At the 2026 NADA NY fair, Western Exhibitions will present a two-person booth with “animated” ceramic sculptures by Lilli Carré and large graphite drawings by Journie Cirdain.
Lilli Carré’s interdisciplinary creative practice employs a wide range of media, including experimental animation, drawing, comics, weaving, and ceramic sculpture. Recent works focus on perceived misbehaviors, bodily communication, and the grotesque. She is particularly interested in the open-ended possibilities and histories of the animated body – simultaneously physical and virtual, free of expectations or fixed form. At NADA New York, we will focus on her ceramic sculptures, specifically ceramic mutations of classical anvil forms, inspired by the heavy, hammered cartoon object known for falling unexpectedly out of the sky. Hand-drawn lenticular elements featuring imagery from her animated films are embedded into the anvils, adding unexpected life and motion into their weight.
Journie Cirdain’s large allegorical drawings exist at the intersection of the human and animal, internal and external, magic and reality, and ultimately, life and death. She meticulously renders moments of tension between the human and non-human, reimagining art historical subjects (still lives, nudes, and luxury items) as living participants in an enmeshed environment. With a film director’s focus on drama and a romantic flirtation with the macabre, her drawings betray an exquisite attention to light surface as a chandelier becomes an environment for cobwebs and a spiderweb glistens like crystal. For the 2025 NADA NY Fair, Western Exhibitions is presenting new drawings depicting luxury items from the perspective of spiders.
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Lilli Carré is a recipient of a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Film-Video. Her solo shows include the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna in Italy, and in Chicago at 150 Media Stream and Western Exhibitions. Her work is held in the collections of The National Gallery of Art and The Library of Congress, both in Washington, D.C.; The Booth School of Business, University of Chicago; The Progressive Art Collection, Mayfield Village, Ohio; and Thomas J. Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Lilli’s films have screened in festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Rotterdam, Ottawa, Edinburgh, Annecy, 25FPS, EMAF, New Chitose, Guanajuato Film Festival, and Ann Arbor. She co-founded the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation in 2010, which is held annually in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
Carré has created over 100 handmade artist books, zines, and comics over the years. Several of her graphic novels have been published by Fantagraphics and she has contributed original work to The New Yorker, The New York Times, the LA Philharmonic, and The Poetry Foundation. Artist residencies include MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA from Northwestern University. Carré is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and she lives and works in Los Angeles.
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Journie Nikala Cirdain (born 1993, Santa Rosa, CA) is a recent addition to Western Exhibitions roster, following her second solo show “The Gloaming” at the gallery in September 2025 and preceding our presentation of Cirdain’s new work at the NADA New York fair (alongside Lilli Carré) in May 2026. She has shown work at The Green Gallery in Milwaukee, Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois, A Gallery in Seattle, and in Chicago at Goldfinch and Patient Info. Her work has been written about in Hyperallergic, New City, and Chicago Reader and her writing has appeared in Chicago Artist Writers and F newsmagazine. Cirdain received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022. Cirdain is represented by Western Exhibitions and lives and works in Queens, New York.
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Info for the fair here: https://www.newartdealers.org/fairs/nada-new-york-2026/introduction
NADA New York
May 13–17, 2026
VIP Preview (by Invitation)
Wednesday, May 13, 10am–4pm
Open to the Public
Wednesday, May 13, 4–7pm
Thursday, May 14, 11am–7pm
Friday, May 15, 11am–7pm
Saturday, May 16, 11am–7pm
Sunday, May 17, 11am–5pm
The Starrett-Lehigh Building
601 W 26th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
Enter on 11th Avenue
Between 26th St. & 27th St.