Real Life in a Fake World is a solo exhibition of mixed media works on paper by Sam Shaffer. This marks the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, and his debut solo show in New York City.
“My process is both random and deliberate. My aim is always to discover new worlds and find new ways to explore. It’s all about looking into myself and out into the world to see what things may be, what secrets they might hold, and to find a way forward.”
— Sam Shaffer
Sam Shaffer lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and holds an MFA in Printmaking from Pratt Institute. His mixed media paintings and works on paper have been featured in numerous exhibitions regionally and nationally, including at M. David & Co. Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); Steven Harvey Fine Art ( New York, NY ); Lore Degenstein Gallery (Susquehanna University, PA); Center for Contemporary Art (NJ); Woodmere Museum (Philadelphia, PA); Boca Raton Museum of Art (FL); and Topaz Gallery (Queens, NY), among others.
EXHIBITION
November 8 – December 7, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, November 8, 6-9 pm
HOURS
Friday & Saturday, 1-6 pm and by appointment
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Sam Shaffer is a painter working in a range of media and approaches to abstract imagery and subtle narratives. He is also a prolific maker of drawings and works on paper, which constitute a crucial element in the artist’s studio practice in a broader sense. Featuring scores upon scores of character and setting studies, standalone drawings, and other recent works on paper, Real Life in a Fake World is both an acknowledgment of the fundamentality of these works for Shaffer, and a vibrant celebration of their dreamy mystery and gestural vitality.
Working in mostly fluid materials such as watercolor, ink, and gouache in his drawings and works on paper, Shaffer creates abstract visions of figures, animals, hybrid beings, and features of the natural world, often in manners sympathetically inflected to lure viewers into attributing narratives to their environs. They perceive bizarre birds and more bizarre bird-people, various seafaring vessels and vast open seas, salty seafarers and mythical creatures, blazing suns and luminous starbursts, and much besides. Shaffer’s works harbor a sense of freedom and flow as well as focus, yielding imagery suggestive of meandering dreams and moments of startling urgency. For the artist, it all comes down to a process of exploration and reiteration, devotion and discovery. In Shaffer’s own words:
Exhibition text by Paul D’Agostino, Ph.D.
ART CAKE
Founded in 2019, Art Cake is an arts organization dedicated to providing space for production and opportunities to explore creative practices.
Located in a converted industrial building from the 1920s that was once the headquarters of Financier Patisserie, and a paint distribution factory, Art Cake’s flexible model was created to accommodate a wide range of creative industries. The 13,000 square foot building was renovated by architects Joe Smith and Dylan Sauer, in close collaboration with the founders, artists Cordy Ryman and Ethan Ryman.