Tina Li, Contributing Photographer

When curators Marissa Del Toro and Jasmine Agosto showed artist Awilda Sterling-Duprey their plans for her upcoming showcase, she immediately disapproved. “You need to disrupt,” she told them. 

On September 28, Sterling-Duprey presented her works at a solo exhibition at the art space NXTHVN (pronounced ‘Next Haven’). Titled “Aesthetics of Dis-order,” the exhibit follows Sterling-Duprey’s exploration of abstraction since the 1970s. Community members showed up to view the showcase, meet Sterling-Duprey and mingle over refreshments. 

“I think [that says] something about her kind of spontaneity and intonation and movement,” Agosto said about Sterling-Duprey’s response. “Her style is found in her emphasis and her work … We went back to the drawing board, and we’re like, ‘Let’s play with the work, let’s really enjoy this process.’”

The resulting exhibit is an unconventional, kooky display of Sterling-Duprey’s works. 

At the Miami Beach art fair last December, NXTHVN selected Sterling-Duprey to receive their Visiting Artist Prize. To support her work and foster an interchange between her and NXTHVN fellows, she was awarded a $15k stipend and a two-month long residency. 

An experimental artist and performer from Puerto Rico, Sterling-Duprey explores and challenges the boundaries of gender, identity and nationality in her work. Her work is difficult to categorize; throughout her career, she has experimented with abstract forms and processes. 
Most recently, in her “Blindfolded Series,” Sterling-Duprey dances to salsa or jazz while blindfolded, translating the music into art through her body. The bright markings she makes onto black paper are vigorous and jittery — an embodied release of anxiety and tension.

Del Toro pointed to several, noteworthy pieces in the exhibit from her four-decade career. 

A recently restored, untitled work from the 1970s was one of Sterling-Duprey’s first forays into abstraction. With her 1996 “El colmo de lo obvio” series, Sterling-Duprey created paintings on textiles inspired by Caribbean dance and performances. In “Casa Afro,” a charcoal on paper grayscale series from 2021, her marks span from expressive charcoal loops and scratches to obsessively ordered dots.

“We were excited to have a range of series,” Del Toro said, “they’re very different, but it’s how they speak to each other and show a continuity in what Awilda’s thinking and her practice.”

When laying out the exhibit, Del Toro and Agosto considered Sterling-Duprey’s  dynamic artistry as a performer. The works became like bodies moving through space, Agosto said.

Sterling-Duprey contributed her artistic flair to the curatorial process, often suggesting they leave works hanging mid-way through the process of being put up. Two artworks were left with painter’s tape still framing their positions on the wall, one was tilted at a 45 degree angle and one piece was displayed lain on the floor. 

The exhibit continues outside the main gallery room and into the halls. 

Before the showcase was opened to the public, Carlos Aquino, an art handler at the Yale University Art Gallery, was sanding down holes and bumps on the other side of the gallery wall in preparation to paint over it. Sterling-Duprey happened to come by and was struck by the white sanding marks that seemed to gesture out from the black wall. 

People take for granted the labor that goes into exhibitions, Del Toro said, but Sterling-Duprey found art in it. 
The wall, now featuring the spontaneous art from Aquino’s efforts and several works from Sterling-Duprey’s “Blindfold Series,” is titled “La Vida.”

“You know, that’s life,” said Del Toro. “Things happen, and you try to fix it as best as you can, and then sometimes, somebody sees it as a treasure.”  

Del Toro also shared an instance where Sterling-Duprey was coming down the ramp by the wall and was inspired by the movement of the sunlight reflecting off the floor. Hearing that forever changed how Del Toro saw that mundane aspect of the building, she said.

“I love that they took the space and made it a piece of art in itself. There’s a playfulness, and it feels very alive,” said Erin Michaud, an art history teacher at Cooperative Arts and Humanities Magnet High School. 

Michaud praised NXTHVN for the mentorship they offer young artists in New Haven. She has two students participating in their high school apprenticeship program, which supports youth in their creative professions and provides them with studio and curatorial experience. 

“The high school apprentices, they’re like the light to my life,” Del Toro said, “They’re from New Haven, they go to school in New Haven. They’re getting to work with artists, curators, and getting to see that the arts is actually a path forward, a real possible career.” 

NXTHVN aims to showcase artists that haven’t been represented before, either in prominent or smaller museums, Del Toro said. Nick Crowley, another visitor, called the art space a “hidden gem.” 

Agosto said that NXTHVN has become a special space that welcomes art-enthusiasts, curious visitors and families alike. 

“It’s not stuffy, it’s not tight, the kids are running around, there’s a place to color and draw, and you’re experiencing incredible art that you might not have seen in other places.”

“Aesthetics of Dis-order” will be on view at NXTHVN until Nov. 19. Sterling-Duprey will also give a public performance of her “…blindfolded” work on Oct. 26, in which local musicians will play music, as she translates the sounds into art.  

NXTHVN is located on 169 Henry Street, in Dixwell.