GalleryLower East Side
gratin
Walking into gratin is like entering a party lit up by the promise of the night.
What to Expect
The art here wakes you up. Sometimes it hits fast and euphoric. Other times it lingers, settling in your gut after you've left. Work that starts as a flirtation and turns into something you can't shake.
Artists in their 20s show alongside more established ones. Work shaped by cities that shape you back: LA, New Orleans, Mexico City, Paris, Seoul, Beirut.
Sometimes shows here are corporeal and charged: paintings of women in lingerie, belly button to thigh. Black and white close-ups of leather-clad figures, confident and unbothered.
Other times, it’s gritty and surreal. Drawings from the 1960s LA riot era. High life in New Orleans. What it's like to be young in Mexico City, drawn in willowy lines and hard scratches.
The gallery itself is young. The people running it are building something charismatic, urbane, and alive. Like a party where, at any moment, you could meet someone who might just change your world.
About the Gallery
Talal Abillama founded gratin in 2022. The gallery’s first location was in a black-painted corner storefront on Avenue B. In 2024, he moved to the corner of Grand Street and Eldridge Street. He’s one of those people who live for art. And you feel it the moment you walk in.
