“Expired,” curated by Roxanne Wolanczyk, features work by Carol Saft, Kenneth Zoran Curwood, and Wolanczyk herself. The exhibition is currently on view at Essex Flowers through March 7 as part of apexart’s Open Call program. In a distinctive and rigorous process, apexart evaluates proposals based solely on writing and concept, withholding artist names and images from jurors. The result is a highly competitive selection grounded in strength of idea. 

“Expired” examines what contemporary culture declares “expired;” uncool, aging, irrelevant, “dead.” Upon entering the gallery, viewers encounter the phrase I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO AGE WITHOUT APOLOGY inscribed on one of Wolanczyk’s vessels. Beneath it, an outline of a woman shrugs in defiance. The work feels both declarative and vulnerable, asserting endurance in a culture that treats the first signs of aging as the kiss of death. 

To the right, Saft’s paintings confront the viewer in saturated, burning reds, the illumination from a red light anti-aging mask, guaranteed to reduce fine lines and wrinkles. The figures oscillate between absurdity and reverence. In “Evening Mask,” the discolored legs of the subject quietly raise a question: is it working? The image becomes less about beauty than about belief. 

Interwoven throughout the gallery are Curwood’s mixed media pieces, primarily constructed with wood. His pieces carry humor and subtle unease. In the back of the space, his sound work “Zoroboroz” coats the room in the sound of rain. The effect hovers between tranquility and disturbance, mirroring the dual reactions many of us have toward aging itself. 

I caught up with Wolanczyk, both curator and exhibition artist, to discuss what compelled her to examine our culture’s fixation on relevance, youth, and the fear of expiration. 

Lydia Nobles: “Expired” holds an ironic double meaning and I love that it’s both something Gen Z adopted as slang for irrelevance and a word for death. What drew you to that double meaning, and how does the exhibition sit between irony and inevitability?

Roxanne Wolanczyk: I’m Gen X, a generation known for irony and dark humor. I appreciate Gen Z’s penchant for morbid language to express themselves. I recognize a similar edge.

I push back on the imposed standard that, as a menopausal woman, I have nothing to offer.

Growing up in an accelerated culture shaped Gen Z’s language and gave birth to “expired,” shorthand for how fast something loses relevance, a cultural shelf life.

As someone north of 50, I am way past my cultural prime. Beyond expired. However, I push back on the imposed standard that, as a menopausal woman, I have nothing to offer. Society tells me that I am culturally irrelevant, and yet here I am, with hopefully a third of my life left, thinking: I reject that entirely.

Life exists in the context of death. Any discussion of aging carries the understanding that we face mortality more directly. So “expired,” a clinical euphemism for death, offered a play on symbolic and literal expiration. We hold the space in between.

LN: Which specific work made the exhibition feel necessary to you? Was there a moment when you saw something and thought, this is the beginning?

RW: The concept came first and I generated this proposal specifically for apexart Open Call, and I was thrilled to be selected, as I have been interested in the subject of aging for a very long time.

I studied sculpture as an undergraduate and social work at the graduate level. In graduate school I did my research on subjective well-being in older adults, how we measure happiness and life satisfaction, and worked for years as a therapist in private practice doing house calls to homebound elderly people. So I have been engaged with the subject of aging in multiple areas of my life for a long time.

I developed my work in “Expired” specifically for the exhibit. Ceramics is one of our earliest mediums and can last thousands of years. It has been used for funerary vessels, which makes it especially appropriate to the subject matter. I wanted to approach the idea of aging through a distinctly feminist lens.

As I was developing the exhibition proposal, I thought about artists I know whose work fits. I have known Kenny Curwood since 1992 and Carol Saft since 1998. These are people whose work I have watched for a long time. I was aware of the work now on view in “Expired” and brought it in.

We are negotiating systems that move quickly and do not slow down for aging bodies. Older adults often feel estranged from technology, left behind.

LN: Kenneth Zoran Curwood’s sculpture, Alexa…When are the men coming to take me from my home? feels humorous at first, but there’s anxiety underneath it. How does technological acceleration intersect with aging in this exhibition?

RW: The Kenny piece is a voice assistant remade as an analog object, which keeps contemporary technology at a deliberate remove.

In the context of this show, I think of Kenny’s Alexa as representing loss of agency, which often accompanies aging. Most older adults want to remain in their homes. Not all of us are able to. The humor disarms you at first, but the title lingers in an unsettling way. It points to the reality that decisions are sometimes made for you.

None of us in this exhibition are digital natives. We are negotiating systems that move quickly and do not slow down for aging bodies. Older adults often feel estranged from technology, left behind. The piece does have humor, but it also has teeth.

LN: In Carol Saft’s painting “Beauty Is You,” the anti-aging mask reads as both devotional and absurd. Do you think contemporary anti-aging culture has tipped into spectacle, or is it simply exposing a fear we have always carried?

RW: I find these portraits very tender. Carol calls this series “Beauty Is You,” reinforcing beauty as something recognized rather than produced, and here that recognition is directed toward a mature woman. The anti-aging mask reads as both devotional and slightly absurd, which makes the painting feel intimate rather than satirical.

Fear of aging has always existed. Age-based ridicule of women is timeless. Now aging is treated as something we need to solve through products and services we can buy. There is pressure to perform youth, and women are in a double bind. We perform youth and are ridiculed as superficial. We don’t, and we are accused of not taking care of ourselves.

So it is both a fear we have always carried and a modern algorithmic capitalist spectacle.

LN: At what point does self care become self erasure? And does aging make that line more visible?

RW: Cameron Diaz said, “I’d rather see my own face aging than someone else’s face on my body.”

While surgical alterations can happen at any age, many, if not most, procedures are designed to counteract the effects of aging and are marketed that way.

I don’t know about self-erasure. Maybe it’s an attempt to preserve a younger self that someone still identifies with. But there is no such thing as an unchanging self. Buddhists and neuroscientists agree on this. We are always changing. You are not your younger self. You are your older self performing youth.

Ageism is real, both internalized and external. Internalized ageism is part of what makes aging feel like a problem that needs managing. Aging makes the line more visible because the pressure intensifies.

LN: Your work confronts legacy with phrases like “Time has transformed me” and “I reflect the power that exists beyond the gaze.” When you think about legacy, are you thinking about preservation, resistance, or something else entirely?

RW: Legacy feels a bit grandiose to me, and I think that reaction reflects how I was socialized as a woman.

I don’t think about legacy in terms of permanence. Nothing endures in that way. I’m more interested in how we remain present as we change.

The piece titled “Time has transformed me. I am a bit more fragile now. But I am built of grit.” sits at the center of this for me. It acknowledges transformation and vulnerability, but it also insists on grit. The work is less about preservation and more about remaining legible and valued in a body that is often culturally devalued.

The mirror piece, “I reflect the power that exists beyond the gaze,” is about reclaiming power in midlife. Women often confront feeling invisible as they age. There is power in this phase. If we can let go of navigating approval, we can be wise and fierce. For me, refusing to disappear as youth fades feels important.

I think less about legacy than about staying legible to myself as I move through time.