Making Order

Antonietta Grassi and Richard Pasquarelli

Open to the public:

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - Friday, January 16, 2026

Open hours:

Monday - Friday, 11am - 5pm

Opening reception:

Tuesday, September 30, 6-8pm

Project: ARTspace is pleased to present Making Order, which unites the distinct yet complementary works of Richard Pasquarelli from NYC and Antonietta Grassi from Montreal. Both artists delve into perception and painting, compelled by a psychological drive to impose order on chaos. While drawing inspiration from modernist painting genres, their works express contemporary anxieties.

Antonietta Grassi's paintings emanate from a process that is both intuitive and methodical, emotional and detached. Her canvases undergo a relentless cycle of gestural reiteration, evolving over months and years as she refines compositions, encapsulating the paradoxes inherent in the painting process as both a terrain of exploration and a daily meditative practice.

Grassi's work references the connections between textiles, technology, and the historical contributions of women to early computer systems and coding. Many consider the loom to be the first computer; a standalone machine with the ability to use interchangeable punch cards that was able to perform automated tasks. Abstracted shapes, inspired by discarded objects and obsolete machines, are interconnected by hand-painted lines, forming compositions reminiscent of data graphs in a perpetual state of flux. Grassi's art reflects her exploration of shared technological histories, particularly those obscured by the erasure of female labor forces. Drawing from her family history, where her mother and aunts worked in textile factories, Grassi unveils the reification of forgotten or unseen data. Through the language of modernist abstraction, her work recontextualizes the history of abstract painting, shedding light on the critical role played by female labor in technological advancements.

Richard Pasquarelli’s work actuates a visual language which represents the workings of the human mind. Through analysis of his own symmetry ordering OCD, and research into mental health, philosophy, Pasquarelli seeks to better understand the connections between physical reality and the psyche.

Field research in environments that exemplify the relationships between humanity and our possessions is a major component of Pasquarelli’s practice. He has immersed himself in the homes of those effected by mental health disorders like OCD and hoarding. Although his work has predominantly focused on personal relationships with objects, Pasquarelli is also interested in what

we, as a society, collect and save, the importance we assign to these objects, and what this tells us about ourselves and our place in time. Most recently he has visited the storage facilities of major art museums. These collections, deemed important, but hidden from public view, are stored in handmade boxes within complex, proprietary systems, imparting a sense of importance on the systems regardless of the contents. This research presents him with new insights into human behavior and psychology. These systems are designed for masterful organization and elegant in their simplicity.

Yet, within these flawless systems are anomalies—a box slightly askew, a misaligned drawer, stickies with scribbled notes—traces of an absent, imperfect, human presence.

Richard Pasquarelli (b. 1968) is a visual artist living in New York, NY. Pasquarelli has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries, and art fairs throughout the U.S. and Europe. His work is represented globally in many public and private collections including The Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Flint Institute of Arts, US Library of Congress, University Hospitals Collection, Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, Zabludowicz Collection, Progressive Insurance, Roanoke College Art Collection, and Syracuse University Art Collection. Selected residencies, awards, and commissions include The Watermill Center, MASS MoCA, Ucross Foundation, The Ragdale Foundation, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Print Club of Cleveland Annual Presentation Print commission award for 2017, and multiple public installations for the City of New York. Pasquarelli has been a visiting artist and advisor, lectured on, and been interviewed about his work at Yale University, Syracuse University, Roanoke College, WPKN Radio, Whitehot Art World Podcast, and Radio Free Brooklyn, to name a few.

Antonietta Grassi is a Canadian painter whose abstract works explore the intersections of textile, memory, and technology. Her works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in Canada, the United States Europe and the Middle East. Her work is in public and private collections including the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec, Musée d’arts contemporain de Baie Saint Paul, McGill University, the Conseil des arts et lettres du Quebec, the Canadian embassies in Dubai and Tunis, AIP Boston, the Archives of Ontario, Capitol One (MIT), Groupe Desjardins, Yamana Gold, Museo MAACK (Italy), the Stewart Hall Gallery in Pointe Claire and the Boston Public Library. Grassi has participated in several residencies such as International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn NY, the Ragdale Foundation, the Studios at Mass MoCA, the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Centre. Her work has been featured in publications such as Artforum, Whitehot Magazine, Canadian Art, Vie des arts, Revue Esse, The Globe and Mail, Le Devoir and many others. Grassi is the recipient of multiple awards and grants including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec. She holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal and an MFA from the Université du Québec à Montréal. She has worked on several large public art projects which have included large scale works on glass and mosaic. Her work will be the subject of a solo show at the Musée des beaux arts de Sherbrooke in 2026.