She is the recipient of the SAIC Leon W Guggenheim Scholarship 2021. Her first book was published by ro art services in 2024, titled “MJ Lounsberry’s Collected Sketchbooks, Volume. I: 1-3, 2024.”

Ricardo Partida (b. 1990, Mexico) is an artist living and working in Chicago. Partida received an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020, and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas in 2017.

Partida’s work interrogates codes of gender expression and explores themes of solitude and intimacy through voyeuristic portraiture. The artist’s work examines art history and its representation of male desire, particularly gendered visual language and its relationship to the homoerotic gaze.

Partida’s work explores themes of gender and desire through role play and metamorphosis. His works depict a perpetually morphing character while remaining authentic to the theme of the Fag Fatale, a homoerotic figure traversing form and dimensions in search of roles for power and desire. Through wandering imagery often drawn from art history, Partida’s work playfully combines it with a visual language both coded and gendered. Solo and two-person exhibitions of Partida’s work include: Subverting Identities at Berntson Bhattacharjee in London, England (2023), Pasiva Toxica at New Image Art Gallery in West Hollywood, California (2022), Death of a Hero, Rise of a Champion at Deli Gallery in New York City (2021), Final Fantasy at Julius Cesar Gallery in Chicago, Illinois (2020); and Evil and Shivering at Baby Blue Gallery in Chicago, Illinois (2020). Group exhibitions and art fairs that have shown Partida’s work include The Hole (NYC), ro art services at Goldfinch (Chicago), Dallas Art Fair 2023 (Dallas), Sotheby’s (NYC), Philips (NYC), 1969 Gallery (NYC), New Image Art Gallery (LA), Steven Zevitas Gallery (Boston), Western Exhibitions (Chicago), Elmhurst Art Museum (Illinois), Monti8 Gallery (Latina, Italy), and NADA House on Governors Island with Baby Blue Gallery (NYC).

Martha Poggioli (b. 1988, Brisbane) is an Australian artist and educator living and working in Dallas, Texas. Receiving a BFA from Queensland University of Technology in 2009, Poggioli went on to achieve an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. Her Solo and Two-Person exhibitions include Colorado Springs Fine Art Centre (Colorado), John Michael Kohler Arts Centre (Sheboygan, WI), AddsDonna (Chicago), Julius Caesar (Chicago), SPACES (Cleveland) and Extrase (Chicago). Selected Group Exhibitions include Houston Centre for Contemporary Craft (Houston), ro art services (Chicago), John Michael Kohler Arts Centre (Sheboygan, WI), Soloway Gallery (Brooklyn), RainRain (NYC), Rochester Museum of Contemporary Art (NY), Haynes Court (Chicago), Winberg-Newton (Chicago), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center (Seattle), Rhona Hoffman Gallery (Chicago), MassArt Art Museum (Boston), Mütter Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Kunstgewerbemuseum (Dresden, DE), RMIT Design Hub (Melbourne), Wyndham Art Gallery (Melbourne). Residencies include Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Kohler Arts/Industry Residency, SPACES Artist-in Residence in partnership with Dittrick medical History Centre & think[box] at Case Western Reserve University, LeRoy Neiman Foundation Ox-Bow Fellowship, Australian Tapestry Workshop & NEWINC.

Dom Smith (b. 1987) is an artist living and working in New York City. Born in Peoria Illinois and raised in Muscogee County, Georgia, Dom Smith attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received an MFA in Sculpture in 2014. His solo and two-person exhibitions include Junior Gallery (Chicago), Bo Bartlett Center Museum (Columbus, GA), HG (Chicago), and Adler Floyd (Chicago). Selected group exhibitions include HG (Chicago), Modern Life Fine Arts (NY), Emanuil Benaki (Athens, Greece), David Zwirner Gallery (NY), Julius Caesar (Chicago), Roots & Culture (Chicago), Museo Casa Blanca (San Juan), and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (San Juan).