Deli Grocery New York is pleased to present
Intimidation tactics by Zora Ilunga-Reed
June 5th–July 3rd, 2025
Opening reception: June 5th from 5-7pm
Deli Grocery
Visit by appointment at info@deligrocerynewyork.com
Zora Ilunga-Reed (b. 2000) grew up in Manhattan and has always been interested in art. As she came of age, Zora explored many forms of expression including theater and dance, writing, and visual art. She studied Philosophy alongside African and African Diasporic Literatures at Stanford University. After studying abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, she became interested in art as an inroad to social change. Her practice evolved towards a center of healing and imagining. As a teaching artist, she found that art builds foundational motor, emotional, and mindfulness skills. Coping with major mental health crises exemplified this invaluable aspect of art and, for Zora, this show is an offering and a call to arms.
This recent body of work is born from white-hot dread, anger, and fear. Zora explores the fertile tension between those themes and a tendency towards emotional sensitivity, a need to be kind, and a desire for authentic, intimate connection.
For her first solo show, Zora has chosen the title Intimidation tactics, alluding to a deep desire for emotional, physical, and psychic protection, which is exemplified in her work. Searching for some equilibrium amongst both internal and external turbulence, she conveys feelings of trepidation, incredulity, vulnerability, and exasperation through a series of paintings and textile work which defy categorization. Her practice is characterized by experimentation and unrestrained expression, frequently spilling off the surface and over the edge of the border.
Zora’s work touches on themes of doubt and precarity, associated with the fragility of the self. Often incorporating ghostly self-portraits, she lays bare exposed and susceptible versions of herself, longing for protection. She dissects the concept of an immanence-based worldview in which we exist among spirits. While meditating on Black ancestors, the quote “originary wound of Black chattel slavery” resonated with her deeply. Concerned with decolonial time, she expands on how experience is a continuous stream of consciousness, as shown by her constant exploration of the lines in her works.
In Everyone’s moving on but I can’t seem to find the pocket, the artist depicts a woman playfully leaping through an interior space with her arms thrown to the sky. While the figure’s outfit is risqué, skirt splayed and her underwear exposed, she is anything but provocative. Rather, the pink skirt she wears around her waist, defensive gladiator armor called pteruges, paired with the naive gesture of her fluttering limbs evoke a sense of youthful innocence. As she is flitting towards the edge, nearly out of frame, the viewer gets the sense that this moment will not last. Whether she is concluding her performance or tiring of some insincere act, the subject will soon retire, perhaps to a more sober reality.
Another work in the show, Shield, depicts a woman lying on her forearm. Her body is resting on a square fabric cutout, which has a similar design to the patterns on 20th-century American furniture. Shield reflects the importance of rest. In much of her work, Zora considers chaos experienced throughout one’s mind. Shield presents the concept of leisure-as-safety within a world that does not provide a space for Black women to experience it. Shield offers her body respite while her mind continues to run. The texture and design of 20th-century American furniture evoke a connection to intimacy with the audience through the recognizable comforts of domesticity. Through her gaze, the subject invites the audience into her place of peace while reminding us to stay prepared for what may come.
Intimidation tactics is curated by malaika newsome and Lizzi Skalka. It runs from June 5th to July 3rd at Deli Grocery in Brooklyn. Please visit by appointment by emailing info@deligrocerynewyork.com.
Zora Ilunga-Reed is a multidisciplinary artist from New York City. She’s shown work at Westbeth Gallery, ThirdSpace, and Hudson Wilder, among other venues. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy & Literature from Stanford University. Zora’s work spans painting and textile mediums and is concerned with transition, fluidity, and fantasy.
Lizzi Skalka is a writer, curator and access coordinator. She holds a BFA in art history from the Maryland Institute College of Art as well as an MA in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. Skalka has worked in both private and not-for-profit art institutions such as the Whitney Museum and the Ford Foundation Gallery and her curatorial focus is global, identity-based artwork.
malaika newsome is a curator, writer, and anthropologist. She is the current Curatorial Assistant at the International Center of Photography in New York City. She obtained her Masters in Art History and Archaeology from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on African and African Diasporic Art. She has co-curated the shows at Institute of Fine Art, Western Carolina University and with the collective Black Art Sessions. She has also collaborated with the Atlanta History Center, the High Museum of Art, and MOCA GA and contributed to projects in The Curator’s Pick.