Uffner & Liu

About the Gallery
Uffner & Liu is a contemporary art gallery on New York City's Lower East Side. Founded by Rachel Uffner in September 2008, the space opened with a mission of supporting multi-generational artists working in a variety of media. Over the past 17 years, the gallery has established itself as a vital platform for introducing new artistic voices, championing female-identifying artists, and cultivating institutional relationships.

The gallery began in a modest storefront on Orchard Street before relocating to a significantly larger space on Suffolk Street in March 2014, which was further expanded in the summer of 2019. Today, Uffner & Liu occupies a two-floor, 5,000 square-foot building featuring three exhibition spaces, abundant natural light, and 20-foot ceilings—an expansive setting that encourages artists to push the boundaries of their practices.

In 2025, Gallery Director Lucy Liu joined as Partner, ushering in a new chapter under the name Uffner & Liu. Together, the partners continue the gallery’s founding ethos while introducing new perspectives, deepening curatorial programming, and expanding its international reach.

About the Presentation
Uffner & Liu will present work by Bernadette Despujols and Sacha Ingber in a duo presentation at Independent. Though distinct in medium and approach, both artists engage deeply with questions of home, family, migration, and womanhood—subjects shaped by their Latin American backgrounds and refracted through their shared new motherhood.

Working in earthy tones and with physical, tactile mark-making, Bernadette Despujols depicts friends, relatives, and members of the Venezuelan diaspora in scenes drawn from everyday life. Her figures are often situated in gardens and amongst plant life, a reference to tenets of ecofeminism that draw connections between the exploitation of the natural world and the oppression of women. In dialogue with Despujols’ oil paintings, Sacha Ingber’s freestanding sculptures introduce a materially rich and sculptural counterpoint. Drawing on the forms and textures of Brazilian modernist architecture and craft traditions, Ingber constructs hybrid objects that oscillate between furniture, architectural structures, and human figures.