Other Space

About

Other Space

Works by Joanna Fields, Tetsunori Tawaraya, Tom Toye, Paul Waak and Lale Westvind

Curated by Jonathan DeDecker

Opening on October 7th

October 7th-19th, 2017 Sat, Sun 7-9 pm or by appointment

YUI Gallery’s latest exhibition, Other Space, explores realms outside our own via absurdist means that challenge stereotypical visual aesthetics and develop alternative allegories, fantasies and mythologies. There is a common thread of graphic style, seriality and constructed narrative that runs throughout the artists’ bodies of work. Their artwork effectively commands the viewer’s attention with its diverse color palettes and rewards viewers with the striking events, playful designs and imaginative figures represented in the work itself.

Lale Westvind designs complex prints and comics utilizing a classic comic-inspired hand, that is rendered in primary palettes or reduced to a simple monochromatic color scheme. Westvind’s scenes are overwhelming with their explosive battles and synesthetic patterns that evoke the sounds of crashing cars, the zap of an electrical spark or a bone crushing crack to the face. 

Joanna Fields designs vibrant, flat images reminiscent Pop art’s two-dimensional spaces to depict psychedelic, face melting characters, patterns and objects. Be it animation, design, embroidery, illustration, painting, or what have you, Fields’ artwork presents quirky scenes that are aesthetically captivating. Paul Waak’s artwork employs a similar flatness, but with more crudely executed figures and perspective. In this way, his imagery possess an absurdist humor with its nonsensical compositions and occurrences. 

Working in a similar style, Tetsunori Tawaraya evokes surreal scenes of a science-fiction nature that are populated with alien figures and parasitic creatures. Tawaraya’s dense drawings and paintings are heavily textured with intricate mark making only to be broken up with negative space. Equally bizarre as Tawaraya’s artwork is Tom Toye’s loosely drawn, graphic paintings that draw upon death metal aesthetics. The artist’s fantastical creatures and monsters outline mythologies that are full of symbols, violence and terrifyingly perplexing ritualistic events.