Trigger Warning
Artist Reception: Friday, June 2, 6:00-8:30 pm On view: June 2-July 15, 2017 Exhibition in conjunction with PrintHouston 2017 Anya Tish Gallery is thrilled to announce a three-person exhibition titled Unspeakably human or unimaginably beastial? (a phrase from the poem “What do animals dream?” by Yahia Lababidi). The exhibition features sculpture by JooYoung Choi, paintings by Gao Hang, and monoprints by Karen Lederer, each depicting creatures that come alive within the context of popular culture and the aesthetics of our increasingly digital world. Affected from a young age by American television shows like Pee-wee’s Playhouse and Sesame Street, Choi presents a mammoth soft sculpture in bright, Crayola-box colors. The giant monster, Lady Madness, is repeated in various positions, demonstrating a slow-motion action within the Cosmic Womb, an expansive fictional land Choi invented that informs her body of work. Concurrently, the Artist’s work will be exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, May 20-September 3, 2017. Gao’s quietly electric paintings of sharks, bears, and other predatory animals, rendered in thin flats of the fluorescent hues he considers to be the tones of his generation, conjure intimate portraits with a stable gaze that are distinctly more human than feral. Influenced by Eastern Philosophy, his work possesses a harmonious and balanced readability. Executed through a confluence of monoprinting and painting techniques, Lederer’s works on paper are teeming with fish and reptiles, bold pattern, present day consumer products, and 20th century art historical references. Her close-cropped compositions are a nod to the influence of Instagram on our current visual climate, creating a spatial disorientation. JooYoung Choi is a recipient of the Artadia Award and an Idea Fund Grant, endowed by the Andy Warhol Foundation. She holds an MFA from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has exhibited her work nationwide in museums and institutions, including The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Seattle, WA; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX; The National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX. Numerous publications and media outlets have featured Choi and her work, including PBS, The Houston Chronicle, Arts+Culture Texas, Nat. Brut, and the Huffington Post. Her work can be found in many private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and William P. Hobby Airport. Gao Hang moved to Houston, Texas in 2015 from Beijing, China to pursue an MFA in Painting from the University of Houston. His work has been exhibited at Art League Houston, Houston, TX; Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX; Baoli World Trade Center Expo, Guangzhou, China; Art Museum of Capital Normal University, Beijing, China. Karen Lederer earned an MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012, and is a current awardee of the Keyholder Residency with the Lower East Side Printshop in New York City, NY. Lederer and her work have been written about in many publications, including Brooklyn Magazine, Art Fuse, New American Paintings, Maake Magazine, and Art Business News, where she was included in their “30 under 30” list of young artists. Her work has been exhibited in Europe, Asia, and across the United States, in such venues as Field Projects, New York City, NY; Tayuta Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; the International Print Center New York, New York City, NY; Here Gallery, Bristol, England. This will be her first exhibition in Texas.
Date
June 02, 2017
Location
Anya Tish Gallery
4411 Montrose Blvd.
Houston, Texas, United States
77006
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