See I See #4: Artist Panel at Ptolemy
Sunday road trip to Glendale, Queens
Yesterday, a couple of friends and I traveled to see a couple of friends’ paintings at a gallery that’s new to me, Ptolemy.
Before the rendezvous at the Brooklyn Museum to get picked up by car, I stopped off at my studio to fetch my Hollyland microphones and tripod. I was daydreaming about capturing the conversation which promised (and promise delivered) to be scintillating. I was going to whip the mics out as we took off, but the conversation was so full of sensitive information (shows we’ve seen, the character of the galleries and people involved) that wisely, I kept my powder dry.
Upon arrival at the gallery, the conversation with Adam Simon, one of the artists in the exhibition was so rollicking that my recording gear stayed put in my bag. Once the camera goes on, it would take ages for people to recover their naturalism. The four of us went off: highlights of admiration, comparative analysis, challenges and critique. Our exchange was lightning fast and butter smooth. A thing happened, keen insights flew about, a very good Sunday we had, and all I have is this abridged report.
The very least I can say is that a trip out to this gallery was rewarding and I recommend it to you all. Patrick Reynolds, the proprietor is an artist himself. Glendale, Queens is his neighborhood and nearby lives a community of his artist friends. A small pocket gallery, check out the link below to see the space in the installation photos. Smartly, they installed three artists on three walls, a single piece each.
The space is arranged intelligently, given the limitations of an old storefront so full of character. Tall ceilings, a funky skylight in a box high overhead, a narrow slice at the entrance wall custom built by Patrick compacts the service functions of a gallery space: merch on display, music gear, office, and even a glass compact refrigerator, all painted homogenously white without entirely obliterating the handmade quality. Of particular note, Patrick’s documentation of the first year of so of the gallery’s exhibitions, “Volume One”, a quite fat, large formatted, very handsome book. A smart gallerist will understand that with each exhibition, they are contributing to art history. Volume One is concrete evidence that Ptolemy is a gallery worth keeping an eye on.
Michele Araujo, Larry Greenberg, Adam Simon: Artist Panel
February 13–March 15, 2026