Hashimoto Contemporary is pleased to present Untethered, a solo exhibition by Toronto-based artist Erin Armstrong. In her inaugural NYC solo exhibition, the artist presents a series of paintings and drawings that explore the quiet, disorienting experience of feeling unmoored; physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Across the exhibition, solitary figures drift through expansive, elemental landscapes: seated on eroding rocks, suspended mid-fall against dense trees, or floating alone at sea. Emerging from a sense of instability, Armstrong’s paintings capture the feeling of having drifted from shore. Rather than depicting moments of overt catastrophe, the works linger in the charged stillness before or after impact, waiting for something to shift.
Water becomes both setting and metaphor. To be alone at sea is to feel scale, exposure, and uncertainty all at once. Armstrong’s figures are not overwhelmed by their surrounding environment, but instead exist in close relation to it. The result is a body of work that feels both intimate and expansive, grounded in tension yet open-ended in its narrative.
Together, the works in Untethered inhabit a contemplative space between land and water, presence and disappearance, control and surrender. Armstrong invites viewers to consider what it means to remain both conscious and human within a moment that feels increasingly unstable.
















