Secret Garden: Shona McAndrew Exhibition at CHART Gallery NYC | April 11 – May 24

Shona McAndrew, Sunset nap, 2024 | acrylic on canvas 37 7/8 x 32 x 1 5/8 in 96.2 x 81.3 x 4.1 cm

Shona McAndrew’s Secret Garden is now on view at CHART Gallery in NYC, running from April 11 through May 24, 2025.

“In Secret Garden, McAndrew presents a significant evolution in her formal and conceptual practice. Her early work situated women within intimate indoor spaces, whose domestic environments served as a haven from external judgements and societal pressure. This afforded her subjects moments of private vulnerability and unguarded existence. In her new body of work, McAndrew dismantles these architectural boundaries, venturing into a fantasy realm. Each painting is set within a bucolic utopia which provides a sanctuary from our contemporary reality. Her subjects are unabashedly engaged with nature, in lush landscapes and amongst animated wildlife.  

Amid lush overgrown fields of flora and fauna, McAndrew delves into how environments—both physical and psychological—shape expressions of safety, vulnerability, and freedom. Her women migrate from domestic confines to boundless natural realms. Each composition unfolds within an Arcadian dimension where characters and nature harmoniously coexist, creating an intertwined world of fantasy and expressions of an ideal. They bathe with bears, roll in flowerbeds, climb trees with snakes and masturbate in fields of wildflowers with birds on their shoulder.”

Image courtesy of artist and CHART
Photo credit Adam Reich
Copyright artist