PCH Seeing the World Art Exhibit Digital Brochure

Digital brochure for Seeing the World art exhibit, Art in Resonance exhibit featuring art from the Bill & Christy Gautreaux Collection.

SEEING THE WORLD

Featuring Highlights from the Bill and Christy Gautreaux Collection

A special Art exhibition curated by Erin Dziedzic

The Peninsula Chicago is delighted to announce a contemporary art exhibition in collaboration with the Gautreaux Collection and EXPO CHICAGO. Curated by Erin Dziedzic, Seeing the World showcases highlights from the Bill and Christy Gautreaux Collection. This exhibit features 46 innovative works by 36 artists worldwide, reflecting the Gautreaux’s expansive approach to collecting contemporary art.

ABOUT BILL AND CHRISTY GAUTREAUX

Collectors Bill and Christy Gautreaux live in Kansas City, Missouri. Bill Gautreaux is a managing partner of MLP Holdings LLC and was formerly the co-founder and President of Inergy LP. He serves on the Boards of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Art21, and the Whitney National Committee, as well as other civic and educational institutions. They are collectors of contemporary art with a focus on emerging and mid-career artists in underrepresented sectors. The collection is extensively loaned in support of artists and exhibitions worldwide. The Gautreauxes recently founded the Uncrated Art Foundation.

The title also underscores Peninsula’s status as a global hotel brand, with 12 exceptional hotels spanning three continents.

This installation is the latest edition of Art in Resonance , The Peninsula Hotels’ global contemporary art program. This initiative is dedicated to supporting emerging and mid-career artists, while creating deeply immersive art experiences for guests and visitors.

Thank you to Cadogan Tate for installation support.

TAU LEWIS LAURA LIMA STEVE LOCKE PEPE MAR

TUNJI ADENIYI-JONES BELKIS AYÓN FIRELEI BÁEZ DIEDRICK BRACKENS NICK CAVE MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN

JOIRI MINAYA KEN GUN MIN TOMOKAZU MATSUYAMA RAÚL DE NIEVES ZOHRA OPOKU ESTEBAN RAMÓN PÉREZ CHERYL POPE WENDY RED STAR DAVID SHROBE ROSE B. SIMPSON SHINIQUE SMITH CHRIS SOAL REGINALD SYLVESTER II SUMMER WHEAT

DEREK FORDJOUR DENZIL FORRESTER VIBHA GALHOTRA CHITRA GANESH JEFFREY GIBSON

SAM GILLIAM TODD GRAY MATTHEW ANGELO HARRISON

DONTÉ HAYES LATOYA HOBBS CAROLINE KENT NATE LEWIS

ESTEBAN RAMÓN PÉREZ CALTROP, 2022

NICK CAVE UNTITLED, 2018

81 3/4 x 56 x 39 5/8 INCHES Mixed media including a beveled glass cabinet, bronze hands, six carved heads and one eagle, vintage tole flowers and an iron eagle

58 X 24 X 30 INCHES Necalli boxing gloves, mulato and pasilla chiles, pheasant and rooster tail feathers

VIBHA GALHOTRA VOLCANO (VEIL DIPTYCH), 2011

TOMOKAZU MATSUYAMA STILL LIFE NOT IN MY NAME, 2021

60 x 60 x 2 INCHES Acrylic and mixed media on canvas

97 x 109 INCHES Nickel coated ghungroos, fabric, thread and polyurethane coat

Courtesy of the artist

LATOYA HOBBS PROSPER: TO DO WELL, SUCCEED OR THRIVE , 2019

LATOYA HOBBS ...AND THEN, SHE REALIZED SHE WAS ENOUGH, 2019

48 x 36 INCHES Acrylic, collage, and relief carving on wood panel

DEREK FORDJOUR ASCENSION, 2020

SHINIQUE SMITH BALE VARIANT NO. 0026 (SOLAR FLARES), 2022

100 x 24 x 24 INCHES Clothing, fabric, fabric dye, bleach, and ribbon

85 x 22 1/2 INCHES Resin, plaster, soil, cayenne pepper, acrylic, steel and found object

Image Copyright and Courtesy of the Artist, Shinique Smith

LEILAH BABIRYE NABUYONDO FROM THE KUCHU BAAKASIMBA (GENET) CLAN, 2020

WENDY RED STAR WALKS IN THE DARK , 2011

31 1/2 x 23 x 8 1/4 INCHES Wood, wax, copper, glue, nails, welded metal, screws, washers, aluminum wire, bicycle tire inner tubes

27 x 40 INCHES Pigment print on fine art pearl

Courtesy of Gordon Robichaux, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Galerie Max Hetzler. Photo: Ruben Diaz.

Courtesy of the artist

REGINALD SYLVESTER II GATE, 2023

CAROLINE KENT CORNERED WITH NO SURRENDER IN SIGHT , 2022

87 x 31 x 9 3/4 INCHES Black oxidized steel in Shou Sugi Ban mahogany wood plinth

100 x 80 1/2 INCHES Acrylic on unstretched canvas

Reginald Sylvester II, Gate, 2023. © Reginald Sylvester II. Courtesy of the artist and Maximillian William, London. Photography by Daniel Greer.

ZOHRA OPOKU I PASS BY THE HOUSE OF THE KING. IT IS THE CICADA WHO BRINGS ME. O (YOU) WHO FLY TO HEAVEN, WHO ILLUMINATES THE SON OF THE WHITE CROWN AND WHO GUARDS THE WHITE CROWN. [I] SHALL BE WITH YOU, JOINING THE GREAT GOD. MAKE A PATH FOR ME (SO THAT) I MAY PASS ON IT. , 2020-22

ROSE B. SIMPSON CONSIDERATI A , 2021

48 x 15 x 11 INCHES Ceramic and twine

95 x 66 1/2 INCHES Screenprint on linen, thread

Courtesy of the Artist and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, Mexico City)

MATTHEW ANGELO HARRISON DARK SILHOUETTE: ANGLED GAZE, 2018

PEPE MAR CABEZA (ORO), 2022

50 x 13 3/4 x 9 1/4 INCHES Wooden sculpture from West Africa, polyurethane resin, anodized aluminum, acrylic

29 x 20 x 20 INCHES Ceramic and gold luster

Courtesy the artist & David Castillo

SAM GILLIAM SOLSTICE III, 2016

BELKIS AYÓN ALTHOUGH TO HEAVEN WE MAY GO, THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER US , 1990

72 1/2 x 37 3/4 INCHES Watercolor on rice paper

39 1/2 x 27 INCHES Collograph

SUMMER WHEAT IPAD, 2020

DIEDRICK BRACKENS PACIFY ME, 2022

12 x 42 x 31 INCHES Fiberglass, stone, grout

99 x 168 INCHES Woven cotton and acrylic yarn

Courtesy of the artist and Nazarian / Curcio

BELKIS AYÓN UNTITLED (SIKAN, NASAKO AND THE HOLY SPIRIT), 1993

RAÚL DE NIEVES THE DREAM CATCHER, 2022

35 x 28 INCHES Collograph

Dimensions variable Bells, beads, vintage fabrics, tassels, ropes, on workwear suit

JEFFREY GIBSON MY MEMORY SERVES ME FAR TOO WELL, 2018

STEVE LOCKE HOMAGE TO THE AUCTION BLOCK #122A-ISIS, 2022

38 x 33 INCHES Acrylic on stretched canvas with beaded frame

24 x 24 INCHES Acrylic on Claybord

CHRIS SOAL MOIRAI, 2022

ROSE B. SIMPSON DREAM 2, 2022

98 3/8 x 47 1/8 x 23 1/2 INCHES Discarded beer bottle caps threaded onto electric fencing cable with burnt and unburnt birch wood toothpicks held in polyurethane sealant on fiberglass, board and ripstop fabric

37 x 20 x 9 INCHES Ceramic, glaze, sticks, mud plaster, and sumi ink

Photographer: Micha Serraf. Image courtesy of Chris Soal and WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery

KEN GUN MIN QUEEN OF THE NIGHT (KOREATOWN), 2023

JOIRI MINAYA AWAY FROM PRYING EYES, 2020

97 x 70 INCHES Oil, Korean pigment, silk embroidery thread, beads, crystals

60 x 40 INCHES Archival pigment print

Courtesy of the artist and Nazarian / Curcio

JOIRI MINAYA IRREDUCIBLE CONVERGENCE, 2020

JOIRI MINAYA SHEDDING, 2020

50 x 13 3/4 x 9 1/4 INCHES Wooden sculpture from West Africa, polyurethane resin, anodized aluminum, acrylic

60 x 40 INCHES Archival pigment print

DONTÉ HAYES IMPRESS, 2021

NATE LEWIS SIGNALING III, 2019

14 x 13 x 13 INCHES Ceramic (stoneware, black clay body)

174 x 26 INCHES Hand-sculpted inkjet print, india ink, pen

Image Courtesy of the Artist and Mindy Solomon Gallery

Image Courtesy of the Artist and Friedman Gallery

MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN UNTITLED, 2015

TAU LEWIS SOL NIGER (WITH MY FIRE, I MAY DESTROY EVERYTHING, BY MY BREATH, SOULS ARE LIFTED FROM PUTRIFIED EARTH), 2021

125 x 84 x 49 INCHES Recycled leather, coated nylon, and steel armature

26 x 40 INCHES Felt-tip pen, colored pencil and glitter on paper

Courtesy the Artist’s Estate and Haines Gallery, San Francisco

LAURA LIMA ANONIMO (ANONYMOUS), 2016

NATE LEWIS REVIVE, 2018

91 x 35 INCHES Wood, fabric

40 x 26 INCHES Hand-sculpted inkjet print

Photographer: Edouard Fraipont. Courtesy of the artist and Luisa Strina.

Image Courtesy of the Artist and Friedman Gallery

NATE LEWIS RELICS IN MOVEMENT, 2018

TODD GRAY ATLANTIC (NEW FUTURES), 2022

40 x 26 INCHES Hand-sculpted inkjet print

72 1/2 x 50 1/4 x 4 INCHES Archival pigment prints, in artist’s frame

Image Courtesy of the Artist and Friedman Gallery

CHERYL POPE PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN 3, 2021

TUNJI ADENIYI-JONES TO BE TITLED, 2021

30 x 24 1/4 INCHES Needle-punched wool roving on cashmere

14 x 10 INCHES Watercolor and ink on paper

Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery.

TUNJI ADENIYI-JONES TO BE TITLED, 2021

FIRELEI BÁEZ PALMAS FOR MARTI (NOVIAS QUE NO ESPERAN), 2016

84 x 56 INCHES Acrylic on ink on paper

14 x 10 INCHES Watercolor and ink on paper

DAVID SHROBE A MILLION MILES AWAY AND RIGHT HERE, 2018

JEFFREY GIBSON I WANNA GO BANG, 2013

34 x 27 INCHES Oil, acrylic, ink and charcoal on canvas

61 x 16 x 16 INCHES Everlast punching bag, wool blanket, glass beads, artificial sinew, nylon fringe

Courtesy of the artist and Jenkins Johnson Gallery

DENZIL FORRESTER COTTAGE LOVE TR4, 2020

CHITRA GANESH TREE OF LIFE, 2019

76 x 48 1/8 INCHES Oil on canvas

71 x 52 INCHES Acrylic, ink, embroidery, textiles, fur, ceramic, large glass marbles on paper, mounted on paper on linen

Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA

WENDY RED STAR HOOP IN THE CLOUD, 2011

THE PENINSULA CHICAGO

The Peninsula Chicago is known for bringing traditional Asian service to a city already renowned for the warmth of its hospitality. The hotel has become an integral part of Chicago life and is considered the top choice for accommodations, celebrations and corporate events. The Peninsula Chicago houses an expansive collection of art that contributes to the hotel’s contemporary elegance. Each year, the hotel supports various initiatives partnering with local museums, galleries and artists. Since 2015, The Peninsula Chicago has been the premier hotel sponsor for EXPO CHICAGO, the city’s annual contemporary art fair, which brings together some of the best galleries, artists and collectors in the world. In tandem with the fair, an annual art exhibit is curated at the hotel for guests and locals to enjoy. In 2019, The Peninsula Hotels launched an Art in Resonance program featuring a year-round rotating exhibit of emerging artists in addition to experiential Peninsula Academy programs, focused on the education and exploration of art.

27 x 30 INCHES Pigment print on fine art pearl

Image Courtesy of the Artist

The exhibition also explores the interplay between narrative, figuration, and abstraction through works by Diedrick Brackens, Leilah Babirye, Chitra Ganesh, LaToya Hobbs, Wendy Red Star, and others. Curator Erin Dziedzic’s vision is to offer a glimpse into the global scope of this multigenerational collection while highlighting shared thematic threads and the uniquely innovative material approaches of the featured artists. This perspective aligns with the Gautreauxes’ long-standing commitment to collecting, which is deeply rooted in their engagement with artists, their creative processes, and the subjects they explore. “The artists help me understand how complex the world is,” says Bill Gautreaux. “Art has helped me navigate, change the way I think, shift the lens and focus, and put things in perspective. If you change the way you think, you can change your world.”

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This thoughtfully assembled exhibition features the work of 36 artists living and working in cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New Delhi, New York, and Seattle. Seeing the World amplifies the narratives, ideas, and creative visions of artists from diverse global perspectives. Notably, the exhibition highlights artists who have established their studios in each of the three locations of The Peninsula Hotel in the Americas, further connecting the collection’s themes of place, culture, and artistic dialogue. The exhibition offers a deeper look into the Gautreauxes’ commitment to collecting works by women, artists of color, and those historically underrepresented in the art world. Their forward-thinking approach is evident in their early acquisitions of pieces by Cuban artist Belkis Ayón, whose distinctive collographic prints have experienced a resurgence since the 1990s. The collection has long engaged with themes of the Black diaspora—its legacy and its future—through works by artists such as Nick Cave, Sam Gilliam, Tau Lewis, Steve Locke, Shinique Smith, and Reginald Sylvester II. Additionally, the Gautreauxes have been dedicated to supporting artists like Denzil Forrester, a Grenadian-British painter whose decades-long practice gained new recognition with his first institutional survey in 2023.

ABOUT ART21

Art21 is the world’s leading source to learn directly from the artists of our time. The mission of Art21 is to educate and expand access to contemporary art through the production of documentary films, resources, and public programs. The organization recently embarked on capacity- building efforts to grow its operations and services to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Art21 opens the world of art to everyone. Learn more at Art21.org.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

EXPO CHICAGO

Belkis Ayón (b. 1967, Havana, Cuba, d. 1999, Havana, Cuba)

EXPO CHICAGO showcases leading contemporary and modern art galleries each April at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, alongside a diverse and inventive program of talks, on-site installations, and public art initiatives. Inaugurated in 2012, EXPO CHICAGO draws upon the city’s rich history as a vibrant international cultural destination, while highlighting the region’s contemporary arts community. In 2023, EXPO CHICAGO was acquired by Frieze, the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art. In 2025, EXPO CHICAGO is celebrating its 12th anniversary edition by hosting 170 leading international exhibitors at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall from April 24 through April 27. The Peninsula Chicago is pleased to be the premier hotel partner for EXPO CHICAGO and to present a special exhibition installed throughout the public areas of the hotel.

Belkis Ayón reimagined the mythology of Abakuá , an all-male Afro-Cuban fraternal society, through her masterful collography prints. She centered her work on Sikán , a woman sacrificed for possessing the sacred voice, symbolized by fish or fish scales. Her haunting, mouthless figures explore themes of ritual, power, and silence, as seen in Untitled (Sikán, Nasako and the Holy Spirit) (1993) and Although to heaven we may go, they will always remember us (1990). Ayón gained international recognition, exhibiting at the 1993 Venice Biennale. Her legacy continues with major acquisitions by MoMA and the National Gallery of Art. In 2024, marking 25 years since her passing, she was honored with Belkis Ayón: Sikán Illuminations at Modern Art Oxford and a solo presentation at David Castillo Gallery. Through her groundbreaking practice, Ayón reclaimed a hidden history, leaving behind a visual language that continues to resonate, shaping contemporary discourse on mythology, identity, and the power of storytelling.

Caroline Kent (b. 1975, Sterling, Illinois, lives and works in Chicago, Illinois)

Caroline Kent’s practice is an intricate dialogue between abstraction, language, and cultural memory. By reevaluating and challenging the tenets of abstract painting, she constructs a visual lexicon that operates like a form of translation—one that is open to interpretation yet deeply rooted in structure. Her work draws from the spontaneity and formal rigor of Mexican sculptors and painters, blending geometric precision with a painterly freedom that feels both intuitive and intentional. In Cornered with no surrender in sight (2022), Kent’s process of experimentation and improvisation takes center stage.

Chicago | Navy Pier expochicago.com

Dark backgrounds become expansive fields where sumptuous colors and dynamic forms emerge, evoking a sense of movement and transformation. Her approach turns painting into a site for linguistic and spatial exploration, where abstraction functions as a means of communication beyond traditional textual forms. Caroline Kent is represented by Patron Gallery In Chicago.

Tree of Life (2019), featured in Unearthly Delights at Frieze London, was part of an installation evoking a cosmic night garden as a post-apocalyptic site of regeneration. The large-scale work on paper depicts hybrid creatures— animal, human, and superheroine—situated in dystopian yet lush landscapes. The work explores nature’s remarkable ability to flourish in the wake of human destruction, offering a vision of transformation and renewal.

Cheryl Pope (b. 1980, Chicago, Illinois, lives and works in Chicago, Illinois)

Chris Soal (b. 1994, South Africa, lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa)

Cheryl Pope is an interdisciplinary visual artist who explores identity and intimacy through the lenses of race, gender, class, history, power, and place. Her work emerges from the act and politics of listening, using keen observations of sitters and her own experiences to create intimate human scenes that examine the complexities of love. Pope’s portraits of women, such as Portrait of a Woman 3 (2021), employ fiber as a medium, connecting viewers on both personal and universal levels. The portrait’s soft surface, coupled with engaging juxtapositions of color and pattern, invites viewers to gradually explore the work and prompts deeper reflection on the subject. Pope is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago.

Chris Soal’s work explores themes of fate, transformation, and humanity’s complex relationship with nature. Using discarded materials, he constructs intricate, cascading forms that challenge perceptions of waste and beauty. By manipulating these materials—twisting, spinning, and layering them—Soal creates organic, almost biomorphic structures that underscore our dominant yet dependent relationship with the natural world. Destruction is a recurring motif in his practice. He employs techniques such as singeing, tearing, and cracking, pushing his materials to their limits to reflect the fragility of nature. In Moirai (2022), named after the Greek mythological Fates, he evokes a sense of destiny and inevitability, visually articulating the erosion of our connection to the environment and its uncertain future.

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975, Brooklyn, New York, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York)

David Shrobe (b. 1974 New York, New York, lives and works in New York, New York)

Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to include animation, wall drawings, collage, computer-generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through a multidisciplinary approach, she challenges patriarchal norms and empowers female and queer subjects by constructing alternative visual narratives. Drawing from South Asian visual traditions and feminist and queer scholarship, her work reimagines collective power and resilience.

David Shrobe creates multi-layered portraits and assemblage paintings using everyday materials sourced from various locations, including his familial home in Harlem. By disassembling furniture and repurposing wood and fabric, he constructs dynamic surfaces for collage, painting, and drawing. His work challenges classical portraiture, exploring identity, history, and memory through unconventional materials and techniques.

In A Million Miles Away and Right Here (2018), the subject gazes contemplatively into the distance, evoking a sense of introspection. The rounded motif in his portraits references 18th-century portraiture, highlighting the significance of the sitter while recontextualizing historical traditions. Through his innovative practice, Shrobe bridges the past and present, creating a dialogue between personal and collective histories. He is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago.

Through his dynamic use of materials—combining paint, collage, and sculpture—Fordjour creates works that are both visually rich and deeply introspective. In Ascension (2020), Fordjour constructs a striking pillar of busts stacked atop a steel megaphone, a piece that speaks to both personal and societal anxieties. The megaphone, a tool for amplification, suggests the urgent need for voices to be heard, while the stacked busts evoke themes of remembrance, resilience, and communal struggle. Beyond his artistic practice, Fordjour is also committed to nurturing future generations of artists. In 2024, he founded Contemporary Arts Memphis (CAM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting young visual artists from Memphis-Shelby County high schools.

Denzil Forrester (b. 1956, Grenada, lives and works in Cornwall, United Kingdom)

Denzil Forrester’s paintings capture the energy of the London reggae and dub nightclub scene of the 1980s, using expressive brushwork and vibrant colors to translate sound into form. His work immerses viewers in the dynamic atmosphere of these spaces. In Cottage Love TR4 (2020), Forrester shifts to a more intimate scene, depicting a tender embrace between two figures. While quieter, his signature elements—diagonal beams of light and layered colors—carry the vitality of his club scenes into a more personal space. Forrester’s influence continues to grow, with major U.S. exhibitions at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami in 2023. These exhibitions, along with a significant publication, mark a new chapter in his career, expanding his legacy and introducing his rhythmic storytelling to broader audiences.

Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989, Mexia, Texas, lives and works in Los Angeles, California)

Diedrick Brackens weaves cosmographic composites of abstraction and figurative narrative, blending lived experience, history, and mythology in ways that align with Audre Lorde’s concept of biomythography. His large-scale tapestry pacify me (2022) is part of Everything I’ve Ever Touched , a suite of six works reflecting on place, personal history, and how geography imprints itself upon identity—specifically Texas, where Brackens grew up. In this piece, scorching sun-colored fibers abstractly evoke both biblical and real landscapes, while a towering Texas longhorn, a potent symbol of American power and history, dominates the foreground. A silhouetted figure crouches within the longhorn’s belly, symbolizing Brackens’ own contemplation of lineage, acknowledging how the ancestry of these cattle can be traced for generations, in stark contrast to the disrupted histories of enslaved people. Additionally, the work engages with the myth of the Minotaur—whose mother’s name was Pasiphaë (referenced in pacify me)—underscoring how myth and history intertwine within a place and its people. Through these layered representations, Brackens’ work speaks to the enduring impact of race and slavery across generations.

Derek Fordjour (b. 1974, Memphis, Tennessee, lives and works in New York)

Derek Fordjour’s work is a fusion of color, texture, and symbolism, bringing to life portraits and scenes that explore themes of performance, identity, and collective experience. His layered compositions, often featuring athletes, musicians, and figures engaged in cultural rituals, highlight the significance of communal spaces and rites of passage.

Donté Hayes (b. 1975, Baltimore, Maryland, lives and works in Cliffwood, New Jersey and Atlanta, Georgia)

Rather than relying on singular imagery or direct representation, Pérez constructs a layered visual language that embeds diasporic, Indigenous, and popular knowledge into his materials, creating works rich in symbolic depth and meaning.

Donté Hayes’s ceramic practice is a dynamic fusion of symbolism, history, and materiality. His work bridges past and future, drawing from the deep cultural roots of the African Diaspora while embracing speculative and futuristic influences, such as science fiction. The interplay between organic textures, like those of coral reefs, and cultural references, such as hip-hop and the pineapple’s historic symbolism of hospitality, creates a dialogue that is both personal and universally resonant. The meticulous, hand- carved surfaces in pieces like Impress (2021) reflect an intimate engagement with material and process. Each individual mark, made with a needle tool, contributes to a collective textural narrative—echoing the layered histories and identities embedded in the African Diaspora. By connecting these elements to broader social issues, Hayes’s work transcends traditional ceramic art, offering a space for reflection on history and community. His practice is a testament to the power of craft as a medium for storytelling, resistance, and transformation.

Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, lives and works in New York)

Firelei Báez’s work reimagines diasporic narratives, blending mythology, history, and speculative futures to challenge fixed ideas of identity. Drawing from folklore, science fiction, and fantasy, her intricate large-scale works and immersive installations present fluid and evolving histories. In Palmas for Martí (novias que no esperan) (2016), Báez depicts ciguapas , mythical trickster figures from Hispaniola. Their presence is suggested through a blur of feet and a lush canopy, emphasizing themes of resistance to colonial legibility and the mutability of identity. By merging historical references with myth, Báez offers a vision of the past not as fixed, but as a space full of potential futures, reclaiming agency for those historically marginalized.

Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972, Colorado Springs, CO, lives and works in New York)

Esteban Ramón Pérez (b. 1989, Los Angeles, California, lives and works in Los Angeles, California)

Jeffrey Gibson is known for his immersive, multi-sensory artworks and installations that weave together diverse cultural influences, from Indigenous traditions, to abstraction, and American iconography. His work employs bold geometric formats, combining painting, glass bead-encrusted frames, and embedded text to transform language into a powerful tool for both resistance and celebration. In works like My Memory Serves Me Far Too Well (2018), Gibson reclaims and recontextualizes the language of historical oppression, turning it into a statement of opposition to tyranny and affirmation of cultural identity.

Esteban Ramón Pérez’s interdisciplinary practice explores the intersections of materiality and iconography, examining their implications in relation to subcultures, labor, and socio-political histories. His work is multifaceted, as seen in Caltrop (2022), a suspended monochromatic black sculpture incorporating boxing gloves, mulato and pasilla chiles, and a plumage of pheasant and rooster tail feathers. These objects engage with the tradition of vanitas in art history—symbolizing life’s transience—while also reflecting Pérez’s personal and cultural subjectivity, shaped by his early upbringing in an upholstery shop.

His practice honors individuals and communities who have preserved their dignity and traditions despite systemic erasure, situating his work within art histories that have long excluded Native artists. In 2024, Gibson made history as the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.

His work invites viewers to reflect on life’s complexities and the emotional landscapes that shape our existence. In Queen of the Night (Koreatown) , 2023, Min explores cultural identity and personal journey within Koreatown, capturing both the resilience and isolation of community while continuing his exploration of self-expression.

Joiri Minaya (b. 1990, New York, lives and works in New York)

LaToya Hobbs (b. 1983, Little Rock, Arkansas, lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland)

Joiri Minaya works across video, installation, and performance, often utilizing botanical and landscape imagery to reclaim agency and visibility. In works such as Away from Prying Eyes , Irreducible Convergence , and Shedding (all 2020), she explores identity, cultural social spaces, and hierarchies by incorporating digitally collaged figures from her 2017 Containers performance. These camouflaged female figures wear bodysuits adorned with tropical imagery, highlighting the complex ties between nature and femininity, idealized bodies, and the exoticization of Caribbean women. Minaya’s work challenges stereotypes while investigating the ways visibility and representation intersect. Recently, these pieces were included in Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility , an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, that featured works with obscured or hidden figures, positioning them at the threshold of perception.

LaToya Hobbs is a painter and printmaker known for her large-scale portraits that center on Black womanhood, family, labor, and care. Often depicting friends and family, her work uses relief printmaking as a mode of empowerment—carving away at a matrix to leave a raised image, where the process itself becomes a metaphor for removing negativity and stereotypes to reveal an authentic self. In portraits such as …and then, she realized she was enough (2019) and Prosper: to do well, succeed or thrive (2019), Hobbs foregrounds Black figures with bold presence, rendering them in striking black and white against vibrant, repeated patterns. Through her practice, she reclaims representation, offering a powerful vision of self-worth, visibility, and cultural affirmation.

Laura Lima (b. 1971, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Ken Gun Min (b. 1976, Seoul, South Korea, lives and works in Los Angeles, California)

Laura Lima employs elements of abstraction—line, shape, and volume—to create surprising juxtapositions between objects and spaces. She reinvents the viewer’s encounter with form through cut shapes that reveal geometric patterns and draped cloth that guides movement across the surface, suggesting layers, as seen in Anonimo (Anonymous) (2016). Through these elements, Lima skillfully explores perception and human behavior while crafting a unique and immersive aesthetic experience.

Ken Gun Min’s artistic practice blends vibrant color, emotional depth, and narrative complexity to explore themes of identity, culture, and the human experience. His large-scale mixed-media paintings juxtapose beauty and unease, capturing fragile moments before destruction. Drawing from his experiences as a queer Korean immigrant in the U.S., Min navigates the tension between utopian ideals and dystopian realities.

She is also a co-founder and partner of Galeria de Artes A Gentil Carioca in downtown Rio de Janeiro, alongside Marcio Botner and Ernesto Neto.

These radiant fields of expressive energy, marked by pared-down arrangements of line and form, embody both structural precision and metaphorical evocation. In 2017, two years before her passing, the Monir Museum was established at Tehran University, honoring her profound artistic legacy.

Matthew Angelo Harrison (b. 1989, Detroit, Michigan, lives and works in Detroit, Michigan)

Matthew Angelo Harrison’s sculptures merge industrial design, traditional museum display, and historical artifacts to examine histories of colonialism, African diasporas, and labor. Raised in Detroit, he earned his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. His materials often reference his family’s history in the American automobile industry, and he describes his work as a collaboration with machines. Harrison’s ongoing Dark Silhouettes series begun in 2017 encases African artifacts, animal bones, and other objects in resin blocks. In Dark Silhouette: Angled Gaze (2018), a West African wooden sculpture is suspended in profile, engaging with industrial design and complex anthropological aesthetics to reveal its layered cultural significance. Harrison was featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial and is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow, a national arts funding organization based in Chicago.

Nate Lewis (b. 1985, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, lives and works in New York)

Nate Lewis creates intricate works on paper that capture expressive figures in motion, blending photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, and paper sculpting. His signature technique involves carving and manipulating paper to create textures reminiscent of cellular structures and topographical maps. A former intensive care nurse, Lewis brings a unique perspective to the body—one that bridges the medical and procedural with the social and systemic. His monochrome palette evokes the aesthetics of X-ray imaging, recalling scientific processes while imbuing his figures with an ethereal presence. In works such as Relics in Movement (2018), Signaling III (2019), and Revive (2018), Lewis draws connections between art and science, organic and synthetic materials, medicine, and movement.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (b. 1922, Qazvin, Iran, d. 2019, Tehran, Iran)

Nick Cave (b. 1959, Fulton, Missouri, lives and works in Chicago, Illinois)

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian spent over six decades exploring the geometric foundations of her Iranian heritage, blending structure and repetition to expand perceptions of form and variation. Drawing conceptual inspiration from 20th-century abstraction and Iranian artistic and architectural traditions, she employed primary shapes to create intricate, interlocking compositions. In her 2015 work on paper, Untitled , Farmanfarmaian used rhythmic patterning and calligraphic mark-making to generate shimmering dimensional effects within the two-dimensional picture plane.

Nick Cave’s work powerfully explores themes of violence, loss, memorial, and resilience within Black communities in America. In Untitled (2018), he assembles an antique cabinet, carved wooden heads, eagles, and bronze hands—sourced online and in antique shops—to construct narratives of power, grief, and trauma. A cascade of vintage tole flowers extends along the right side, symbolizing hope, renewal, and transformation.

The human figure remains central to Cave’s practice, serving as both a memorial and a space for reflection. Based in Chicago, he has maintained a longstanding studio in the city and has produced numerous significant projects. His most recent exhibition, Amalgams and Graphts , inaugurated Jack Shainman Gallery’s new Tribeca space in New York City, featuring one of his largest bronze figures to date.

In The Dream Catcher (2022), ornate, opulent embellishments reference traditional Mexican ceremonial dress as well as the extravagant styles of drag, ballroom, and queer performance culture. At the same time, the piece evokes religious processional attire and the theatrical costumes of circus performers. Through this rich visual language, de Nieves explores the fluidity of identity and the transformative potential of self-expression. Recently, de Nieves’s work was presented in the sixth edition of the triennial Prospect New Orleans, “The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is Home.”

Pepe Mar (b. 1977, Reynosa, Mexico, lives and works in Miami, Florida)

Reginald Sylvester II (b. 1987, Jacksonville, North Carolina, lives and works in Hudson, New York)

Pepe Mar transforms discarded objects into theatrical assemblages, merging high and low culture. His work fuses kitsch and detritus into vibrant sculptural forms rich with narrative and energy. In Cabeza (Oro) (2022), Mar repurposes rattan cornucopias and vessels into an anthropomorphic bust that straddles the grotesque and futuristic. By translating these assemblages into clay, he preserves their textures and histories, giving them new life. The work embodies his alter ego, Paprika, a figure of otherness and fluid identity. Mar’s 15-year survey, Myth and Magic , at the Tampa Museum of Art in 2023, highlighted his ability to elevate the overlooked into fantastical, deeply personal works. His practice challenges traditional sculpture, embracing hybridity, transformation, and wonder drawn from everyday life and material culture.

Sylvester’s approach to abstraction is deeply layered, both physically and conceptually. His manipulation of materials—whether through cutting, stretching, or layering—demonstrates a keen sensitivity to the histories embedded in those surfaces. By incorporating elements from his personal and collective past, he bridges the gap between abstraction and narrative, making his work feel both visceral and meditative. Recent sculptures like Gate (2023), further this exploration by transforming historical symbols of oppression into monuments of resilience. The reference to transatlantic slave ships’ floor plans is striking, as it reframes those brutal histories through a contemporary lens. By elevating these forms into sculptural steel plinths, he not only reclaims their meaning but also offers a sense of transcendence— suggesting a dialogue between past, present, and future.

Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico and lives and works in New York)

Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983, Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico)

Raúl de Nieves is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician whose practice spans stained-glass-style narrative paintings, animated performances, and densely adorned figurative sculptures encrusted with beads, sequins, bells, and other homespun materials. His work celebrates transformation, excess, and the power of adornment, drawing from Mexican craft traditions, religious iconography, mythology, and queer club culture.

Rose B. Simpson’s multimedia practice explores the figure through Indigenous influences and the postcolonial experience.

Her androgynous clay figures, often adorned with found and manufactured objects, reflect on family, gender, and marginality, interrogating how these themes shape identity. Works like Considerati A (2021) function as vessels— formed from earth, transformed into stone-like materials, and destined to return to the earth—embodying a cyclical process that mirrors life itself. Rose B. Simpson’s multimedia practice explores the figure through Indigenous influences and the postcolonial experience. Her androgynous clay figures, often adorned with found and manufactured objects, serve as reflections on family, gender, and marginality. These works interrogate how these themes shape our understanding of self. Dream 2 (2022), a large ceramic mask, was part of Simpson’s project Dream House , where dreams and psychological space offered pathways for self-contemplation. The mask symbolizes boundaries, revealing only what the artist chooses to share while prompting critical observation. Created during her residency at The Fabric Workshop and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Dream 2 invites viewers to reflect on personal and cultural narratives. Through this interplay of materiality and symbolism, Simpson’s sculptures evoke resilience, transformation, and continuity, bridging ancestral knowledge with contemporary expression.

Creases and folds create a sense of depth, reminiscent of his Drapes and undulating canvases, while vertical washes of pigment mimic pleats and light- play. By saturating the paper with luminous color, Gilliam transformed his watercolor compositions into tactile, sculptural objects rather than mere images. Gilliam was the first Black artist to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale in 1972.

Shinique Smith (b. 1971, Baltimore, Maryland, lives and works in Los Angeles, California)

Shinique Smith is celebrated for her monumental fabric sculptures and abstract paintings that fuse calligraphy, collage, and textiles. Her work explores consumption, identity, and spirituality, revealing unexpected connections across cultures and histories. Smith’s textile sculptures are deeply personal, incorporating bundled clothing from her own wardrobe, as well as materials from friends, family, and found objects. Bale Variant No. 0026 (Solar Flares) (2022), featuring bursts of color across its fabric form, debuted in STARGAZERS at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. This piece includes clothing from her ex-husband, emphasizing textiles as markers of identity and transformation. Smith is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and recently exhibited in Social Fabrics: Magic & Memory at Rele Gallery in Los Angeles. Through her innovative use of material and form, she invites viewers to consider the emotional and cultural weight embedded in everyday objects.

Sam Gilliam (b. 1933, Tupelo, Mississippi, d. 2022, Washington, D.C.)

Sam Gilliam was a groundbreaking innovator in postwar American painting. Emerging from the Washington, D.C. art scene in the mid-1960s, he disrupted the ethos of Color School painting through a series of formal breakthroughs, culminating in his iconic Drape paintings, which expanded the possibilities of Abstract Expressionism. His late-career work, Solstice III (2016), reflects his ongoing experimentation with color, texture, materiality, and scale. Here, the paper itself becomes the color, rather than merely serving as a surface.

Steve Locke (b. 1963, Cleveland, OH, lives and works in New York)

Steve Locke’s series Homage to the Auction Block , including Homage to the Auction Block #122a-isis (2022), appropriates American modernist Josef Albers’s iconic series, Homage to the Square , to confront the absence of Black artists in Modernism’s canon.

Tau Lewis (b. 1993, Toronto, Canada, lives and works in New York)

By inserting the shape of an auction block into the center of Albers’s structured compositions, Locke places one history inside another, merging the aesthetics of Modernism with the violent legacy of slavery. While his work acknowledges Albers, Locke complicates notions of progress by embedding a tragic symbol within a celebrated Modernist form. His use of an unsteady line and a palette that diverges sharply from Albers’s precision and color theory disrupts the established visual language, unsettling unquestioned narratives, and shifting historical perspectives toward a more inclusive and urgent expression. Locke’s solo exhibition, the fire next time, is on view at Mass MoCA until November 2025.

Tau Lewis transforms found textiles and artifacts through intricate sewing and quilting, creating imaginary talismans and otherworldly beings inspired by sci-fi and Caribbean folklore. In her 2021 series Divine Giants Tribunal , which includes Sol Niger (With my fire, I may destroy everything, by my breath, souls are lifted from putrefied earth) , she crafted an eleven-foot-tall mask from hand-stitched scrap fabrics and recycled leathers. This monumental face, composed of found materials, connects her practice to artists such as Lonnie Holley, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, and the Gee’s Bend quilters while also drawing from mythical objects and symbolism. Influenced by Yoruba masks and the writings of Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, Lewis infuses her work with a sense of otherworldly mythology. Sol Niger was first featured in the 2022 Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams .

Summer Wheat (b. 1977, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, lives and works in New York)

Summer Wheat’s vibrant paintings, sculptures, and installations merge fine art and craft traditions, drawing from ancient art, medieval tapestries, and modernist abstraction. Her work explores labor, leisure, and class through archetypal figures like farmers, weavers, and bankers, emphasizing shared human experiences. In iPad (2020), a mosaic sculpture of a woman drawing on a tablet, Wheat links digital tools to craft traditions, reflecting her embrace of technology in artmaking. In 2022, the Kansas City Museum announced JewelHouse , her monumental project transforming its former Beaux-Arts Conservatory and planetarium. This ambitious architectural intervention reimagines historical narratives through contemporary art. Through dynamic material innovation, Wheat bridges past and present, creating a rich, evolving visual language.

Todd Gray (b. 1954, Los Angeles, California, lives and works in Los Angeles, California)

Todd Gray’s photo-based work explores black masculinity, diaspora, and the intersections of power, blending contemporary and historical perspectives. Split between Los Angeles and Ghana, he delves into the cultural dislocations and connections between Western hegemony and West Africa, reflecting on transformative histories through multiple nonlinear spaces and time periods. Atlantic (New Futures) (2022) addresses the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade while invoking Afrofuturism, a cultural movement that reclaims Black history and envisions an empowered future. In 2017, Gray and his partner, artist Kyungmi Shin, established the Sedabuda School and Residency in Akwidaa, Ghana, furthering their commitment to fostering artistic and educational exchange.

Tomokazu Matsuyama (b. 1976, Takayama, Gifu, Japan, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York)

Vibha Galhotra (b. 1978, Kaithal, Haryana, lives and works in Delhi, India)

Tomokazu Matsuyama’s vibrant, tondo-shaped paintings merge diverse cultural influences, blending historical and contemporary elements, high culture, and the everyday to craft an intercultural narrative. Still Life Not in My Name (2021) references the Renaissance tradition of stately round portraits, layering imagery to evoke the complexity of subject and symbolism. The central figure, inspired by gestures found in contemporary fashion magazines, exists within an otherworldly atmosphere enriched by vines and bright flowers—nods to historic Japanese painting. Matsuyama’s meticulous compositions, rendered in rich hues and embedded with symbolic objects, reflect the rapidly shifting nature of contemporary society, drawing viewers into his lush surfaces. Represented by Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, he will present his first large-scale solo exhibition in Tokyo at Azabudai Hills Gallery in 2025.

Vibha Galhotra is a conceptual artist whose work explores the shifting topography of a world radically altered by climate change, consumerism, capitalism, and globalization. She incorporates culturally resonant found objects from her native India, as seen in Volcano (Veil Diptych) (2011), a wall tapestry composed of thousands of ghungroos —small metallic bells traditionally worn by classical Indian and Pakistani dancers. Woven into an abstract aerial view of a volcanic landscape, the piece reflects Galhotra’s visual language, where ordered chaos transforms everyday materials into meditations on nature’s beauty and destruction. Her work abstracts environmental forces, embedding them in intricate, textured compositions. Most recently, in January, she unveiled Future Fables , an architectonic sound installation, at NIROX Sculpture Park in South Africa, further expanding her exploration of ecological and cultural narratives.

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones (b. 1992, London, England, lives and works in New York)

Wendy Red Star (b. 1981, Billings, Montana, lives and works in Portland, Oregon)

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones’s paintings draw from the ancient history, mythology, and Yoruba heritage of West Africa. Beginning with ink or watercolor studies, he develops his imagery through a process of repetition and refinement, mirroring the ceremonial rhythms central to his themes. His boldly colored figures, often depicted in small groups or pairs, exist within shallow, abstracted spaces influenced by Cubism and Matisse’s cut-outs. Lush, stylized foliage spreads across the canvas, with sinuous bodies emerging and dissolving into interwoven patterns of color and form. This dynamic interplay between figure and background creates a sense of movement and transformation, evoking both historical narratives and a contemporary reimagining of cultural identity.

Wendy Red Star’s work reclaims Native history, identity, and representation, particularly her Apsáalooke (Crow) heritage. Using photography, sculpture, and installation, she disrupts colonial narratives by engaging with archival materials, often blending humor and irony to challenge misconceptions. In Hoop in the Clouds (2011) and Walks in the Dark (2011), Red Star critiques the exoticization of Native peoples by placing herself in a “futuristic powwow outfit” against a surreal outer space backdrop. This sci-fi aesthetic critiques how Native identity has been historically misrepresented as mystical or foreign. Her work both exposes false narratives and celebrates Native resilience. Through sharp wit and innovative visual storytelling, Red Star invites viewers to engage with Indigenous perspectives and reconsider history from Native viewpoints.

Page 1 Page 2-3 Page 4-5 Page 6-7 Page 8-9 Page 10-11 Page 12-13 Page 14-15 Page 16-17 Page 18-19 Page 20-21 Page 22-23 Page 24-25 Page 26-27 Page 28-29 Page 30-31 Page 32-33 Page 34-35 Page 36-37 Page 38-39 Page 40-41 Page 42-43 Page 44-45 Page 46-47 Page 48-49 Page 50-51 Page 52-53 Page 54-55 Page 56-57 Page 58-59 Page 60-61 Page 62-63 Page 64-65 Page 66-67 Page 68-69 Page 70-71 Page 72-73 Page 74-75 Page 76-77

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online