I, too, overflow: b chehayeb, Victoria Palacios, Eilen Itzel do Espirito Santo, and Rosalie Smith
May came and went. So did June. Palm trees intertwined with spirals and shells. Nails rested on manicured hands across paper, or balanced on an amalgamation of metal. Horses draped in sand and dust rocked while two lost bunnies moved along a dark path. Things accumulate on the canvas; paint, dust, debris, pencil marks, figurines, shells, fingernails, spirals, EZ-passes, harlequins, screws, and children’s toys.
I, too, overflow considers excess not as indulgence, but as a way of knowing. Together, the works are manifestations of intimate, personal universes littered with symbols and associations. Across painting, drawing, and sculpture, surfaces become sites of inheritance: layering becomes memory, adornment becomes strategy, and material becomes an assemblage of history. Overflow emerges as accumulation, repetition, and insistence—a refusal to simplify experiences shaped by pleasure, grief, fantasy, migration, labor, and transformation.
About the artists:
b chehayeb received an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2020 and a BFA in painting with studies in creative writing from the University of North Texas in 2013. chehayeb has been the recipient of awards and residencies including The Studios at Mass MoCA Residency Program in North Adams, MA; Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT; Lower East Side Printshop in New York, NY; 2020 New York City Redbull Arts Microgrant; Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency Award in Troy, NY; and was a finalist for the Hopper Prize Grant. chehayeb’s work has been featured in various publications including Hyperallergic, Glasstire, Maake Magazine, Art Maze Magazine, and The Hopper Prize Journal. chehayeb lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Victoria Palacios (b. 1992, Rennes, France) graduated from the École de Recherche Graphique (ERG) In Brussels where she built a multidisciplinary practice that weaves narratives across a variety of media. Palacios has participated in exhibitions internationally. Most recently including solo presentations at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Brussels (2025); Behind the curtain, the swans will always be two, melting like butter into the night at Gallery Vacancy during the Liste Art Fair, Basel (2024); Snails don't drool, They spit at Galerie Derouillon, Paris (2024); L'odeur de la boue at Pizza Gallery, Antwerp (2024), and the inclusion in a group exhibition Painting After Painting - Peinture Contemporaine enBelgique at S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, Belgium. She currently lives and works in Brussels.
Eilen Itzel do Espirito Santo (b. 1994, USA) is an Afro-Dominican American artist and writer from the South Bronx, NY. She holds a BA from the USC Roski School of Art & Design (Los Angeles, CA) and an MFA from the UCL Slade School of Fine Arts (London, UK). Her practice explores how individuals within the African Diaspora and Latin America seek joy and purpose, while reflecting on themes of community, ancestry, and colonial history. She has shown work internationally, participated in numerous artist residencies, and has received grants and awards for her practice. In 2025 do Espirito Santo was an artist-in-residence at ACME’s early careers program in London, UK. In 2026 she will participate in the Fountainhead Artist Residency in Miami, FL.
Rosalie Smith (b. 1993 Blacksburg, VA) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with found materials. Her sculptures imagine a post-human world in which the 99% of us have devolved into growths upon piles of often tech related trash, after the 1% have jetted to Mars. Smith depicts an unsexy singularity between humans and technology, i.e. microplastics magnified to microplastics, like an old phone receiver grafted into flesh. With a whimsical, absurdist tilt, her sculptures are inspired by the notion of navigating ecological crises with assemblage gadgets and vehicles. Her work has been shown internationally, notably including venues such as NADA Curated, Pulse Projects x The Met, Spring Break, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, The Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Southeastern Louisiana University, and the Carroll Gallery of Tulane University. Her work has been written about in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Burnaway, and WhiteHot, among other publications. She has forthcoming exhibitions at MAMA projects, VSOProjects, Upstate Art Weekend curated by Anne-Laure Lemaitre, and The Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, among others. She recently completed her MFA at Hunter College, and will be an upcoming resident of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine.
