The Skirt
Anya Klepikov: Polychromy
Solo Exhibition
January 10 - Sat Feb 28th, 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