Half Gallery

Half Gallery vibrates with unexpected sensuality. This former corner store is flooded with light, with floor-to-ceiling windows that beg the outside world to look in. Which makes the whole thing feel deeply voyeuristic, if you ask us. There’s also a smaller, closet-like outpost further down 4th Street, showcasing more experimental and emerging work.

The paintings here are sexy, raw, and deeply corporeal. The figurative ones in particular, but even the abstract pieces have luscious brushwork and a Dionysian edge. The walls are filled with paintings with attitude and primal longing.

Visiting Half Gallery often gives us the chance to unearth young painters on their ascent. We arrive open, ready to be seduced. And we usually leave with all our senses charged.

Founder Bill Powers’ eye has earned him a reputation for plucking up emerging talent and cultivating it. Before becoming an art dealer, he wrote about art for publications such as Purple Magazine and The New York Times. He’s even been a judge on the Bravo Reality TV Series Work of Art. He founded Half Gallery in 2008 on the Lower East Side, moved it to the Upper East Side in 2013, and has been back downtown since 2020.