Main Space
Libby Rosa: The Matchbox
Curated by Zahar Vaks
January 10 - February 28, 2026
Opening Reception Saturday January 10th, 2026 6-8pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects is pleased to present The Matchbox, a solo installation by artist Libby Rosa, in our Main Space, and curated by Zahar Vaks. The opening reception will be on Saturday, January 10th, 6-8pm, and the exhibition will be up until February 28, 2026.

The Matchbox is a solo installation featuring new paintings and sculptures by Libby Rosa that explores desire, containment, and impermanence. The gallery transforms into a matchbox filled with more than matches: an embedded, barred window, enlarged sewing pins (bent, twisted, and unused), and flame-shaped panel paintings.

The space is set ablaze with large-scale flame paintings made from irregularly-shaped wood panels, acrylic, and pastel. The flames, in warm reds, yellows, and cool blues, dance  along the walls, emitting sparks, and are pierced with pins. Rosa’s flames signify the coexistence of fear and beauty, as attraction and danger. The flames evoke vulnerability, making the gallery feel permeable, as an evocation of the fragility of our environment amid climate change, natural disasters, and human destruction.

A focal point in The Matchbox is the barred, flame-shaped window cut through the wall, that highlights Rosa’s interest in manipulating her environment. This cutout pays homage to Robert Gober’s 1992 installation Untitled at Glenstone Museum. Through the window, a used match sculpture is visible, and the gallery’s columns are transformed into striking surfaces with marks and abrasions from previous strikes, serving as evidence of the gallery’s conflagration. The other two oversized match sculptures in the show refer to different stages of change and (dis)functionality; the red match is unused, and the blue one is broken.

Oversized sewing pins (to scale with the matches) are stuck into some of the flame paintings, while others poke and weave through the walls. These sharpened aluminum pins, combined with the flames, comment on human attempts to control uncontrollable forces and reflect a desire to preserve fleeting moments—like butterflies pinned in shadow boxes. Many of the sculptures show damage or wear, such as bending or breakage. These imperfect tools reveal a fragility and humorously remind viewers of the delicate objects we rely on daily. The Matchbox’s symbolic flames and damaged objects highlight the delicate balance between destruction and beauty, and human efforts to master uncontrollable forces. These works prompt reflection on our vulnerable environment and the fleeting moments we seek to preserve.  

Libby Rosa (b. 1993, Pittsburgh, PA) is an artist, curator, and teacher working in Philadelphia, PA. Rosa creates paintings, sculptures, and site-specific installations featuring shape-shifting and embedded imagery that challenge the limitations of walls and framing devices, pushing the boundaries of built environments. She received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2015) and her MFA from Cornell University (2019). She’s been featured in Whitehot Magazine, Canvas Rebel, Artblog, David Zwirner’s Platform Interview: One Day, New American Paintings, Maake Magazine, and Inertia. She founded Peep Project in 2020, a nomadic gallery in Philadelphia, curates public art along the Philadelphia Waterfront with DRWC and teaches at Fordham University.

Zahar Vaks, (b.1983, Tashkent, Uzbekistan) Is a visual artist based in New York. He earned his BFA from Tyler School of Art, and his MFA from The Ohio State University. He has shown in New York, Philadelphia, Columbus, Las Vegas, Houston, Vienna, and on the island of Svalbard in Norway. In 2018 Zahar was invited to participate in the Rauschenberg Residency. He attended the Galveston Artist Residency from 2012-2013. He was recently awarded the Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant. Currently he is a co-director of Ortega y Gasset Projects (OyG), and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

The Skirt
Anya Klepikov: Polychromy
Solo Exhibition
January 10 - March 1, 2026
Opening Reception Saturday January 10th, 2026 6-8pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects is thrilled to present Polychromy, a site-specific installation by the artist and scenic designer, Anya Klepikov, curated by OyG co-director Leeza Meksin in The Skirt, OyG’s exhibition space dedicated to site-specific art. Opening reception with the artist will be held on Saturday, January 10, 6-8pm, and the installation will remain on view through February 28, 2026. On January 16, 1-5pm, the artist will host Open Hours at the exhibition.

Polychromy centers the site of the Old American Can Factory itself as the main story and impulse for reflection about our industrial (ever-present) past. The installation summons the ghost of the original Somers Brothers Tinware Factory, captured in the architectural palimpsest of the building.

Klepikov builds on top of existing architectural features of the space with paint, gold leaf, printed fabric, and sculpted elements to create optical illusions and reverse the whitewashing of time and use. Normally, paint falls away from objects over time, distancing us from the original context and intent, but here, new paint brings traces of past life to the forefront of a contemporary space. 

Covering two walls of the Skirt with mirror, Klepikov invites the viewer to look beyond the literal walls of the space into the past, as well as into parallel realities. The original arched brick windows on one of the walls have been filled in with cinderblock as the building shifted from manufacturing to its current artistic production. Klepikov rearticulates these bricks with rolled-on paint, resurrecting the red brick beneath the layers of white paint, a process similar to a tombstone rubbing. Adding a reflection of this wall, she doubles the painted brick arches into a kind of arcade that frames the vestibule of the Skirt. The mirror not only expands the space but creates a new space, a corridor to a world gone by.

Polychromy also manifests the presence of water, which has been a feature of this site since before colonial times and is still a force to reckon with in this building and neighborhood. Like many factories during the industrial period, the original Somers Brothers Tinware Factory relied on the transportational capacity of the Gowanus Canal. It is also easy to imagine that the byproducts of the Somers’ novel printing process contributed to the canal’s pollution long before the nearby 5th Street Basin of the canal was filled in during the mid-century.

Trained as a scenic and costume designer, Anya Klepikov is accustomed to looking at venues closely for the opportunities they present. In this project she brings the approach of a scenic designer to the visual arts context in order to explore the story embedded in the architecture of the Old American Can Factory. Anya’s work in theater, opera and dance has been seen Off Broadway, at Baltimore Center Stage, the Yale Repertory Theater, Chicago Opera Theater, Fort Worth Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Saratoga Opera, Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, Florida Grand Opera, Gloucester Stage Company and North Carolina’s Triad Stage among others. Anya was a guest artist at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts on fourteen productions. For Miami City Ballet she designed the scenery and costumes for the acclaimed new production of Stravinsky and Balanchine’s Firebird ballet, now part of their repertory since 2020. Starting in the Summer of 2020 Anya began her exploration of design driven original work in collaboration with her students at UMass Amherst: Monuments of the Future (2021) and FLAMINGO MURMURATION (2022). Her award-winning and interactive “An Instrument of Introspection: the Nun’s Bed” was installed at the I-Park Foundation in 2023. She is currently working on the You-Cube, an experimental outside performance space. Anya’s original work invites viewers into dramatic environments and casts them as performers of their own experience. Anya holds a BA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama. She has taught design and color practice at Princeton, Brown, Colgate, UMass Amherst, and currently at Williams College. In working on this installation Anya is particularly indebted to the theatrical collaborators from whom she learned about research-based storytelling: Tea Alagic, Leese Walker, Steven Bogart, Amanda Palmer, Tei Blow, Laurel Atwell, and Diana Oh. www.anyaproductiondesign.com

The installation is dedicated to the memory of Diana Oh and will remain on view through February 28, 2026.

Special thanks to Melissa Goldman, Jennifer Bolstad, Zoe Spring, Yael Rice, and Nathan Elbogen for insight and inspiration.

Leeza Meksin is a New York based interdisciplinary artist, curator and educator. Her work investigates parallels between conventions of painting, architecture and our bodies. She teaches art at Cornell University, and is a founding co-director of Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery in Brooklyn, NY. For more information please visit www.meksin.com

Support the Future of OyG Projects with a Monthly Gift

Dear OyG Community,

Like many artist-run spaces, OyG Projects is navigating a challenging financial year. Since COVID, we've worked tirelessly to keep our doors open — drawing down our emergency reserves and steadily repaying an SBA loan that helped sustain us during the most uncertain times. While we’ve been fortunate to receive support in the past from grant makers, including the NEA, those sources are increasingly unpredictable in today’s rapidly shifting funding landscape.

Because of these challenges, we are currently faced with a $25,000 deficit for 2025. We must raise these funds in order to complete this year's programming, and to begin planning for our near future.

We are asking you to help sustain it

The most impactful way you can contribute is by becoming a monthly donor with a recurring gift of $5, $10, $25 or more a month.

We hope you will help us meet a tangible short-term goal:
75 monthly donors by the end of Summer. 

Recurring gifts provide us with the steady support we need to plan ahead, produce ambitious exhibitions, and keep our programs free and accessible to all.

We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve done: providing a platform that has launched the careers of countless artists and bringing meaningful, challenging, and joyful exhibitions to our community. With your help, we can continue this vital work — and grow it.

 At OyG, we believe in building space for experimentation, dialogue, and community — especially for artists who have historically been excluded from mainstream platforms. Our artist-run model prioritizes innovation and quality over commercial outcomes, offering artists a rare opportunity to take risks and grow.

Thank you for 12 years of OyGoodness!

OyG Projects 

Clare Britt
Eric Hibit
Annamariah Knox
Xingze Li
Leeza Meksin
Nickola Pottinger
Adam Liam Rose
Zahar Vaks
Lauren Whearty