Private View: 13 March 2018, 6-8 pm
515 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011
New Look is the first invitational exhibition organized by Christine Park Gallery New York. On the occasion of the Gallery’s Chelsea space opening, we are pleased to invite five artists from Kuala Lumpur, Thessaloniki, Tokyo and Brooklyn showing their works that give a fresh look to NewYork’s contemporary art scene.
Haffendi Anuar (b.1985) is based in Kuala Lumpur producing sculptures, paintings and drawings. Presenting two series of King Eider (2017) and Teal (2017) from his recent solo exhibitions in VOLTA New York and Kuala Lumpur entitled Migratory Objects, his works include painted shapes of wooden boards resulting from his interest in building the language of object-based paintings in the context of Malaysian art history. These wall-mounted works, with ethnographic connotations reinterpreted in the context of global economy such as eco-tourism or the artifact trade fantasizing a distant paradise. They question the dissemination of commercialized cultural objects.
We are also welcoming the return of Vangelis Pliarides (b.1964), a prominent painter from Thessaloniki, in New York. Inspired by his extensive painting trips around the world, particularly his recent trips in the South East Asia, his paintings explore the negotiation of life’s primal nature such as love, death, desire and the pursuit of happiness. As an artist his personal philosophy permeates surrealist scapes imbuing reality with paradoxical dreamlike-concepts. Viewers are invited to attend his elaborately constructed performance that are displayed in the strength of each characters and their desires in two paintings entitled No More Hollywood For Me (2016) and Untitled (2014).
Moreover, we are proud to present for the first time the works by Yoshinori Takakura (b.1981). His four paintings, Big Boy (2007), Glance of Scenery I (2016), Glance of Scenery II (2017) and The Gift 2017(2017), spanning from the last decade, illustrate his dedication in the pursuit of his use of unique forms and multi-layered color palettes. As metaphors for inner mind and internal aspects of the human character, Takakura uses his canvas as an area where internal desires and external influences conflict and commingle with, hence it becomes a place of uneasy cohabitation of human sensations.
Mathew Tom (b.1984) is a Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist. Further to our presentation of Society of Friends, his series of moving image and photography works in Photofairs San Francisco 2018, we have the pleasure to present two of his newest paintings, Tiger Garden (2018) and Smiley Eye Family (2017). He has been developing a world in which he combines elements from Asian traditional painting and European botanical drawings to create his own utopia called “Society of Friends”. These figures and animals are part of a larger mythology within his works that is in pursuit of his idyllic community he desires. A world where everyone is in such perpetual bliss their eyes have changed to everlasting smiley faces - even the tiger has transcended his animal instincts and joined the society as well. Deeply interested in the power of images, Tom ponders the supernatural abilities of a painting that expresses, and how an image can transcend geographic borders and exist independently of their original context.
Last but not least, Yeoh Choo Kuan (b.1988) presents one of his landscape paintings, Window 10 (2017). Looking at the views of long horizons, mountains, trees, the nearby airport runways, geometric shapes of buildings, and the ever-changing forms and colors in the sky, his works are inspired by the landscape surrounding his working environment. These paintings are great examples illustrating his signature ‘fleshing abstraction’ technique that addresses the social and political approach on violence coalescing into a visual experience carved on linen. Presenting in a window grid-like set, this six paneled work creates an imposed distance between the view and the viewer by further implying a sense of inwardness.
Christine Park Gallery is proud of our extensive programme of solo shows in particular. This exhibition, New Look, will therefore be a precursor of our gallery’s program in its new Chelsea space with the artists with whom we collaborate closely. We hope to continue our endeavors of providing a platform to allow artists to develop their careers and gain greater recognition.
