Contributed by Lucas Moran / In times of great political upheaval and unrest, art has held us and guided us towards compassion. Picasso’s Guernica set the most titanic example of this in 1937. As we slide closer to authoritarianism and watch the world grow less familiar, artists continue the noble task of showing us how to live through it. Sasha Gordon set a tone in her recent show at Zwirner, depicting herself sitting on a lawn clipping her nails while the world – seemingly all we know – erupted in a mushroom cloud behind her. Less sardonic but in a similar warp are Alexis Rockman’s melting icecaps and Richard Mosse’s documentation of Amazonian deforestation. “Towards the Sun,” Heather Drayzen’s compelling solo show at My Pet Ram, feels just as urgent. The question she asks, though, isn’t What’s happening to us? but rather, What still matters?
For Drayzen, the answer appears to be her husband and partner in life Joshua Drayzen – also an artist – as well as her immediate family and her pets. They connect closely to the need to obey the spiritual and devotional call to create. One way she explores this phenomenon is to visit and document the studios and homes of artists she admires who have passed on. Through her paintings, we feel their presence and beyond that their guidance by virtue of how they lived their truth. In With Stars, Drayzen gazes at herself reflected in the glass of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Cross, painted in 1929. The desert’s cosmic spell has swept her up in a cathartic reckoning. Her face glows an alien green, flecked with signature prismatic light. In this moment, she seems to recognize art as O’Keeffe’s religion, now hers. A sunhat hangs from her neck, forming a halo.
The motif arises again in Carré Marigny, with Drayzen resting in an amber, sun-soaked field, the hat once more behind her head. The titular park is where Jean Béraud and countless others have painted. By depicting herself in sites thus haunted by artists, Drayzen communes with her forbears. The halo quietly declares that there is no corner of life or history untouched by art. Motifs and gestures echo through the show. In Giverny, we look through a window at Joshua’s back, another figure glimpsed through glass. The curtains in Giverny (Monet’s home and studio) reappear in Drayzen’s sister-in-law’s shirt in Drawing with Finn. Here a mother leans over her child to draw, her face showing the exhaustion only a new parent could know. In Ritual, Joshua, who has drawn every day for over 1,200 days, is working at night. The theme is clear: we push through, day or night, to make art because it gives our lives meaning.
Towards the Sun is a remarkably confident and focused exhibition. Drayzen has subtly shifted her palette away from the neon tones she once favored towards choices that feel more assured: transparent colors, traditional hues, and subtle atmospheres reminiscent of her heroes. In the show’s standout work, Morning Glow, Joshua stands in a bathtub behind a shower curtain, bathed in magenta light. The painting is a tour de force of cool and warm tones. The brushwork hovers between Bonnard and Monet, while the printed grid on the curtain provides the structure that invites Drayzen to indulge sharper, drawing-like marks for the shower rings. Joshua gazes out the window toward a low autumn sun, recalling Munch’s Sunrise paintings. He may not be screaming, but he’s certainly having a moment.
Another moving work, Last Goodbye, shows a loving partner’s hand resting over her mentor’s – the person who first sparked her will to paint. Both hands glow in angelic light against a tapestry of radiant violet and blue. Her teacher may be leaving this world, but, like so many others, this person continues to guide her from the other side. In “Towards the Sun,” Drayzen reminds us that to make art is, after a fashion, to pray – to pay attention, to stay present, to keep faith even as the world trembles. Her work reaffirms beauty, intimacy, and care not as luxuries but as tools of survival, especially when things fall apart. If the end really is near, Drayzen suggests, then let it find us creating, loving, and looking towards the light.
“Heather Drayzen: Towards the Sun,” My Pet Ram, 48 Hester Street, New York, NY. Through November 9, 2025.
About the author: Lucas Moran is an artist and writer based in Brooklyn. His paintings have been included in many shows in the United States and Canada, and he has had several solo shows in New York City.
