Brooklyn-based artist Hein Koh’s first exhibition at the gallery spans the first and second floor galleries. The exhibition will foreground a new series of works depicting cyclopean figures: one-eyed beings who observe but cannot speak. The characters are full of human pathos but lack noses, mouths, or ears—their faces distinguished only by a large and watchful eye. Despite their facial shortcomings, in Koh’s world, these subjects participate in mundane moments of waiting, wondering, and enduring, such as being at the doctors, or caught in the rain. In a Gustonian manner, Koh’s cartoonish characters offer a semi-self portrait of the artist, coming out of the routines of her life over the last challenging year. Koh, like the subjects of her paintings, has had many appointments during this time. She has also cried, mothered, been to the hospital, grieved a friend’s death, all things depicted in the paintings—and she has confronted her own mortality. Koh’s figures and exhibition as a whole are deeply informed by her recent breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. In making the cyclops, gesturing out its uncomplicated forms on canvas or slowly sketching it from her studio couch, she was able to process, preserve, and finally move forward from this painful experience. In addition to Koh’s tragicomic figure, the exhibition features: floral paintings inspired by the artist’s recent interest in gardening; two plaster sculptures; a handful of memento mori paintings; and approximately 20 pencil and charcoal drawings.
New York City, NY; NYC