UNTITLED, MIAMI 2018 // NEW IMAGE ART // BOOTH D35
FEATURED ARTISTS: RICHARD COLMAN, DANIEL GIBSON, MONICA KIM GARZA,
JEFFREY CHEUNG, & SHARIF FARRAG
VIP & PRESS PREVIEW: DEC 04, 2018 // 1PM - 8PM
PUBLIC HOURS: DEC 04 - DEC 10, 2018 // 11AM - 7PM, DEC 11, 2018 // 11AM -5PM
UNTITLED MIAMI, 12TH ST & OCEAN DR, MIAMI BEACH FL 33139
New Image Art is pleased to be present a group exhibition project featuring artists; Richard Colman, Daniel Gibson, Monica Kim Garza, Jeffrey Cheung, and Sharif Farrag for this year’s edition of UNTITLED in Miami. With a distinct appeal towards the emerging figurative painting field, New Image Art has become known as a gallery willing to take chances and extend the conventional view of figurative painting beyond previous norms. With a passion for cultivating new and under exposed artistic talent, our selection for Untitled Miami 2018 features three young figurative painters that represent New Image Art’s curatorial viewpoint and reflect a distinct perspective of contemporary art today.
Figurative forms, ceramic pots, animals, geometric and biomorphic shapes are all recurring elements in Richard Colman’s vividly colorful canvases. He vacillates freely between figuration and abstraction, at times focusing on pattern while other times on figure and narrative. Also producing sculpture and installation works, Colman incorporates a variety of media, including pencils, paper, wood, porcelain, plaster, glue, nails, and tape—typically using vibrant colors. “Color is not something I am very comfortable with, I am not a natural colorist,” the artist has said. “For me, it takes a lot of work to figure that stuff out so part of it for me is just the challenge, but I also like the idea of making thematically dark paintings using very bright colors.”
Daniel Gibson grew up in the border town of El Centro, five minutes north of Mexicali, Baja Mexico. His work is made from charcoal, sumi ink, and watercolor pencil on canvas. The scenes in his works intermingle abstracted human figures, elements of nature, objects, and occasionally small narratives to a dream-like end. These narrative based scenes range in their depth, from sketchy renditions to bold brush strokes. There is an honest and sincere quality to these "drawings as paintings" and a strong command of the materials Gibson uses. His work embraces a painterly gesture that is unique to the work with a push and pull, enter and exit, from abstraction to figuration. Gibson currently lives and works in his Los Angeles, Chinatown studio.
Monica Kim Garza’s paintings reflect a vibrant fantasy or females, in which femmes can be unapologetically themselves. She portrays robust nude women of color in their element, seeking adventure and pleasure. As a women of color, Garza’s work transgresses the historical art canon, where as she depicts brown women engaging carefree in their everyday activities via the female gaze. Monica’s women have a hunger for life and unabashedly take up space. Garza is not afraid to dive into the pleasures of a full figure, while simultaneously experimenting within the formal practice of figurative painting. Monica’s expressive approach to color, shape and texture all play a larger role in the work demonstrating an affinity for experimentation and desire to portray women from an empowered point of view.
Jeff Cheung is a Bay Area based, Chinese-American artist, who is the co-founder of Unity Press and Unity Skateboard Company. Cheung’s bright figurative work celebrates queerness within his personal life and within skate culture. He is a prolific maker, whose vivacious art examines freedom, identity, and intersectionality, through bold color and intertwined characters. Cheung’s figures stem from his homoerotic zine making practice and have grown into larger than life paintings. On canvas his playful androgynous characters fearlessly take up space, blend together and playfully unite in non-binary identities. His genderless body positive world questions the boundaries of sexuality, body, gender, and race. Cheung’s simplistic line-work of gender nonspecific bodies offers a clever yet loving response to the heteronormative male gaze creating a more inclusive and accessible entry point.
Reseda lies on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, in a region that has many names, some call it a Los Angeles suburb, others confuse it as a member of the city, many call it Hades, but to most Los Angelinos it is known as the San Fernando Valley. As the outcast of L.A., the Valley is an amalgamation of immigrants, freeways, concrete and unbearable heat. For Sharif Farrag, the Valley is not only where he was raised but also a significant influence in his art practice. As a first generation Arab American Farrag melds his Middle Eastern roots with his California skateboarding and graffiti background through ceramics, sculpture, videos, and paintings. Farrag’s work features numerous unconventional styles of ceramics featuring loopy glazes, graffiti airbrushed ceramics, glazes that crawl, and more. His ceramic work culminates in a psychological dreamscape where the influences of his American culture and his Muslim heritage morph into an otherworldly environment.
