Exhibition Review: "LAYERS: An All Trans Art Show" at Brooklyn Art Cave, Williamsburg (September 5 - 7, 2025)
During the height of the “Back to School” moment for the New York art scene, it was imperative I gave proper attention to the gallery & pop-up exhibition openings concurrent with the frenzied hoopla of the days of September 4th through September 7th. I have a special admiration reserved for the Brooklyn arts scene, and I am so elated that I was able to make it out to East Williamsburg to visit Brooklyn Art Cave for LAYERS, an exhibition celebrating the full spectrum of trans identity. Curated by Solena Aguilar and Jealyn McFadden, their show brought together works in painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, textiles, performance, sound, collage, and ceramics by an amazing team of artists (including the curators themselves). Brooklyn Art Cave lives up to its name because as soon as you step into its Myrtle Avenue entrance, you find yourself in a mostly darkened foyer enshrouded in the deepest of blues, purples, and blacks from the strobe lighting followed by the glow-in-the-dark paintings that festoon the walls and ceiling. After traversing this passageway (or, in keeping with the exhibition’s theme, layer), you reach the high-ceilinged exhibition space. With trans rights under venomous attack, the curators did a wonderful job of invoking a truly safe space for their artists and those who visit by invoking an atmosphere redolent of home, community center, and even a nightclub - a longitudinal central seating area, Christo & Jean-Claude-esque orangey curtains draped along the corners, relaxed lighting, and background music (a shame I couldn’t make it to the opening party!).
LAYERS is not only a celebratory declaration of trans identity, but also a fantastic educational initiative in explaining the inherent heterogeneity of what being trans means. Transgenderism is too often painted by conservative politicians, right-wing talking heads, and social media chatter in the most homogenizing, one-size-fits-all, flattened definitions that are also steeped in the most derogatory and offensive language imaginable. Trans identity, as demonstrated in this exhibition, encompasses an incredibly diverse range of perspectives and expressions that are united in their truth-to-power and speak-from-the-heart inclusive camaraderie.
“Yas, slay queen!” is a popular expression you hear among younger audiences today, but it has its roots in the BIPOC LGBTQ+ communities of the 1980s & 1990s, particularly with underground ballroom culture (check out the film Paris is Burning). This expression is an excellent way to introduce Neyla Heller-Soyer’s portrait, For Amayas. The face of a lightning-yellow haired subject melts in a confetti stream of lipstick red, eyeliner blue, and pink blush while wearing a crown, star necklace, and heart tattoo along their clavicle. This pizzazzed display of contemporary baroque pageantry is a brilliant show of “this is who I am - take it or leave it” that reminds me of photographer Nan Goldin’s recurring photos of her drag queen friend, Misty. Heller-Soyer’s Nudity is more iconographical and Rauschenbergian with its lopsided, absinthe-green female dress mannequin and pincer-like blue tails that spring forth from where the legs would appear, one of which points in the direction of a red-ink cursive repetition of the word “nudity” - an indexical point in articulating bodily reclamation / exclamation.
Dyllan Quan Champion’s subjects are like chameleons for their mythologized zoomorphism. Semblances of a human figure can be made out amongst the ostentatious plumage of Birdman while a person’s face is discernible in the head of a stamping bull or bovine in Beauty Number 5. The body remains present in Queer Freak, but it assumes more of an ecological connection as the sideways figure - identified through the washy brushstrokes - nearly resembles a vast mountainscape, which is further reinforced by the piece of bark wood hung over the composition. The implied callback to nature - either in the form of animal or wilderness - conveys a metaphorical embrace of bodily affirmation.
Solena Aguilar’s work underscores the intersectionality of trans identity with overlapping social justice movements, which in their case relates to gender & sexual identity, labor rights, and Latinx heritage. Aguila / Eagle is a hand-stitched piece of embroidery presenting the blackened silhouette of an eagle based on the logo of the United Farm Workers of America and as an homage to Chicano workers’ rights activist Cesar Chavez (1927 - 1993). With so many headlines on transgender workers’ fears over employment discrimination and unjustified firings, Aguilar’s Eagle is a much-needed protest sign that is just as much a part of the lineage of the mid-to-late 20th Century labor rights movements for BIPOC workers. I should note that the adage of an artist inserting themselves into their work is very apropos here since Aguilar’s surname literally translates to “eagle” and much of their work revolves around a political activist energy and community-centric altruism.
Emma Pesin’s sculptures recall the classic claymation cartoons of the 1950s & 1960s with their abstracted, Gumby-ish figures. Love was clearly the underlying motivation behind these sculptures as the paired figures in each work are lovingly bound together - either physically attached as in Binded or hugging in Look Out. It does not matter if they are romantic or platonic partners, for Pesin’s work is an inspiring reminder to be mindful of those near and dear to you.
Intimacy and humor were joint themes that went hand-in-hand for many of the works on paper. Shagg Solarz’s Sex Is is very meta in that, if you read the title first before looking at the work, you find that the image of two nude figures making love have become the visual definition of the term “sex” (if I could pick a song to accompany this image, it would automatically be the early-90s rave hit “People Are Still Having Sex” by LaTour). LILA’s illustrations deserve to be in a zine for their unabashed visual directness, as seen in the gory Popping Pimples or punk rock intensity of Brain on Fire.
But figuration is not the only method through which the artists explored trans selfhood, for abstraction became a reflection of the emotional journey that is as much a part of the corporeal essence of identifying as trans. EKR’s paintings contain slashes and splashes of blue paints that appear to have been either thrusted or thrown onto the surface as a gestural record of catharsis, indicative in the one-word titles Tear(s), Kindle, Labrinyth, etc. Ky Cameron’s abstracted portraits have a different methodology in that colorfully amorphous shapes build up to form the countenance of a subject that seeks not to attain illusory verism, but to convey the subject’s inner essence or light.
Having arrived at Brooklyn Art Cave the day after the opening reception (which looked like a blast from what I saw on Instagram), co-curator Jaelyn took Polaroid photographs of both the artists and friends of the artists who came while they posed in front of each of the artworks. “A picture is worth a thousand words” - there is a zestful optimism flowing forth from the photos, all of which were neatly arranged along a tabletop in vertical rows (there must have been more than 50 of them) and a collective showcase of the vibrant and supportive community that is contributing far more light into the world in the midst of such hateful rhetoric and violence inflicted upon trans individuals. The artists who contributed to this exhibition, its overall curatorial direction, and the community who came out to express their support have come out on top as victorious phoenixes, to which this was one of my prime highlights of New York Art Week.
Since the show ended, the exhibition is bittersweet as Brooklyn Art Cave will be closing its doors on October 31st, 2025 due to a ludicrous raise in rent prices by over $3000. Brooklyn Art Cave was established in 2021 and in the four years since its official opening, it has been a thriving community arts space that has exhibited 362 artists, partnered with 17 collaborators and 5 charter schools, hosted 85 curators, and welcomed 20,000+ guests. I am attaching a link below for their website’s donation page which also delineates in great detail other ways in which you may extend support to this fantastic, queer-friendly art gallery that is crucial to the New York artscape:
https://www.brooklynartcave.com/donate
Special message of thanks to Solena, Jaelyn, and Winkie Da Kidd for inviting me to visit the exhibition and for taking the time to tell me all about the show and Brooklyn Art Cave!