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Booth C23 | Outsider Art Fair, New York, NY | February 27–March 2, 2025
New York, New York [January 27, 2024] — For the 2025 edition of Outsider Art Fair in New York City, Bill Arning Exhibitions (BAE) will present works by Alexandria Deters, Thedra Cullar-Ledford, and Ario Elami. Through sculpture, embroidery, painting, and drawing, the three artists subvert religious themes and imagery in their work, each offering a unique perspective on the intersection of spirituality, personal experience, and cultural critique.
Alexandria Deters is best known for her ongoing series of embroidered portraits of female cult and religious leaders who have caused significant harm to their followers and others. Through her intense research, and after depicting more than 50 such women, Deters has now turned her attention to male religious leaders who assert themselves as incarnations of Jesus Christ. These latest embroidered portraits include excerpts from the would-be prophets’ voices, texts that insistently repeat the desire to be known as the Second Coming incarnate. For Outsider, Deters is also reworking cult ephemera, as can be seen in her painting of a Children of God poster with the slogan “Hookers for Jesus.”
At the 2024 Outsider Fair, BAE presented works by Thedra Cullar-Ledford made in response to her experience with breast cancer and the profound sexism that permeates cancer treatment. For this year’s edition, the gallery will exhibit two 4.5-foot diameter tondos by the artist made with artificial leaves and petals in the shape of vulvas. The leaves and petals in these pieces are sourced from the flowers at her son’s wedding, which Cullar-Ledford arranged by hand for the ceremony before deconstructing them for these works. By repurposing the arrangements in this intimate way, the tondos stand defiant against the judgement society places on the sexuality of mothers. Titled after and resembling Mexican imagery of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Cullar-Ledford regards these works as sexualized shrines to the interrelated mysteries of sex, birth, motherhood, and God.
Ario Elami, a dual citizen of Iran and the U.S., creates imagined, ancient-seeming drawings of architectural sites on the verge of being overrun and reclaimed by nature. Rendered in pen- and colored pencil-on-paper, his works are developed with the view of early sacred architecture as numinous altars upon which were laid sacrificial items, such as teeth, eggs, skulls, and vertebrae. Elami perceives nature as a roiling mass of aggressive life, perpetuating itself through overabundance, an idea that is prominent in his drawings. He also sees early architecture, with its primitive and mythopoeic qualities, as latent with untold, cosmic mysteries.
About Bill Arning Exhibitions
Bill Arning Exhibitions (BAE), established in 2019, is a contemporary art gallery located in New York’s Hudson Valley dedicated to presenting challenging and thought-provoking work. With a focus on emerging and mid-career artists, BAE’s program fosters a stimulating dialogue between the universal desire to challenge convention and meaningful engagement with art history. Led by veteran curator Bill Arning, BAE continues his legacy of championing artists who push boundaries and expand the definition of art. For more information, visit www.billarning.com.
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