Koi No Yokan - Exhibitions

West Hollywood, CA — 101/exhibit is pleased to announce the first annual Koi No Yokan contemporary art survey featuring Robin Eley, Micah Ganske, Craig Kucia, Siobhan McClure, Christopher Parrott and Gina Ruggeri — June 22 through August 3, 2013. The newly conceived exhibition will emphasize contemporary figural work proficient in draftsmanship while moving into experimental territories. Koi No Yokan opens with an artist reception June 22, 2013 at 7 — 10PM.

Koi No Yokan is a Japanese term that has no English equivalent. It loosely translates as: The sense one can have upon first meeting another person and possessing the feeling the two will fall in love. This differs from “love at first sight” as it does not imply that the feeling of love already exists, only the knowledge that a future love is inescapable.

Kevin Van Gorp, director of 101/exhibt shares, “The term Koi No Yokan is fitting for our first annual summer show. Each of the six featured artists are held in the highest regard for their accomplishments, draftsmanship and work in the field. Koi No Yokan represents the essential notion for a fruitful relationship being imminent in the near distant future.”

101/exhibit actively presents important figurative works throughout the year. With the summer presentation of Koi No Yokan each selected artist will have the opportunity to present conceptual deviations in compliment to the figural program. Koi No Yokan opens June 22 at 7PM and on view through August 3, 2013.

Australian realist painter Robin Eley describes his paintings as “essays of observation, born from a relentless examination of my milieu.” Robin Eley’s painted realism contemplates his relationship with time often revealing sociological underpinnings in direct response to isolation, anxiety and failed ambition. Robin is the recent finalist for the Archibald prize.

New York fine artist and futurist Micah Ganske explores realism through painted and sculptural forms. His recent body of ongoing work, Tomorrow Land, addresses vacated land mass and mankind’s failed attempt at maintaining control of invention gone awry. Micah is the recent recipient of the Museum of Art and Design Open Studios Residency and Fellow in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Micah Ganske also received his MFA from Yale University.

New York painter Craig Kucia explores the visual and psychological spaces that arise between memory and imagination, often resulting in other-worldly compositions. His work often delivers simultaneous feelings of wakefulness and dream like states. Craig Kucia’s paintings are featured in the permanent collections of the Miami Art Museum in Miami, High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Progressive Art Collection in Cleveland.

Los Angeles native and narrative painter Siobhan McClure creates expansive realms where children roam looking for safe havens. Societal pressures expose flawed systems where singular points of view are protected by societal laws while failing to offer protection to the inhabitants of her divergent worlds. Siobhan McClure is a professor at Cal State Long Beach.

Contemporary realist painter Christopher Parrott carefully arranges his youthful subjects, often depicting them as sensual and strong, yet ambiguous and disinterested. Relationships shared are seemingly fluid and temporal, on the brink of unspoken words and endings. Parrott’s compositions frequently divide the picture plane into halves, thirds, fourths, and fifths, using rectangular doorways, walls, and paintings in the background to do so.

New York fine artist Gina Ruggeri paints on mylar, cuts out her compositions and applies her work directly against the wall. Gina’s work oscillates between the material and the immaterial shared between painting, (sensuous experience) and drawing, (conceptual experience). Gina is the recent recipient of a 2014 residency and fellowship with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and currently teaches drawing at Vassar College and Purchase College, State University of New York. Gina Ruggeri received her MFA from Yale University.