Events

Solo Series Spring 2026

Apr. 24

Untitled (Om in Yoga 2), 2023 | Guizi Gao | Oil on linen | $3,000

On View April 24 – June 1, 2026

Opening Reception | Friday, April 24 | 6:00p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Artist Talk | Stephanie Manzi, Guizi Gao, & Ben Pranger | Wednesday, April 29 | 6:00 p.m. – 8:00p.m.

ARTISTS

Guizi Gao – Realm of Chaos

Guizi Gao is a figurative expressionist oil painter whose work explores the human body as a mutable vessel shaped by social, biological, and psychological forces. Working in large-scale oil painting, she fuses Renaissance and Baroque compositional structure with gestural distortion and layered, tactile surfaces. Influenced by the London School, particularly Francis Bacon and Jenny Saville, Gao treats paint as corporeal matter, building and erasing flesh-like forms. Her signature headless or obscured figures are stripped of fixed identity, transforming from portraiture into archetypal presences that carry social, emotional, and existential resonance.

Gao’s series Realm of Chaos – Amazing Grace are inspired by Daoist cosmology, tracing cycles of vital spirit descending into the body, awakening, self-tempering, and spiritual renewal. Figures dissolve into organic geometry, translucency, and childlike symbolic forms, reflecting the flow of qi气, resilience, and the natural ascent of the heart-mind. The works engage themes of womanhood, pregnancy, breastfeeding, loss, and rebirth, presenting the body as both intimate and universal while highlighting the delicate balance between vulnerability and strength.

Gao holds an MFA in Oil Painting from the China Academy of Art and completed graduate study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited internationally in the United States, China, France, the U.K., Japan, and Norway, earning Merit Prizes from the Salmagundi Club International Figurative Art Competition.

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Stephanie Manzi – Net Change

“My work is rooted within ecology and presents itself as abstract spaces of color, layered marks, soft patterns, and material depth. I am often searching for way to show life at the infinity level, with images that can read as micro or cellular points of view as well as macro perspectives of mapped out land or road systems. I like the tangle- it toys with grief inside the confusion of history and relationship to nature, as well as the celebration of material and color that paint has to offer.”

–Stephanie Manzi

Stephanie Manzi is a painter and educator from Upstate, NY, based in Philadelphia, PA. Her work studies ecology through color, pattern and material. She received her MFA at Tyler School of Art in 2022 and her BFA from SUNY Purchase in 2014. Her work has been shown on both coasts, including Big Ramp Gallery, Ice Box Projects and Pilot Projects in Philadelphia, PA, as well as Las Laguna Gallery, Covet Gallery, and Shoebox Projects in Southern California. Manzi received the Award of Excellence at Conception Arts NYC, Faculty Committee Life Grant from PCA&D and had work featured in Tinge Magazine and Friend of the Artist. She was a resident at Grand Marais Art Colony, Mount Gretna School of Art and ChaNorth Artist Residency and is an upcoming resident at DaVinci Art Alliance for 2025. Manzi most recently had work on display at Valdosta State University, a solo show at The Southern Vermont Art

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Ben Pranger – Recursive Terrain

“My wall-based constructions slowly grow into emergent forms. Small pieces of wood are stacked and glued, drifting off course to traverse the space in front of the wall. The work follows simple rules that unfold organically to create entangled, rhizomatic structures. Many of the constructions suggest futuristic cities rising out of the rubble of their own destruction. Fragments from previous work coalesce into stairways, passages, apertures, enclosures and pyramids, leading the viewer through labyrinthine architectures. These indwellings map a recursive mental space that morphs into evolving worlds.”

– Ben Pranger

Ben Pranger has shown his work throughout the U.S., including recent group shows at Gallery Petite (NY), Curious Matter (NJ), Art House Gallery (NJ), Drawing Rooms (NJ), Artist-Run/ Satellite Show (Miami), Trestle Gallery (NY) and Grizzly Grizzly (PA). He has participated in artist residencies at Kohler Art/Industry, Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and has received sculpture grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the New Jersey Council for Art.

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For inquiries about work in our exhibitions, please contact our Gallery Manager at acook@abingtonartcenter.org.