Lately, Sasha Gordon says she has been coming to her studio every day of the week. “I’m a 12-7pm kind of girl,” she describes sheepishly. “I like to sleep in.” She retrieves me from the lobby and guides me through a labyrinth of hallways and staircases that eventually lead us to her sun-drenched studio, on the second floor of a former Bushwick manufacturing warehouse converted into artists’ lofts.
The ceilings are high, and west-facing windows fill the spacious room with the afternoon light. A glance around the room reveals a few smaller finished paintings and some larger works in progress in Gordon’s classic distorted self-portrait style; several carts holding dozens of paintbrushes and tubes of color; a guitar (belonging to Gordon’s partner, she clarifies); and a coffee table holding an assortment of items, among them an ashtray, a pack of aromatic incense, a bottle of ibuprofen, a small Pothos plant cutting, a copy of The Man With the Golden Arm, and a lip liner pencil.
Gordon (b. 1998) is unassuming and friendly; one would hardly know from speaking to her that she has spent her early twenties as one of the most rapidly ascending stars of the art world.