Outside the Box (September 5 - 27, 2023)

Outside the Box

September 5 – September 27, 2023

Reception: Thursday, September 7, 2023, 6-8 PM

530 West 25th Street, New York, NY

Agora Gallery is pleased to announce Outside the Box, a group exhibition of paintings and sculptures that challenge physical and psychological limitations of thought, environment, and form. All of us feel trapped in one way or another, at one point in our lives, confronted with external or internal impediments that prevent us from moving forward, whether real or imaginary. Under particular circumstances, we may feel as if we were locked inside a box. This box can take tangible form–the walls of a home, a hospital bed, or the rigid structure of straight lines–or come from within, as a result of obsessions, anguish, depression, and other mental disorders.

The works on display alternate between depictions of captivity and escape, as offered by dreams and open natural spaces. They delve into the intricacies of the human condition, capturing the struggles we face and the desire for liberation. Through a wide array of media and styles–expressionist abstractions, PVC sculptures as well as oil, acrylic, and watercolor paintings–the participating artists reveal the raw emotions associated with confinement, inviting viewers to embrace vulnerability and find solace in the pursuit of freedom.

Outside the Box

Alli Gerrish

Nancy Holleran

Lina Husseini

Dita Jacobovitz

Hiromitsu Kato

Kristin Sue Kim

Kathy Park

Julie Reby Waas

Gabriela Román

Anita Thevissen

Katja van den Bogaert

Annu Yadav

Lihong Zhang

Alli Gerrish is an acrylic and digital artist based in Boulder, Colorado. Diary of a Lockdown is Gerrish’s most recent body of work completed these last several years during the pandemic. Faced with the gallery world shutting down and her usual studio space unavailable, she began experimenting with digital creation on her iPhone using Procreate Pocket. The resulting collection of almost 100 paintings and videos quickly took on meaning as a visual journal chronicling the raw response to the events unfolding around her. The paintings themselves are whimsical abstractions, vaguely reminiscent of human forms and landscapes. Simple geometric shapes and subdued tones evoke a feeling of relaxation and comfort, as stripes, circles, and ellipses gently connect and intertwine. The recurrent hourglass shape in her paintings has come to symbolize herself, transforming individual and societal vulnerabilities into dreams for a better future, where joy and positivity rule supreme.

As she painted, she realized the software was recording every finger stroke and went on to create a series of experiential animations combining the recordings with voiceover narration and music. One piece in particular, Scar Tactics, epitomizes the meaning of the series: life can be full of challenges and even trauma, but art can shine a light on our darkest corners. It can help us realize that although things may happen to us that appear difficult or even awful, what we get through in life creates strength and beauty on the other side.

Nancy Holleran

’s work attempts to capture moments of life’s fleeting pleasures. As an artist, she seeks to share her interest in discovering beauty in new places, diverse people, and to provide the rare opportunity to simply sit with the sublimity of life’s intimate and ordinary moments. She combines the uniquely nostalgic effect of the photograph, which she uses to guide her practice, with a technical mastery of the watercolor medium to effectively translate her life-affirming positivity into an experience with which her viewers can feel deeply connected.

The composition of her pieces invites the viewer into a singularly emotional experience of her subjects. Holleran’s process involves a meticulously planned combination of light watercolor washes and transparent overlays, an effort that slowly transforms her canvases into living registers of her subjects’ energy. The resulting characterization of these subjects intends to express a certain closeness, felt in the soft, delicate details of her multilayered scenes. Her desire to convey the feeling of the relationship she has with the people and places she paints suffuses her work, lending the finished pieces an ethereal, radiant presence.

Lina Husseini

French-Lebanese artist Lina Husseini creates exuberant PVC sculptures that challenge academic tenets and playfully take a life of their own. Raised in Lebanon and France–her work expresses a transcendence of East and West as her influence stems from both. Beginning her self-taught practice using papier-mâché, she built on these skills to explore various mediums playing with material, color, and composition. She uses her practice to take everyday materials out of context, challenging cultural notions of use value and the quotidien and using her work to signal an optimistic transcendence of the human arenas of politics and society.

Husseini employs PVC as her primary medium, pioneering its use in the art world. Working with this material at high temperatures straight from the machine, she creates distinctive and unprecedented sculptures. Each piece is a testament to her meticulous craftsmanship, as she shapes them spontaneously by hand, eschewing the use of molds. Her latest series, About People and Relationships–comprised of eight sculptures–deviates from her predilection for curved forms, embracing a more geometric orientation, yet retaining Husseini’s intuitive approach.

Husseini exhibited extensively in her native Lebanon as well as the United States. Her sculpture Together is part of the permanent collection of the Peoria Riverfront Museum, in Peoria, Illinois. She also participated in auctions in the USA to raise funds for student scholarships in Lebanon and cancer treatment. Most recently, Husseini exhibited with Multi Art Events in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France, and Salon international d’art contemporain in Marseille, France.

Dita Jacobovitz

Dita Jacobovitz is a contemporary oil landscape painter. Jacobovitz explores the rural scenes surrounding her home, in her native Israel, activating memories and emotions through intuitively guided gestures and palettes. A member of the Circle Foundation for the Arts and featured in the WE Contemporary Art book in 2021, Jacobovitz has been creating art since she was young. She studied computer science in school, and it was only when she attended art school in Tel Aviv that her career hit a turning point and she developed her own personal style.

Jacobovitz aims to convey a clean, serene landscape where her viewer can feel at peace. She appreciates nature’s inherent value and hopes to convey this through her work, as she believes our planet is not to be taken for granted. Her work reminds us of our own experiences with being in nature, with fully immersing ourselves in a new place for the very first time. As we gaze into her scenes, we can almost smell the freshness of the grass on the hills or hear the water splash in the Dead Sea. Jacobovitz’s landscapes transport us out of the present and allow us to fully appreciate nature the way she does. “Art gives you the freedom to create new reality why not take it with two hands,” she says.

Hiromitsu Kato

Hiromitsu Kato (1957-2019) was a renowned painter from Japan. He was recognized both nationally and internationally for his extraordinary artworks, and admired as an innovative artist. He employed traditional Japanese painting techniques using Japanese ink, gold, and iwa-enogu mineral pigments, made of particles of pulverized rocks. Although traditionally executed, his work has a modern aesthetic. Hiromitsu was a maverick in the world of Japanese painters, as he refused to follow the unspoken conventions traditionally practiced in Japanese painting.

Because of his love for the revered form of Japanese painting, Hiromitsu chose to become an exceptional artist to be recognized by those who were not familiar with traditional Japanese art. The vitality of the nature he portrayed intrigued many art lovers. Hiromitsu believed that painting was the only way to speak with God and always expressed gratitude to God for creating nature and all living things.

The exhibited artwork is called The Autumn Light. In Japanese culture, autumn leaves are a metaphor for rebirth and recovery. The idea of the painting is based upon his prayer for recovery from the tsunami and earthquake tragedies that occurred in Japan on March 11, 2011. Through his work, Hiromitsu hopes to bring happiness and prosperity to the citizens of the world.

Moon

Kristin Sue Kim

Korean-American artist Kristin Sue Kim is a visionary painter whose works transcend the boundaries of reality and delve into the depths of dreams and perceptions. Drawing inspiration from both the conscious and subconscious realms, Kim weaves emotional experiences into a rich symbolic language, incorporating elements from religious and cultural references.

Having resided in various parts of the world, Kim brings a global perspective to her art, often incorporating architectural and landscape elements from her travels. Each stroke of the brush reveals hidden treasures within the paintings, evoking memories of joy, hope, dreams, and love, while simultaneously acknowledging the transformative power of sadness and suffering.

Among Kim’s notable creations is the angel puzzle design, inspired by the enchanting imagery of snow angels. This design holds a special significance as it draws inspiration from her youngest son, who is autistic and finds solace in making snow angels. In these artworks, water drops symbolize the isolation experienced by autistic children, while other elements such as marbles, silver balls, beads, and pearls represent lonely souls estranged from society.

With a deep understanding of the human experience and an ever-growing appreciation for the beauty of life, Kim offers her art as a channel for healing, aiming to illuminate the dark corners of people’s hearts.

New Orleans, 2020

Mixed media on canvas

Mixed media on canvas

Kathy Park

California-based Korean-American painter Kathy Park explores the fundamental struggles of humankind through a surreal, symbol-rich aesthetic. Transcending literal depiction, her work blurs the line between wake and dreams, mining images and hallucinations from the deepest subconscious. The series titled Places He Takes Me was inspired by observing her daughter while sleeping, which raised questions on the unplumbed territory of oneiric visions. In slumber, we do not have full control of our thoughts and actions and enter the realm of the unknown. Park envisaged surreal landscapes, where forms collapse and colors blend into biomorphic abstraction, giving life to grotesque narratives of confusion, fear, and disorientation. Symbolism is also a powerful expedient in Park’s oeuvre, such as the goat found in the Settling In series. In reference to the Old Testament’s scapegoat, the animal stands as a metaphor for humankind’s struggle in finding their own identity. Carrying the sins of humanity, it roams in the wilderness or hides in abandoned places on a journey toward understanding and expiation. Through personal psychic investigations the artist sparks universal recognition, illustrating the unifying predicament of all beings. In so doing, she inspires belongingness and hope in resolving our inherent existential dilemma.

Park received a BFA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia. She exhibited widely in the United States and designed illustrations for various publications. She lives and works in Corona, California.

Julie Reby Waas has been creating abstract drawings for as long as she can remember. It was only during the isolating, stressful time of the Coronavirus pandemic, however, that Waas began turning her original designs into artwork. Waas felt a desire to bring joy into her life and the lives of others through creative expression, using bright color and compelling patterns to stimulate the viewer’s spontaneous reaction to each one of her pieces. Her geometric shapes and patterns serve as a way to bring order to her sometimes disordered life, and Waas identifies three recurring symbols in her work: vines, venn diagrams, and jigsaw puzzle-like designs. To her, these symbols represent friendship, connection, common ground, and fragments coming together to create a bigger picture, which all relate to Waas’s belief that everything and everyone is interrelated in some way, and when we come together in friendship and strength we create a beautiful tapestry.

In addition to creating her art, Waas also works as a labor and employment lawyer at Baptist Health South Florida. She exhibits her work in galleries in New York, London, Miami, Innsbruck, and Madrid, and is influenced by other geometrically-inclined predecessors like Piet Mondrian and Joan Miró. Most potently, Waas is inspired by her autistic son, Jonathan, who as a little boy would mix plaid shorts with bright, geometric t-shirts to create his own bold and unique style. Waas’s style is certainly her own flavor of bold and unique, successfully achieving her goal of bringing happiness and enthusiasm to each one of her viewers.

is of the Essence, 2023

Gabriela Román

Gabriela Román is an abstract artist and portraitist from Mexico City. Her abstract paintings are inspired by the breathtaking beauty of nature and the sense of freedom the artist experiences while contemplating the sky and sea. Using soft brushwork and muted tones, she translates the magnificence of local landscapes into works of profoundly intimate narratives.

Román’s unique sensitivity extends to portraiture, where she delves into the depths of human emotions and the essence of each individual’s soul. With each stroke of her brush, she skillfully captures the raw and intimate aspects of a person’s being, particularly through their eyes and facial expressions. Her glowing color palette and expressive linework infuse her portraits with intense emotional resonance, creating a connection between the subject and the viewer.

Román’s paintings are intimate mirrors that reflect her love of nature and humanity at large. They serve as a catalyst for introspection while fostering an appreciation for the shared human experience.

Anita Thevissen

Belgian artist Anita Thevissen makes watercolor and ink paintings that investigate the psychology of human beings and their responses to life’s circumstances. In Lifeline for example, partially-covered female figures hang from a clothing line, as if suspended in mid-air in a state of existential uncertainty. Living in a Box depicts a naked woman sheltering inside a cardboard box, trying to escape the pressing demands of the outside world. Looking at You and Do I Seduce You show close-ups of female bodies that exude sensuality, yet betray a certain existential uneasiness, as revealed by the positions of their hands or the look in their eyes. Thevissen’s attentive, yet compassionate look unveils the struggles and complexities of our society; caught between artificial stimuli and an inward pull towards self-examination. Her work spurs reflection on our intimate relationship with the environment, ourselves, and others.

Out of the Box, 2022

India ink and watercolor on paper Arches 14.5” x 11”

Katja van den Bogaert

Former ballet teacher and entrepreneur Katja van den Bogaert sees her abstract paintings in terms of action and vibration. Bridging the gap between dance and fine art, she builds free-flowing shapes and patterns inspired by the natural world. Katja’s carefree and boisterous spirit becomes evident on her linen canvases through layered and blended paints, which take on organic forms and structures. Each composition reveals a story, a world hidden deep beyond the surface, which is told in the language of texture, line, color, and form. When painting, Katja draws from an intuitive rather than conscious place. Her abstracts allow her the freedom to create on impulse driven by instinct.

Born in the Netherlands, Katja received a degree from the Dance Academy of Art in Tilburg, where she worked for several years before opening a teahouse with a friend. While she enjoyed running her own business, Katja ultimately decided to follow a creative path towards her passion: depicting her inner sanctum through large canvases that appear to take on a life of their own.

Annu Yadav is a California-based painter, sculptor, and textile artist. Growing up in India, she was surrounded by a deeply layered culture that has inspired her art today, through its vibrant visual aesthetics, and its complex socio-political environment. Her paintings and wearable sculptures explore the feminine–from the suppression of female voices and oppressive social structures to the resulting inner strength and endurance that is needed to navigate a patriarchal world.

Using imagery drawn from Indian folk art, surrealism, and cubism, Yadav creates solemn moments in her work, inviting the viewer into introspective contemplation. Her fascination with the human form began through her wearable art, then evolved as she transitioned into bold, paintings infused with a saturated palette and rich cultural and historical motifs.

Rather than seeking monumental change through art, Yadav is interested in moving the individual, connecting the familiar to the unfamiliar, one person at a time. Her paintings embrace the discomfort that comes with sexuality, seduction, guilt, and the grotesque, unafraid of exposing conflicts–ones internal and emotional in nature, or external ones rooted in societal inequality–and challenging the outdated binary notions embedded in this transcultural era.

Yadav has exhibited both nationally and internationally and works both as an artist and a designer in Los Angeles.

Lihong Zhang was born in China and now resides in Melbourne, Australia, where she works as a full-time painter. Even at a young age, Zhang’s knack for painting was clear; her school chose her to study art at the Beijing Youth Palace.

Nowadays, Zhang indulges her preference for Impressionism by visiting museums and reading about art history, and by channeling her study of it into her natural scenes. The influence of Impressionism is made manifest in Zhang’s ability to capture a calm, fleeting moment of the natural world. Her work has been said to foster a cross-cultural exchange between Western and Eastern cultures, which Zhang actively creates by melding her Impressionist influences with ancient Eastern philosophy and Chinese calligraphy.

Zhang’s main inspiration comes from music, dance, and nature. She is especially fascinated with the lotus flower, which stems from a story about the lotus’s beauty, “Pond in the Moon Night,” which she read while she was still in school. The story was made real for Zhang when she and her classmates visited the lotus pond in Beijing’s Beihai Park. Living in Australia, Zhang has still managed to find the lotus in her surroundings by visiting Melbourne’s lotus garden. This recurring motif, combined with the stillness and clarity of her work, communicate the message of harmony and peace in a noisy, busy world. Zhang has exhibited all over Australia, belongs to the Victorian Artists Society, and has been published in Art Edit magazine in both 2018 and 2020. In 2022 Zhang exhibited at Agora Gallery in New York, Stefania Carrozzini Gallery in Venice, Camden Image Gallery in London, Libby Edwards Galleries in Melbourne, and Red Dot Miami in Miami.

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Agora Gallery is located within the heart of the Chelsea Arts District with available hours from Tuesday – Saturday 11 am - 6 pm.

Opening receptions are held once a month, giving you the opportunity to meet the artists and view a variety of original artwork. Visit our website and subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on all events and happenings – www.Agora-Gallery.com/mailinglist

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