PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS

Akiko Kikuchi

Bryan Lear

Arturo Soto with partner Sigen

Erica Allen

Bok-soon Lee

Jade Doskow

Sarah Palmer (with her work in the background, during installation)

Chris Rodriguez

LOSS OF SELF IN A CROWD: AKIKO KIKUCHI

Akiko Kikuchi employs highly graphic video techniques to convey the loss of the individual within a crowd. The figures become abstracted forms which cluster and separate repeatedly, becoming a choreographed performance within the facelessness of a crowd.

FUTURE PAST FUTURE: JADE DOSKOW'S WORLD'S FAIR PROJECT

In my current project, I examine the remnants of World's Fairs around the globe. Often the structures for World's Fairs were meant to represent grand ideals of the future and human accomplishment; after the fair, however, many were left to decay or destroyed all together, or create very odd visual paradoxes in the contemporary environment.

-JADE DOSKOW

BOUNDARY CROSSING FAIRY TALES: BOKSOON LEE

After coming to the United States, I began to realize the many different ways that our cultures raise us. Korean society is very conservative and rigid in its familial structure, and what is expected of one. However, in America there is the birth of the individual, whereby one is allowed to move freely and confidently, and there are less constraints as to how an individual wishes to express him or herself within society. While I believe that America’s idea of individualism is part of globalization, I also believe that we (me as a Korean) need to also celebrate our values as a specific and integral culture in the world. I am not really attempting to critique Eastern and Western culture, but rather I am interested in people allowing themselves to celebrate who they are, and what their followed heart leads them to be. I wish to make several fairy tales that will represent both Eastern and Western culture while exploring the many gestures and attitudes that make us who we are.
-BOKSOON LEE

SARAH PALMER: MYTHICAL IDENTITIES

Sarah Palmer is a Brooklyn-based artist. Her landscape photographs were recently featured in the Visual Arts Gallery's "In The Midst" group show. In her work, Sarah creates mythical identities through her photographs. In her images of interior spaces, she counters specificity with anonymity, reflecting the rapidly shifting 21st century human state.

BRYAN LEAR: Signifiers of the American Landscape

In this body of work I am exploring the mixture of banality and oddness that is present in our interaction with the natural environment. I'm fascinated by the ways we control and shape nature to our own needs and aesthetic interests. Through development, strange and unnatural new landscapes have been created. I have an affection for these spaces I'm photographing, but also an uneasiness for what they might represent. With these images I aim to give a renewed awareness of our relationship to nature, and to draw attention to the pleasures of seeing.

-BRYAN LEAR

THE SHOW OPENS IN TWO WEEKS

The group show 'Unraveling Identities' opens in a mere two weeks, curated by Jade Doskow and Arturo Soto. Stay posted for information regarding the artists and the work they will be putting in this show, held at BROADWAY GALLERY in Soho.