The Thorn Stigmata and The Faded Branch of The Crown presents new works by Christopher Gambino (New York) and Marie Ségolène C. Brault (Montreal), accompanied by a commissioned text by Dr. Aneta Stojnić (New York). Mo ving between archival research and material experimentation, the exhibition reflects on mysticism, devotional practice, self-dissolution, and the figure of the victim soul.
Inspired by research into the life of the Franco-American mystic and stigmatist Marie Rose Ferron, the exhibition consi ders how ordinary objects become charged through acts of devotion. Ferron’s wounds were never formally recognized by the Church, and her cause for canonization was eventually suspended. The photographs and narratives that remain
inhabit an unresolved space between faith, performance, pathology, and possible fabrication. Throughout the exhibition, matter becomes both the site of encounter and the obstacle to it, invested with meaning precisely because it cannot deliver what it promises. Objects solicit devotion while remaining stubbornly insufficient.
Christopher Gambino’s sculptures evoke quasi-bodies and the residue of intense, often transgressive experiences. Wor king with found furniture and domestic objects, he selects forms that already carry histories of touch, posture, and bodily relation. Through dressing, propping, fragmenting, and breaking apart, these objects begin to assume distinct personali ties—at times humorous, at times unsettling. Suspended between trace and performer, passivity and agency, they hover in a state of unresolved animation, where transformation itself begins to resemble ritual.
Marie Ségolène C. Brault’s practice moves between writing, installation, and curatorial methodologies. Through sculptu ral interventions, archival research, and conceptual framing, she examines how devotional images and relics accumulate symbolic charge, occupying an uncertain space between preservation and dissolution, presence and absence. A commis sioned text by psychoanalyst and scholar Dr. Aneta Stojnić extends these questions, offering a speculative reading of the exhibition’s material and conceptual concerns.
Bringing together Gambino’s sculptural language with Brault’s archival and material investigations, The Thorn Stigmata and The Faded Branch of The Crown considers the devotional object as something simultaneously intimate and elusive. Drawing upon mysticism, psychoanalytic thought, and negative theology, the exhibition reflects on the ways longing becomes materially inscribed, revealing how objects continue to bear the weight of belief even as they resist the desires projected onto them.
Christopher Gambino (b. 1996, New York NY) is an artist in New York. Christopher received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018, and will be completing an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2028. Recent solo and two-person presentations include The Christmas Show at Below Grand (New York, NY 2025,) Puqpa at Weather proof (Chicago, IL 2025,) and Who Shot Candy Warhol? at Horse Room (Worcester, MA 2024.) Christopher’s work has also been exhibited at Amity (Los Angeles, CA 2026,) Blue Velvet (Zurich, Switzerland 2026,) KMS Enterprises (New York, NY 2025,) Espace Maurice (Montréal, Canada 2025,) and Pop Gun (New York, NY 2025,) among others.
Marie Ségolène-Christiane Brault (b.1988) is a Montreal-based artist, writer, and curator. She holds an MFA in Per formance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and bachelor’s degrees in Creative Writing and Intermedia Cyber Arts from Concordia University. Working across performance, installation, and text, Brault’s practice draws from archival research, religious history, and personal narrative. Her work has been presented in Canada, Europe, and the United States at venues including Western Front (Vancouver), Fonderie Darling (Montreal), M. LeBlanc (Chicago), No Gallery (New York), Hauser & Wirth Bookstore (New York), and Pangée (Montreal), among others.
Aneta Stojnić Ph.D, FIPA is a member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, IPTAR, New York, a licensed psychoanalyst in private practice in Manhattan and a director of IPTAR’s Child and Adolescent Program. Alongside psychoanalysis, Aneta’s areas of research include artistic and theoretical practices at the intersections of art, culture and politics. She has published three books and three co-edited volumes, as well as dozens of peer-reviewed articles. She is a senior editor at the magazine “ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action” and co-host of the “Voices from Room” podcast. Aneta has authored numerous artistic and curatorial projects in collaboration with renowned institutions and organisations all over Europe. She has taught performance, art and media theory at universities and art academies in Vienna, Belgrade, and Ghent. She regularly presents her work and research at conferences and festivals worldwide.
