Benign Aggressors | 14 June - 2 August 2025

Pazo Fine Art is pleased to announce Benign Aggressors, our fourth annual summer exhibition dedicated to showcasing artists who live and work in the Washington metropolitan area and Baltimore. This year’s presentation features Enise Carr, Alex Ebstein, Maggie King Johns, and Anne Clare Rogers. The exhibition will be on view at PFA–Washington, located at 1932 9th Street NW (entrance on 9 ½ Street), from June 14 through August 2, 2025. Join us for an opening reception on Saturday, June 14, from 6 to 8 PM.

Benign Aggressors incorporates four artists invested in the language of abstractionism, disrupting the material quality of integrated symbols once reducing them to their sheer aestheticism. The seemingly benign aesthetics of the featured works, however, are hindered by their systematic underpinnings, unable to be entirely distinguished from social and political systems omnipresent in the physical world. The patterns adopted by each artist carries the weight of their aesthetic decision-making, and, in return, the intricacies of their form project onto the consciousness of the spectator.

Within this exhibition, aesthetics are posited as the foundation of knowledge, with the works only deriving legibility as they are interpreted through a preconceived aesthetic framework. For Ebstein and Rogers, the tactility of materials are subverted for the sake of deriving their aesthetic appeal: from a tube of aluminum foil to carved fragments of a yoga mat, material objects are displaced from the physical spaces they previously inhabited, now embedded within an idiosyncratic visual language. Rogers overrides the previous domestic resonances of aluminum foil in “Tube (I Lost)” as the sculpture resembles hospital furniture, its visual language intersecting with a larger history of medical equipment. Meaning that existed prior to this language is fixed to a precognitive state, obfuscated as the intrusion of language drives conscious associations. Johns draws from distinctly feminine aesthetics—incorporating pastel hues and abstracted gestures of the Virgin Mary—to produce an arrangement akin to a sequence of hieroglyphics, reading as an aesthetic construction of a gendered subject. Ebstein similarly envisions her canvases as an idealized space in which abstractions can reflect the aesthetic decisions that have preceded and continuously define us: she opens the possibility for inverting a presupposed aesthetic desirability, deconstructing widely-recognizable visuals that span from clouds to early computer graphics. Carr similarly layers identifiable geometrical symbols that gradually emerge into patterns, tainted by the plasticity of their opaque renderings in acrylic. A recognition of the relationships exchanged between Carr’s geometric forms allows for a sense of the political to emerge, with political systems simultaneously embodied and destabilized within the canvas.

The title Benign Aggressors encapsulates the aggressive impact even a settle aesthetic decision can invoke upon a viewer, reimagining the value we have ascribed to the realm of aesthetics. The contradictory nature of the phrase resonates with the dualities present within many of the works: a material and its abstraction, a symbol and its disfigurement, a history and its re-adaptation within the canvas. Carr cites abstractionism as the most political form of art-making, where although not overt or explicit, political structures can become elucidated in a visual dismemberment of pattern. In this sense, aesthetics are only benign insofar as they obscure the imposition of overarching structures that inadvertently frame perception.

Artist Bio

Enise Carr (b. New Orleans, LA) began his academic career by receiving his BFA in Painting at the University of Oklahoma. Prior to completing a program in Architecture at The Catholic University of America in 2012, he enrolled at Maryland Institute College of Art where he obtained his MFA in Mixed Media. Carr has exhibited throughout the United States, most recently serving as the subject of a solo exhibition, “ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ACCIDENT,” at Gallery 42 in Washington, DC. He has also been showcased at Christopher Brodigan Gallery in Groton, MA, Waiting Room Gallery in New Orleans, LA, Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore, MD, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, ME. He has led artist talks at institutions including the College Art Association 113th Annual Conference in New York, NY, Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD. Carr has additionally been featured in numerous publications such as OVAC Art Focus Oklahoma, the Baltimore Sun, and The Dundalk Eagle. He currently lives and works in Washington, DC.

Alex Ebstein (b. New Haven, CT) began her academic career by receiving her BA in Studio Art at Goucher College. After enrolling at Towson University, she obtained her MFA in 2015. Ebstein has exhibited throughout the United States at galleries including Current Space in Baltimore, MD, De Novo Gallery in Washington, DC, Steel House Projects in Rockland, ME, Terrault Gallery in Baltimore, MD, Dinner Gallery in New York, NY, Cuevas Tilleard in New York, NY, Kent Place Gallery in Kent, NJ, and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Her pieces are in the permanent collections of numerous private and public institutions, including Time Equities, Fort Lauderdale, FL; MD Anderson Hospital, Houston, TX; Fidelity Investment, New York, NY; Cross Boundary, Nairobi, Kenya; and Capital One, McLean, VA. In addition, Ebstein is the recipient of several awards, being selected for a Tilleard Projects Residency in Lamu, Kenya (2018) and nominated as a Trawick Prize Semi-finalist (2017) and a Baker Award Finalist (2016). She currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

Maggie King Johns (b. Birmingham, AL) began her academic career by receiving her BA in Studio Art at the University of Virginia. After enrolling at Boston University, she obtained her MFA in Painting in 2014. Johns has exhibited throughout the United States at institutions including Greene House Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, OLYMPIA in New York, NY, A R E A Gallery in Boston, MA, Stone Gallery in Boston, MA, Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA, Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, AL, and Ground Floor Contemporary in Birmingham, AL. Johns has been selected for several residences including the Mount Gretna School of Art Summer Residency (2015, 2017) and Chautauqua School of Art Summer Residency (2014). Johns is the recipient of numerous awards, including a full tuition scholarship through Boston University’s MFA Painting Program. She has additionally participated as a member of an art collective for Ground Floor Contemporary Art (2016-2018) and as a contributor to an artist mentor program at Southern Exposure Gallery in San Francisco, CA (2016). She currently lives and works in Washington, DC.

Anne Clare Rogers (b. St. Paul, MN) began her academic career by receiving her BA in Art History at Beloit College. After enrolling at the University of Texas at Austin, she obtained her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media in 2016. Rogers has exhibited throughout the United States, serving as the subject of a solo exhibition, “The Sun is Orange the Heart is Purple,” at Hudson D. Walker Gallery in Provincetown, MA. She has additionally been showcased at Materials Lab in Austin, TX, John Nicholas Brown Center in Providence, RI, Partial Shade in Huntsville, TX, Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, TX, and Provincetown Art Museum in Provincetown, MA. In addition, Last Rogers is the recipient of several fellowship and grants, selected as a Visual Arts Fellow for the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA (2017) and a Summer Fellow for the Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, MI (2015) while also receiving a Louis Bourgeois Endowed Fellowship (2017), a Travel Grant from College of Fine Arts at UT Austin (2016), and a Material Grant from the Department of Architecture at UT Austin (2016). She currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

June 14 - August 2, 2025

Opening reception: Saturday, June 14th, 6 - 8 PM

PFA - Washington D.C

1932 9th Street NW, #C102, (Enter from 9 1/2 Street), Washington, D.C 20001

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Thursday - Saturday, 11 AM - 6 PM

+1 (571) 315-5279
info@pazofineart.com