SOKO, NICOLE JAMES, NOA IRONIC,
RITA MAIKOVA, SALOME RIGVAVA,
IVAN FORCADELL, NATALIE STRAIT,
KELANI FATAI OLADIMEJI, WILLEM HOEFFNAGEL,
SOPHIE-YEN BRETEZ & KENCUT
06.24.2023 --- 08.29.2023
Downtown Gallery
Opening on 24th June through August 26th, the exhibition “All Together” features participatory artists coming eleven different countries and celebrates the diverse cultural and aesthetic background the gallery has consistently devoted to with its profile and program. At “All Together”, viewers will join a visual conversation formulated by artworks of the same, classic size of 60 x 48 inches, which pays homage to the wider art history and envisions a communal language that transcends borders and differences.
At the time the exhibition was conceptualized, it was towards the end of the global pandemic, and on the verge of Russia’s aggression into Ukraine, a time when human condition has been unprecedentedly complicated and pushed into extremity, a time when the meaning of “togetherness” was challenged, shaken. For the upcoming show, we would like to examine through art’s narration and imagination the meaning of “All Together” both in our current world and across human history, and in the hermeneutics of having art from different artists, culture, religion, and geographical regions together, an experience imbued both with randomness and necessity.
Hence, we have invited artists from around the world, including Asia, Africa, Central Europe, The Netherlands and U.S. to be part of the exhibition. Joined by Soko, Rita Maikova, Salome Rigvava, Iván Forcadell, Willem Hoffnagel, Sophie-Yen Bretez, Suanjuaya Kencut, Noa Ironic, Natalie Strait, Kelani Fatai and Nicole James, the visual conversation surrounds one of the most ancient, sociological acts of gathering, in the context of as grave as war, disease, migration, taboo, and climate change, as mundane as a daily dining table, and as visceral as a gendered body.
In another sense, “togetherness” has always been at the very center of the act of painting, and thus, reaches far to the ontological core of what an exhibition aspires to arrive at. The process and conceptualization of painting entails to contemplate on and to redefine a visual “togetherness” of painterly elements, and it is from this perspective that “All Together” searches to present a miniature of the gallery’s history to its viewers.
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Soko
Soko was born in 1995 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and currently based in Berlin, Germany.She studied architecture at the University of Buenos Aires. Her artwork has been exhibited in various cities worldwide, including at the Museum Tamburini in Córdoba, Amuleto Gallery in Barcelona,TUBE Cultural Hall in Milan, and Grolman Gallery in Berlin, Germany. As well as an upcoming solo show at Casa Santa Ana Foundation in Panama and a group show inTaiwan.She also participated in internationally art residencies in Canada and an upcoming residency at El Castillete in Madrid.
My relationship with the paintings are a deliberate exploration of the hidden and invisible elements that shape our world. Through the use of vibrant colors, gestural movements and multiple layers, I attempt to capture the essence of the unseen, creating imaginary dense landscapes that evoke a sense of wonder and mystery. I paint places I want to visit.I find deep inspiration from symbolism, magic, and the mysteries of existence. I experience my work as a spiritual practice that seeks to reveal the intangible aspects of reality.Understanding that our lives are intimately connected to the invisible forces and matter that surround us.In my work, I celebrate the interconnectedness of all things, where the painting are the vessel in which the energy becomes matter and the matter becomes energy. We all live off invisible things
Artwork:
Life Force, 2023
Oil on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Nicole James
Born in 1987, Nicole James is a Los Angeles-born, Brooklyn based artist recognized for her chaotic still life paintings. Often focused on capturing fleeting moments, her practice explores the subversive potential of beauty in liminality and disorder. Her work has been shown at O’Flaherty’s and IRL in NewYork.
James’s work rejects the notion that chaos and beauty are opposing forces, and instead seeks to unite them, offering the idea that the raw and unfiltered beauty of disorder is exciting precisely because it is so fleeting and unpredictable.
Artwork:
Between 'Shit' and 'Sorry', 2023
Acrylic on Linen
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Noa Ironic
(b. 1993, Eilat, IL) lives and works in Tel Aviv. Ironic was raised and educated in an orthodox Jewish household, self identifies as queer fem presenting.A graduate of Shenkar Multidisciplinary Art School (B.F.A., 2019). Represented by Rosenfeld Gallery(IL) since 2020 and Plan X (Italy). Emerging artist award fromEdmond de Rothschild Foundation Center, Tel Aviv (2021). She was the recipient of theAmerica Israel Cultural Foundation Award(2019). Her work was featured at the Spring exhibition in Kunsthal Charotten borg(Copenhagen, Denmark 2020),Fresh paint art fair Special Edition 2020 (Tel Aviv, IL), Bull in a China Shop atTchotchke gallery (New York, USA), the flow at Fir gallery (Beijing China), HouseParty at Carlye Packer (Los Angeles, USA) and a residency group at Unit1 Gallery(London UK). Her solo exhibition “Ride your Ego” was exhibited at Plan X gallery(Milan) in 2020, and her solo show “Much Respect” was presented at Rosenfeld Gallery in 2021. Ironic's work is included in private and public collections worldwide.
Since completing my BFA studies in 2019, I have been dealing with masculinity as a spectacle and its quotidian manifestations in both public and domestic environments, and representing such manifestations in a figurative and highly-saturated manner that accents their performative and contradictory nature and inherent absurdity. In my work, I try to challenge the notion that ridicule and satire are inextricable, through creating humorous caricatures influenced by German expressionism and contemporary American painting, that look at my subjects affectionately; acknowledging my forced exclusion from the male dominated scenes that I depict, which repeatedly cast me as a spectator, looking at them neither from above nor below, but rather from the side. Painting with humor is not an easy task, but it is crucial to my practice. I resort to humor in order to resist the elitist approach of the art world, by inviting the viewers to laugh at the inside jokes my paintings offer, who reveal themselves to be universal due to the familiarity and banality of the scenes I depict. The first step in creating a new painting is searching for former visual documentations or representations of the scene I wish to paint on Google Images, which usually involves appropriating elements from several images in order to create my desired composition, which I then sketch compulsively. From this point onwards, the source images become irrelevant as I exclusively rely on the sketch, turning each painting into a comic simulacrum—a copy with no explicitly identifiable source, loosely based on reality, recognizable yet outrageous.
Artwork:
Good Guys, 2023
Oil on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Salome Rigvava
Born in 1988, Salome Rigvava was raised up in Abkhazia Georgia before settling in New York. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in painting and is currently in the MFA program at New York Academy of Art. Rigvava’s work has been a contemporary retelling of the fairytales imbued with hidden emotions, subconsciousness and taboo desires. By juxtaposing her fictional self-portraiture with the fairytale figures including the most beloved Pinocchio, Rigvava has found a way to reunite with her own smothered feelings that have been silenced for years.
Rigvava has grown up in a Georgian social environment that dispelled expression of personal feelings as abnormality. And in the vacuum of sincere expression, lies and self-deception become rampant. Working in a such a mental context, Rigvava has always been aware of the impossibility of completely hiding from the taboo feelings. And it always remains clear to her that these feelings keep exerting a tremendous influence on the visible domain.
The theme of this series of works is the contradictions and confrontations that constantly accompany the discrepancy between our desires, passions, and moods and the conditions offered by this reality.Often, reality and the environment do everything to suppress these desires, passions, inner needs andeven manage to prevent their manifestation and realization. But in spite of this, feelings do not disappear. No matter how deep they are buried in our subconscious, no matter how dense a shell surrounds them and prevents them from coming out, these feelings still constantly remind us of themselves, constantly fighting to free ourselves from restrictions and to live freely.
We often wear a mask to correspond with reality and not be out of place where we are. We wear beautiful headdresses to feel calmer and safer under them.
Artwork:
I see You , 2023
Oil on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Iván Forcadell
Influenced by the avant-garde of modern art, Iván Forcadell (Alcanar, 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist who produces authenticity and expressionism to build a body of work that relates to his true being, his roots, and his vision. Forcadell earned a Design degree from EINA University in Barcelona. He has numerous national and international exhibitions. In addition, the artist’s work has been included in renowned press such as Harper’s Bazaar, El País ICON, Vogue Spain, El Mundo, and Architectural Digest Spain, among others. To handle these issues harmoniously and simply, Forcadell blends stories from his childhood in the countryside, folklore, and irony. Forcadell's style is bright and vibrant, and he advocates art's ability to impress.
A call to constantly reinvent the artist for whom the relation to his work is the fundamental pillar of his production. Forcadell finds the basis of his works in the importance of nature and human relationships and how they relate to his own life. For him, honesty in his series is as essential as his originality, constantly investigating new techniques and materials while introducing elements of proximity and found objects into his compositions. His goal is to bring the scenic Mediterranean countryside together with my creative universe to the United States of America. He is able to create new speeches while bringing new unknown areas and communities.
Artwork:
Casa Rosa, 2023
Mixed Media
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Natalie Strait
Natalie Strait (b. 1997) is a painter living and working inLos Angeles, CA.Through a semi-autobiographic and queer lens, her paintings explore personal and psychological lived realities of womanhood, navigating the interplay between emotional vulnerability and gendered, social-media-enforced, performativity. Her work implores audiences to question their preconceived notions in how they view women, and her painted figures defy gendered conventions by taking up space, their bodies dancing between representation and painterly abstraction. She holds a BFA in Painting from Arizona State University, and a MFA from the University of NorthCarolina, Chapel Hill (2020)
Artwork:
Green-gold Haze, 2023
Oil Paint, and Oil Stick on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Kelani Fatel
With several exhibitions home and abroad showing his works, Kelani Fatai is an emerging Nigerian artist. He was born and bred in Mushin, a commercial area in Lagos, and, at the age of six, he discovered his passion for drawing and has since worked to create a niche for himself. He is currently a graduate with a Higher National Diploma in Painting. Kelani draws his inspiration and creativity from nature and the environment around him, and he doesn’t fail to interpret their meanings in his paintings. He is a versatile impressionist and realist and usually creates his art according to the story conjured in his mind.He is prolific in oil, acrylic, pastel, watercolor, and charcoal mediums. Some of his works have been collected in the UnitedStates and the United Kingdom.
Kelani Fatai: “My work revolves around the beauty of elegant, albeit simply-clad, black men and women. Through the insertion of unidentified flowers in my paintings, I highlight the message of love and togetherness. Thus, I express the world as I see it.”
Artwork:
Untitled, 2023
Signed by Artist
Acrylic on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Willem Hoeffnagel
Willem Hoeffnagel is a painter from the Netherlands. Born in Arnhem, a city that is filled with emerging artists and lovers of art, he has always been interested in drawing and painting from an early age. After leaving a bachelor's in entrepreneurship in Amsterdam, Willem enrolled in ArtEZ Zwolle to study illustration design. During that time, he focused on his personal style while also experimenting with new techniques and ideas. The recognizable figures that have often been featured in Willem’s work have been close to him for more than a decade. Using the figures as a placeholder for a person, whether himself or someone else, allows him to portray a scene or part of a small story to the viewer without putting too much attention to who it’s meant to be.
Artwork:
Support, 2023
Oil on Canvas
47 1/4 x 55 1/8 in.
120 x 140 cm.
Sophie-Yen Bretez
Born in Vietnam in 1994, arrived in France at 4 and grew up nearby the ocean in LaRochelle. She’s a French self-taught painter based in Paris.
After she finished her Master Grand École at Neoma Business School in Rouen, France in 2018 and after several years in management positions in the communication and music industry, Bretez embarked on her artistic journey in 2021 with oil painting.
Rooting her artistic practice in self-awareness and awareness of the world, Sophie-Yen Bretez is inspired by the freedom found in observing her own experiences as an adopted Asian woman or women’s experiences around her and simultaneously translating them into an enigmatic visual language. Striving to present an infinite dialogue between herself, the paintings and the viewer, Bretez confronts themes of the human condition and the ambivalence of life. Building up on her signature style of dream-like surrealist figuration, Bretez depicts complex emotional states isolated within painterly narratives. Utilizing vibrant colours to create an alluring sense of both warm and cold, Bretez creates an ambivalent aesthetic. She weaves together past and present through compositions marked by repetitive geometric lines as seen in the decor, checker boards, and the horizon. Steeped in symbolism the semi-open space and the checkered floors extend the allusion to a game in which the body and the mind are held within. Additionally, each painting displays a sunlit infinite horizon symbolizing « the possible and the elsewhere», a salutary beyond when the« here and now» is too difficult to overcome. She states, « I paint horizons for those who have suffered».
A natural storyteller, Bretez begins each painting with a poem linked to a memory or a specific emotion that arises. Titling her works after these spontaneous and instinctual poems Bretez incorporates an additional layer of dialogue between the work, the viewer, and Bretez herself. Testifying to the intimate and the universal through substantive narratives, Bretez seeks to perpetuate a wider reflection of political, societal, philosophical, and existential themes.
Interested in challenging the traditional male gaze Bretez utilizes reverse voyeurism as a tool to question our societal relationship to the naked female body. The figures in Bretez's paintings are evidently nude with bodies that appear ‘perfect’ corresponding to the beauty canons of our contemporary society and posing reflections on sexualization. A signature in Bretez’s works is her figures' direct gaze on the viewer. Unfaltering and strong, the women look directly out at the spectator, serving to simultaneously created istance and prove they are not at the viewer's disposal rather they assert control of their own bodies.
Messages of hope and perseverance permeate Bretez’s work as she seeks to provide strength in the fac e of vulnerability. Showcasing the powerful and dynamic feminine, Bretez’s work tends to participate meaningfully in the feminist discourse
Artwork:
Hear the voice of freedom Carried by the light of those Who denounce what is, And what tirelessly returns To tie up our bodies. - The Verb as a weapon., 2023
Signed by Artist
Oil on Linen Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Rita Maikova Zaporozhets
( b. 1990 in Kherson ) is a Ukrainianfigurativeartist who lived and worked in Kyiv. She earned her BA from KyivNational University of Technology and Design.
Maikova's surrealist works are full of symbols, progressing between theconscious and unconscious mind, and provoking the imagination of theviewer.With the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Maikova begins toexplore the human conditions in conflict.
Through her art she displays how this tension influences her. It isimportant for her to see her art as an endless dialogue betweenthe souland the universe.
«What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and whatwould the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? Afterall, shadowsare cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like todenude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings inorder to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light?» Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
"With the beginning Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine the goals and vision of my art changed. The most important thing for me is toexplore the topic of conflict.I works on tension that reaches its limit, which will ultimately lead to waking up from sleep, calling for awareness.Inside and outside of me there is a war of light and darkness, love between light and darkness. Through my art I show how I feel this battleand how its influence on me.I show two sides of reality and two ways of dealing with reality, I show the choice, its importance and the fact that every second of our life isa choice, and only being in a conscious state can we make it."
Artwork:
Feeling Soft, 2023
Oil on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Kencut
As a child of Bali, Kencut understands deeply the richness and magic of the indigineous culture of his land. Art has been a part of his life since he was in vocational high school, and since then it has served as the foundation for his painting practice. Following that, he continued his education in art at the Yogyakarta Indonesian Art Institute. Conceived as a rediscovery of the island culture, his artistic creation comes from the interconnections of history, tradition, and religion.
Based on his understanding of Indonesian local culture, Kencut has further expanded his art beyond the limit of the island's traditions and started to broaden and to include more diverse perspectives of the world beyond. The
tunnel vision in his painting, the button-eyed creatures all came out of this combination. His current artistic technique is also closely tied to the accumulation of experiences embedded within his subconscious since childhood, and it reflects his past experience in a culminative way. The central character as the stuffed dolls with whimsical patterns and buttons for the eyes was inspired by a chance conversation between him and Ary Indra, a well-known Indonesian architect.
Artwork:
True Friends, 2023
Acrylic on Canvas
48 x 60 in.
121.9 x 152.4 cm.
Text credit: Luxi He