Jodie Manasevit – Cathected

Jodie Manasevit — Cathexis
Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston
Ghostmachine, New York City
Through November 23, 2025

In her newest paintings, Jodie Manasevit gathers color the way others gather breath—slowly, deliberately—until it glows. Modest in scale yet immense in sensation, each work becomes a concentrated field of feeling: purples that hum, teals that drift like weather, whites softened into quiet radiance. Her marks hover and advance, as if animated by an inner pulse rising from beneath the painted skin.

Attuned to the ever-evolving languages of abstraction, Manasevit paints as if listening—responding to memory, to history, and to the tremors of the present. Her canvases do not argue, nor do they retreat; they simply insist on attention, on presence, on the subtle might of color assembled with intelligence and care.

Both exhibitions echo this sensibility in their own distinct voices.
In Boston, the walls of Mario Diacono’s gallery—still carrying the alchemical hues he chose, and touched by the recent loss of the curator himself—meet the paintings like magnetic fields, pulling forth their hidden intensities.
In New York, David Dixon’s installation does not merely display the work: it enters into dialogue with it. His hand-plastered surfaces stand as enamored partners to Manasevit’s textures, a duet shaped by respect and admiration, offering a profoundly pleasurable experience for the eyes and, quietly, the soul.

Across two cities, these exhibitions honor a seasoned yet still under-recognized painter whose quiet radiance continues to deepen, expand, and reward those willing to linger.