Low Tide

New York, October 15, 2026. Sofy Gallery is pleased to present, as part of its curatorial program, Low Tide, a solo exhibition by the artist Maria D. Rapicavoli curated by Mariacristina Ferraioli. The show runs October 29 to November 28, 2026, at 153 10th Avenue in Chelsea, with an opening reception on Thursday, October 29, from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibition presents an entirely new body of work ranging from large-format canvases to photographs and sculptures, marking an intense convergence of biological inheritance, cosmic rhythms and the transformation of matter.

Low Tide finds its conceptual architecture in the alternation of the tides of the Atlantic Ocean along the shores of Rockaway Beach, where Rapicavoli collected some of the materials that went into the making of the works. The exhibition was conceived one year after the diagnosis of ovarian cancer and the discovery of an inherited mutation of the BRCA2 gene, passed down from her mother and associated with the development of the disease. Low tide represents that cyclical moment of maximum exposure in which what is ordinarily protected by the water is left uncovered. The exhibition reflects on this threshold of vulnerability not as loss, but as an indispensable condition for regeneration.

The exhibition includes a work made by incorporating hundreds of crab molts collected along the shore. To grow, the crab must free itself of its exoskeleton, entering a phase of extreme fragility while it waits for its new shell to harden. The very etymology of the term originates in the Latin cancer and the Greek karkinos, the origin of the word carcinoma. The name recalls the myth of the crab sent by Hera against Heracles, which, after biting the hero's foot and being crushed by him, is rewarded with a place in the sky as a constellation: in this symbolic vein, the shedding of the molt becomes the tangible metaphor of a physical and psychological journey through trauma.

The tension between damage and repair runs through the entire exhibition on several levels, interweaving different languages and materials. In the monumental canvases measuring two meters by two (about 6.5 by 6.5 feet), a size that recalls the approximate length of the DNA contained in a single cell if fully unwound, the artist paints her own altered cells before chemotherapy treatment. Gouache on raw canvas renders their fluid forms, transforming them into interior landscapes and maps suspended between abstraction and the living materiality of the body. This dialogue between micro- and macrocosm is echoed by a porcelain work bearing the mathematical formula of the harmonic analysis of tides

h(t) = H₀ + ∑ᵢ₌₁ᴺ Aᵢ cos(ωᵢt + φᵢ)

placing the gravitational pull of celestial bodies in direct relation with the movement of bodily fluids.

The exhibition is further enriched by the account of the delicate discovery, on the beach, of a funerary urn containing the ashes of a woman named Rosalie: a chance point of intersection between two distinct biological and human stories, reunited by the movement of the sea, where the unknown trace brushes against personal memory. Finally, closing this temporal horizon, two analog photographs from the artist's archive introduce a fragment of life before the illness, reread today as a fundamental piece of a body of research that continually questions memory, inheritance and transformation.

Expanding the scientific and astronomical research, and the research on transgenerational trauma, that characterized her previous works, Rapicavoli here extends her inquiry from psychological to biological inheritance. Low Tide asks how what is infinitely small can radically influence our lives, presenting vulnerability as a necessary passage toward the construction of a new form of resistance.

Maria D Rapicavoli

Maria D. Rapicavoli was born in Catania and lives and works in New York.

In 2012 she took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, and in 2005 she earned a Master of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2001, she graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Catania.

She has exhibited her work at The High Line, New York; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; Fondazione ICA, Milan; Westfaelischer Kunstverein, Muenster; UB Art Galleries, Buffalo, NY; The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, New York; Magazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring, NY; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Museo di Villa Croce, Genoa; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Guest Projects, London; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Riso, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo; Strozzina - Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence.

In 2021 she won the Premio New York - The Italian Institute and the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, New York; in 2019 she won the 6th edition of the Italian Council award, in 2013 the Premio Nctm e l'arte, and in 2011 the DE.MO./Movin'Up award in Italy. In 2008 she received the Renaissance Prize at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in London. In 2004 she won the AHRB Postgraduate Award in Arts and Humanities in London.

In 2024, she was an Artist Fellow at the Istituto Svizzero in Rome, and in 2023, she won the Residency for Experimental Arts Education at the Children's Museum of the Arts in New York.

She is currently a Member Artist at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York.

Website: http://www.mdrspace.com

Mariacristina Ferraioli

Mariacristina Ferraioli is an art critic, curator and art editor. After earning a degree in Modern Literature with a focus on Art History, she moved to Paris to take courses in literature, philosophy and art history at the Université Sorbonne. She earned a master's in Organization and Communication of the Visual Arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera and a PhD in Communication and Markets: Economics, Marketing and Creativity at IULM University in Milan. She won the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art Curatorial Residency at the Centre international d'accueil et d'échanges des Récollets in Paris. She worked at the Centre Pompidou on the exhibition Traces du Sacré and published a critical essay in its catalogue. She coordinated the master's office at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera and was part of the editorial management staff of the magazine Artribune. From 2018 to 2022 she was an integral part of the curatorial team of ArtLine Milano, the City of Milan's public art project in the CityLife park. She has curated numerous exhibitions in public and private spaces. She works as an independent curator and writes regularly about art and culture for Vanity Fair Italia, Interni, Posh and Artuu.

Sofy Gallery NYC

Located in the heart of Chelsea, at 153 10th Avenue, Sofy Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with an international vocation, born from the bond between Italy and the United States. The gallery promotes Italian and international artists whose research focuses on conceptual practices and critical inquiry. Through solo and group exhibitions, talks and events, Sofy Gallery sets out to be a place of dialogue between different cultures, languages and generations. Low Tide is the second curatorial exhibition of the 2026-2027 season, after The Weight of Normal Things.

Contacts and visitor information

info@sofygallerynyc.com
High-resolution images are not available yet.

Exhibition dates: October 29 to November 28, 2026
Opening: Thursday, October 29, 2026, 6 to 9 p.m.
Gallery hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 6 p.m.
Address: Sofy Gallery NYC, 153 10th Avenue, New York, NY 1001

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