There is a day, a little sooner every year now, where that first breeze of summer can be felt on your skin. In the streets of New York, this signifies an intense and short-lived period of debauchery. All levels of the economic food chain drop their immediate and pressing tasks in favor of a streetside table, a park blanket, or a stoop. We all feel that mixture of anticipation and anxiety flood our systems, our muscles straining underneath our clothes to be freed, to feel sun,sand, salt, and sweat. Some of us abscond to the Hampton’s, some to Fire Island, some to Brighton beach. But to that unmistakable and primal summer-in-new-york feeling, we all fall prey.

From the creators of Raw Meat Publishing and bitter.nyc, we bring to you our inaugural exhibition RAW POWER. Showing vibrant and enchanting works from 18 different artists, this exhibition embraces the visceral and all-consuming feeling of New York summer, from the thick oppressive heat of day to the cool dangerous allure of night. We have selected works which induce these feelings through palette or narrative, and we invite you to experience them.Bitter.nyc is a gallery, bookstore, and community space, intentionally and proudly located in Chinatown at 45 Division Street. Years in the making and owing to a shared view of art’s purpose in today’s world, bitter.nyc is a collaborative effort to curate an artist-forward program prioritizing narrative-driven works, with the intention to create a space that fights the dominant culture of censorship and control. We believe strongly in art as the ultimate form of protest, and a power that can never be stripped from us.