Hunt Slonem Brings Rabbits, Butterflies and Diamond Dust to Tribeca

At a Glance

• Through the Looking Glass by Hunt Slonem is on view at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, Tribeca, from Friday, August 21 through Monday, September 28, 2026
• The show is Slonem's first New York City exhibition in five years, with an opening reception in early September
• Pink Ascension (2021), a 77-by-101-inch oil on canvas, anchors the exhibition; Blue Hutch (2025), a 20-by-24-inch oil on wood, sets the intimate end of the scale
• The presentation ranges across paintings and sculpture, including Red Sea Migration III (2026), Blue Rhapsody Diamond Dust (2023) and Totem Fluffle (2026)
• Organized by MaryAnn Giella McCulloh, Curator and Co-Owner of One Art Space

Hunt Slonem's rabbits, butterflies, birds and saturated color have taken over One Art Space in Tribeca. Through the Looking Glass, on view at 23 Warren Street from Friday, August 21 through Monday, September 28, 2026, is the American neo-expressionist's first New York City exhibition in five years, and it gathers works that capture the repetition, movement and fascination with nature that have become his signatures. An opening reception follows in early September.

The exhibition moves between scale and intimacy. Expansive canvases populated by Slonem's recurring natural motifs hang alongside jewel-like paintings framed almost as treasured objects, and the presentation extends beyond painting to include his sculptural work. For collectors and Tribeca gallery-goers, the show offers a concentrated view of a practice in which familiar forms return again and again through changes in scale, material, color and surface.

At the center of the exhibition is Pink Ascension (2021), a monumental 77-by-101-inch oil on canvas in which butterflies drift across a luminous pink field. The work turns one of Slonem's most enduring subjects into an enveloping study of rhythm, repetition and movement.

At the other end of the scale is Blue Hutch (2025), a 20-by-24-inch oil on wood depicting a gathering of Slonem's instantly recognizable rabbits against a vivid blue ground. Presented within an ornate frame, the painting captures the playful tension that runs throughout his practice: spontaneous brushwork and seemingly simple subjects placed within compositions that feel at once contemporary, decorative and almost devotional.

Those two works establish the range of a broader exhibition that spans Slonem's visual vocabulary. Butterflies emerge repeatedly in works including Red Sea Migration III (2026), Silver Ascension Travel Tomorrow (2022) and White Ascension (August Moon) (2026). His rabbits multiply across canvases and smaller works such as Blue Rhapsody Diamond Dust (2023), Totem Fluffle (2026) and Pink Pair (2026).

Smaller pieces on view include Fiona Ireland (2025), a 10-by-8-inch oil on wood, and Rafflesia (2023), a glass work measuring 10.5 by 6 by 5 inches, reflecting the breadth of a practice that continually revisits its own forms.

"There is something almost jewel-like about Hunt Slonem's artistry: the color, texture, and repetition, from his bunnies to his butterflies and beyond, draw you in," said MaryAnn Giella McCulloh, Curator and Co-Owner of One Art Space. "Beneath that beauty lies a deeper visual language, where nature, imagination, color, and mystery become one. Through the Looking Glass is an invitation into his extraordinary world."

Repetition is fundamental to Slonem's work. Inspired by nature and by the exotic birds with which he surrounds himself, the artist has spent decades returning to rabbits, butterflies and tropical birds, building an immediately identifiable visual language of textural brushwork, saturated color and repeated forms. Slonem has described his fascination with the patterns found throughout nature, from feathers and leaves to blades of grass, as central to that approach.

"A dream of what I see through the looking glass, where my creatures go, where we cannot see them, following their wonder, wonderland and inspiration, the source of all my creativity," Slonem said of the exhibition. "A joyous venture."

Slonem is recognized for his paintings of rabbits, butterflies and tropical birds, as well as sculpture and his restoration of historic properties. His work is represented in the permanent collections of approximately 250 museums worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Joan Miró Foundation and New Orleans Museum of Art.

One Art Space opened in May 2011 and presents museum-caliber exhibitions by established and emerging artists from New York and internationally. Led by co-owners and gallerists MaryAnn Giella McCulloh and Mei Fung, the gallery occupies a ground-level space with a glass facade at 23 Warren Street. Recent projects include a sold-out presentation of Shepard Fairey at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair and exhibitions featuring Al Diaz (SAMO), Chuck Connelly, Andrew Salgado and Purvis Young. For more than a decade the gallery has championed women artists through its annual Women's History Month exhibitions and collaborations with the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA).

Through the Looking Glass by Hunt Slonem, organized by curator MaryAnn Giella McCulloh, is on view at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, Tribeca, through Monday, September 28, 2026.

For more information, visit One Art Space.