Wallace dos Santos: Cherry Blossom Girl

November 17, 2026 – January 3, 2027
Flux IV, 56-21 2nd Street
Long Island City, NY 11101

Events
Opening Reception: November 17, 6:00 – 9:00 pm with remarks at 7:00 pm
Artist Talk: December 5, 3:00 pm

Gallery Hours
Weekends, 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Mondays, 4:00 – 8:00 pm (except Dec 7 & 28)
or by appointment

Flux Factory is pleased to present Cherry Blossom Girl, a solo exhibition by Wallace dos Santos featuring a series of sculpturally framed paintings incorporating paper pulp made from recycled, everyday waste. Reflecting on the nostalgia and sweetness of their childhood in New York City, the exhibition explores how a place becomes imbricated with the people, memories, architectural details, and recurrent encounters that shape our lives. The exhibition takes its title from the second song on Air’s Talkie Walkie, an album that soundtracked a particularly tender period of yearning for the New York-born and raised artist.

The paintings draw on the visual language of New York City architecture, including brick façades, brownstones, wrought-iron fences, and ornamental details that often become invisible through everyday familiarity. Flowers, fruits, and other forms of plant life introduce another visual vocabulary, evoking relationships of nurture, care, protection, and growth that shape childhood and community. The paintings’ ornamental borders and frames borrow from the near-ubiquitous brick and iron fence patterns seen while walking around the city.

Dos Santos’s work is inspired by the Portuguese concept of saudade, a deep feeling of longing for someone or something absent. The artist works with memory materially, using everyday recycled paper waste (billing envelopes, grocery bags, mail, and personal writings), sometimes sourced directly from friends and loved ones. These remnants of daily life are broken down, pulped, dyed, and reconstituted into new images. This approach has lineage in Dos Santos’s Brazilian heritage and in artists such as Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, and Vik Muniz, who transform everyday materials into culturally resonant forms. These references inform the artist’s interest in the emotional potency of materials that are overlooked or discarded.

Positioned between painting, sculpture, and papermaking, Cherry Blossom Girl reflects New York as a collective repository, offering a lyrical and, at times, fantastical way of looking at the architecture and everyday environments of the city—an alchemical record of growing up, belonging, and remembering.

About the Artist

Wallace dos Santos (b.2000) is a Brazilian-American artist born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. They work in painting, papermaking, and sculpture to explore architectural and psychedelic realms. They received their BFA from The Cooper Union, and currently work in Queens, NY. Wallace has been a resident at the Ox-Bow Longform Residency, haul gallery Raised in Brooklyn Residency, and the Vermont Studio Center. Wallace is a 2026 NYFA Queens Art Fund recipient.

Media & Visitor Contact

Meghana Karnik, Curator & Exhibitions Director
meghana@fluxfactory.org

Accessibility

Flux IV is located on the ground floor of 56-21 2nd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101 between the Queens Landing Boathouse & Environmental Center and Gotham Point apartments. The closest bus stop is 2 St/55 Ave on the Q101. The closest subway station is Vernon Blvd-Jackson Ave on the 7 line (purple) and 21st st G line (green). The closest ferry pier is Hunter’s Point South Ferry Landing. A Citibike station is located at Center Blvd & Hunters Point South Ferry Landing. iPark (paid parking) is available on 1-20 56th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101. There is a public restroom left of our front door.