“With(out) Judgment” Exhibition

Helac Fine Art

This event has ended.

“Judgment can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgment.”

― Michel de Montaigne

Is our goal in life to find a common ground or understanding among men, or do we inherently desire an entirely novice way of experiencing the world? Through abstraction, figuration, or both, these seven artists process the world around them and thereby come to create their own. While each artist is at a different point in their career, they each share a common goal—to expand their creative view of our world and contribute to the global conversation.

The figurative paintings displayed by Danny Glass were a turning point for the Brooklyn- based artist. His large-scale canvases are the most recent in his journey of personal reflection within figural observation. In his paintings of crowds he brings a level of emotional connection between the viewer and the artist experience, while being astutely aware that his experience is momentary—fleeting. Yet through a process of repeatedly drawing certain figures he begins to foster intimacy with the people he depicts. By painting these figures a moment that would otherwise be forgotten is forever frozen, and has the potential to be cherished.

A diverse academic background has influenced Haoran Fan’s primarily black and white digital photography, bringing a voice of integrating graphic design and traditional art making. As marketing, graphic design, and advertising are pursuits that speak of planning for the masses; Fan’s experiences have cultivated a great understanding of the interaction between objects, humans, and emotions. Peaceful two-toned landscapes stretch across his images with touches of color that intrigue the viewer, completing the bond between the personal with one’s surroundings.
Through her ceramic installations Ella Wesly works with the concept of cultural exchange across the world. Her thrown vessels are created with cotton fabric, playing with both textiles, ceramic, and sculptural ideas to parallel the comfort one experiences around family and loved ones. Her work was born of her experience as a multi-cultural child in America; made relevant in our current climate of heightened xenophobia. Through her installation she invites guests to approach her metaphorical primed canvas, engaging the audience to impart their own unique stories to a table—the natural setting where stories are shared over a mal.

The material drives Joanne Y. Kim’s paintings; she uses a variety of mediums to explore each level of tactility, vibrancy, and manipulability. Kim creates vibrant canvases with undulations of abstracted planes of paint applied with a meticulous variance. Her pieces seem to speak of an abstraction of thoughts experienced across human connection. With bright playful colors and fluid brushstrokes, Kim’s work coalesces into a manifestation of control as she plays with the duality of nature vs. nurture as a physical reality.

To Kayleigh Starr photography, painting, and framing are all equally vital in the discussion one’s personal relationship with the world around them. Her work surrounds the context of a window into a different reality through an object as opposed to an image. By painting directly on her photographs, she layers her pieces with a more tangible surface that is abstracted in a way that plays with the viewer. For Starr, its important that she fosters a more personal connection with the audience, seen in her use of family photos from her father’s time in the Middle East. With unique media application she acknowledges the inability to take perfect photography in an extreme situation, but brings the situation into focus with raw tactility.

The work of Kiseok Kim plays with plasticity in contemporary culture—the transparent, the temporary. In observing everyday objects, Kim reflects on the patterns and colors that are utilized repeatedly in global media. She registers the individual’s place in media by thinking through an idealized being that is surrounded by just a suggestion of a background. The figures in her work are created with an air of tension inside their rectangular finite world, arranged to express a level of unsettling contrast—much like the artist’s personal experience within our broadened world.
Kate, Youhyn Jang photographs what she believes to be the unseen parts of the world, the secret or unexpected areas. In her own words her work embodies the poetry she creates. “Whispering things that have never been a secret; Echoing things that are not hidden; Dissolving what has not arrived yet.” – Kate, Youhyun Jang