Purgatory

GR Gallery is pleased to present Purgatory, a group exhibition featuring works by Jordan Sullivan, Robert Martin, Jacob Rochester, and RUMINZ. The exhibition brings together 16 paintings influenced by outsider art, rural aesthetics, and Americana, creating a cross-cultural dialogue that bridges diverse styles and backgrounds. Collectively, the works unfold as a contemporary grand tour, placing themes of self-discovery and revelation at their core. Purgatory focuses on raw, unfiltered depictions of suburban and everyday life, rendered with a crude yet deliberate realism. Through an unabashed visual language, the exhibition confronts current social realities, offering an honest and direct reflection on the tensions and complexities of contemporary society.

The opening reception will take place on Friday, February 20, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm (Exhibition Dates: February 20 – March 21). Press members may contact GR gallery for a private viewing and/or interviews with the artists before the exhibition officially starts. Visitors who wish to attend the opening reception may RSVP by contacting the gallery. Artists will participate at the opening reception.

GR gallery, 116 Chambers Street (between W. Broadway & Church) New York, NY, 10007 | info@gr-gallery.com | tel: +1 646 449 9439 | Wednesday to Sunday, 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm.

Purgatory highlights specific subcultural and civic aspects of American society through a timely examination of unsettling narratives—stories that have long remained unwritten, obscured, or deliberately softened. Set within a contemporary context where social tensions are exposed and hypocrisy laid bare, the exhibition also connects to a broader Western tradition in which artists have historically served as vital voices for marginalized and outcast cultures.

Despite their distinct visual approaches—Sullivan’s raw and narrative-driven scenes, Martin’s detailed and pragmatic compositions, Rochester’s subtle, contemporary sensibility, and RUMINZ’s stylized, textured works—the four artists share a strong conceptual foundation. Their practices converge around themes of nostalgia, on-the-road iconography, suburban environments, social critique, and visual reportage, balancing emptiness and hope while giving visibility to minorities and renegades.

Purgatory invites visitors into a suspended atmosphere shaped by the intensity of unfiltered reality and the absurdity of the depicted scenes. It reflects on the struggle to be heard, the fragility of change, and the persistent desire for redemption—offering a sober yet quietly hopeful perspective on the possibility of a more humane future.

Jordan Sullivan’s work captures a raw view of the United States which highlights strange beauty in the absurdity, isolation, addiction, and horror that haunts the country. He doesn’t shy away from plunging into the dark core of reality with his paintings and believes that although some might view his art as straight to the point, it ultimately exists as an open-ended question that might allow others to see something differently.

Robert Martin deconstructs rural America, often shown as a conservative, heteronormative, and masculine environment, by revisiting the space with queer themes and stories that often go overlooked. The art is more driven toward conversation than critique and has stemmed from the artist’s very own exploration of their queerness and identity as nonbinary. Their practice utilizes the elements of storytelling and traditional arts to create a sense of familiarity but also tension.

Jacob Rochester expresses lived experiences and nostalgia both personal and found with additional cultural references stemming from fashion, music, and entertainment. His art is in constant evolution, moving fluidly between memory, form, fine art and design. While carefully incorporating tradition to innovation, he believes the approach to his craft remains the same where he absorbs the world, refines his practice and trusts that the work and himself will continue to evolve.

RUMINZ takes on a stylized fiction of nightlife and music clubs that gather stylish performers based on black music culture in the 60s and 70s combined with equally stylish young guests to blend American and Japanese culture together. RUMINZ work uses bold pops of color with an equal intensity to texture creating a lively character inhabiting a nostalgic yet exciting world.