Category: In General

by Chunbum Park

Maya Perry’s solo exhibition at RAINRAIN, “The Moon Takes Shape of an Outsider’s Light,” is a transformation and trans-configuration of the artist’s hidden psyche as her animal spirit, the brave wolf. The show engages the viewers as if they are reading a story book with pictures. The pictures are carefully put together in a lyrical fashion, as if the artist thought about the choice of words (or imagery) for an extended period of time. The images never fully furnish the audience with straight-forward answers.

Is Perry a brave wolf? Are we brave as wolves, or are we timid and submissive like dogs? The works in the show throw the question out there – whether both the audience and the artist have the guts and the strength to take on the role of vulnerability that exploring the question fully entails.

What is the distinction between a wolf and a dog? How can the artist provide markers identifying the differences between the untamed voice of the wild and the domesticated pet?

Looking at works such as, “The rhythm of the heart that runs” (2025), we see the artist begin the inquiry from the reclining position of weakness, on the bed. The sculptural installation piece consists of a wooden crib for babies with a running wolf and a dead pigeon juxtaposed with one over the other, flanked by large paper cutouts representing moths (or perhaps butterflies).

This central motif of the bed is an important part of the artist’s conversation with the self and the world. Feeling weakness and defeat, perhaps in the studio, the artist becomes contained in bed. While lying down, the artist becomes a dreamer who hopes to run in the wild triumphantly and freely like the wolves.

The decision… to become a wolf or a dog… is akin to the same set of decisions made on the picture plane of the canvas with a brush and paint. What makes a painting truly brave? What leads to a successful painting without compromises and driven by tenacity? What makes a strong painter?

Without masquerading as the wolf, Perry becomes the wolf… by the pure act of throwing the question out there for everyone to see and observe. What is a predator? What is prey?

The two are inextricably intertwined because the predator pretends to be the superior part of the equation in relation to the prey, but, to be the predator, one must become the prey by acknowledging the weaknesses.

The yin and yang of the universe are interconnected and cannot be separated from one another. Without the shadow, there is no light. And dark colors absorb more light internally, while bright colors absorb less light.

The artist narrates her journey of growth and transformation while in bed and dreaming of the other possibilities.

The difference between a wolf and a dog is akin to the question of what is authentic painting and what is illustrational in opposition to painting.

Or rather, the artist questions this hierarchy that believes painting to be superior to illustration, and asks if she is the dog and not the brave wolf because her painting style is semi-illustrational in nature.

In this moment, the power relations flip, and the artist reverses the superiority of painting into a more egalitarian philosophy in which painting sits as one of many different modes of expression. Perhaps the belief that we all had placed in painting was misguided. What is painting? What is illustration? And why must they be in opposition to one another? Within this world view, Perry’s painting is reborn as a hybrid style that borrows from both modern painting and contemporary illustrational styles and motifs.

When we take observance of works such as “Out in the distance there is a howl that breaks all doors” (2025), we cannot be so sure if the depiction of a wolf can be considered traditional painting or illustration. Most likely, this question is moot and outdated, since artists are required to push the boundaries for their field, similar to scientists or engineers. Why must we think in the same way and expect the same results, fixing ourselves to preconceived notions? In this work, the illustrational need or desire to push the colors and forms into greater definition, away from an ambiguous state (which permits greater depths for open interpretation), is repeatedly interrupted. Perry instead breaks up the high level of detail and “perfection” with a touch of painterly strokes and colors. It is as if pop culture entered the vocabulary of fine art through pop art. It is as if matters of illustration and animation entered the collective psyche of the world, so that it would no longer make sense to produce paintings purely in the traditional sense… to capture the essence of the subject. Perhaps the surface is the subject, and the core was not as important as we had thought it was. Or perhaps the core can be contained within the surface. Perhaps.

Perry’s painting does not sit entirely on the surface. While appearing to be essentially illustrational at first glance, her work involves all the nuances of a painterly painting. The looseness of the strokes and the act of letting go (of control) in order to gain another voice (possibly a deeper grasp of the unknown or thought arising from ambiguity and abstraction) all point to Perry’s strong background in painting. Perry’s work is hybrid in nature, so it is difficult to call it purely one thing or the other.

In Perry’s “The hybrid between a wolf, dog and human” (2025), which is a stop-motion animation utilizing oil paint and watercolor, we see the final logic of Perry’s train of thought and visual exploration. A painting that moves. A painting that changes in sequence over time. A painting with many layers that can be experienced as a moving memory and not a frozen fragment of it, frozen in time.

Perry becomes the underdog in order to become the wolf in the end. Here we are reminded of a song by Cloud Cult, “No Hell,” which goes, “I saw your soul without the skin attached, and you’ve got the guts of a coyote pack.”

Painting is a continual struggle with the self. To be or not to be, that is the question. To be the wolf, to be a strong painter, requires honesty with one’s own vulnerability, sensitivity, and imperfections. Power, excellence, and success on the canvas are not so straightforward. To gain power, one must let go of power. To be excellent, one must struggle. To succeed, one must exercise the right to fail. To be a strong painter, one must be aware of one’s own weaknesses.

Perry’s painting is informed by a hybrid language that excavates deeper meaning from the surface, like enjoying cakes dug from the peel of an orange, but imagine that the peel has all the savory juice and nutrients (and the seed is inedible). This is the trans-configuration of painting, which applies painterly language to its forms based on an ultra modern, illustrational style and motif, without becoming purely an illustration.

This is the fine line that Perry chooses to walk in order to push the boundaries of the field, and this is the line that makes or breaks Perry’s painting, each a battle that she will engage with to grow and get stronger. This line is a place of new birth (as a young wolf) between what has been considered a dog and an old wolf, between illustration and old modes of painting.

Maya Perry: The Moon Takes Shape of an Outsider’s Light, September 3—October 11, 2025 at RAINRAIN, 110 Lafayette Street, Suite 201, New York NY 10013

by Christopher Hart Chambers

This exhibition of Hiroyuki Hamada’s new sculptures comprises 11 works, both sculptures free standing and wall hanging. I hesitate to term all of the latter, “bas reliefs,” while several of the major works certainly are. And those are very similar in formulation to the free standing sculptures, although they are sans the hallmark pedestals, which stand to be part and parcel with the abstract forms they support.

The smaller wall hung pieces are more akin to bricolage painting; as folded, bent, and twisted scraps of what looks like metal or leather are affixed to flat, subtly toned, apparently wooden substrates. The larger works impart a distinctly Japanese aesthetic in their elegant, zen-like, and graceful simplicity of pure form; as such without any backing besides the wall -or they are free standing. What appear to be natural materials such as white or black ceramic tile, rusted iron, or stone are also displayed on bases of what look to be thoroughly rusted pipes. To be clear on this point: the artist considers these works painted sculptures. They are all constructed of synthetic materials. Hamada’s masterful use of trompe l’oeil surfacing is astounding. The rusty piping is in fact p v c and the aquiline shapes they support are carved insulation foam coated with painted plastreric resin. Polystyrenes have been popular with artists since at least the 1950s and 60s when Jean Dubuffet and Nikki de Saint Phalle first explored the then new found resource. The properties of these mediums allow for direct impulsive carving and so generally disregard the conventional sculptural necessity of pre constructing an armature or so to speak, skeleton within, thereby allowing the artist an unrestrained free hand in expression.

Notably, Dubuffet topped off his monumental works with stucco while de Saint Phalle frequently embellished her works with mosaics. More recently others have crusted the artifice with epoxies, fiberglass, urethane putties, or other substances; then painted them in order to stave off degradation resulting from exposure to sunlight. These are industrial materials often used in construction, or automotive assembly, ship building; even for making surf boards. Significantly, pragmatic considerations have enabled artists to explore and discover various possibilities. These newfound materials were lightweight, comparatively inexpensive, and easily manipulated without the need of a foundry. If Hiroyuki Hamada’s works were composed of what they convincingly appear to be they would weigh more than could be lifted in this gallery’s elevator, or hung on its sheetrock walls. Yet there are laborious old school techniques which could enable his vision with a forge and kiln. Frankly, Hamada’s mastery of faux finishes over the coated, smoothed, and refined forms is so complete that I didn’t notice until he mentioned it. The illusionistic pragmatism is not what grabbed me. I was attracted to the work purely for its aesthetics – its elegance: the simple smooth forms which reference predecessors Isamu Noguchi and Jean Arp’s exigencies, amongst many functional designers, who modeled their modernist forms in traditional materials – whilst Hamada’s tasteful combinations of industrial supplies are not what they seem to be at all, presenting a fascinatingly duplicitous conundrum.

Hiroyuki Hamada: New Sculpture, May 6 – June 13, 2025. Bookstein Projects, 39 East 78th Street, NYC

by Hugh Alcock

A new gallery has opened in Toronto – Sheff Contemporary – located in a surprisingly airy basement on Danforth Ave. Given the number of commercial galleries that have closed in recent years, its opening is in itself something to celebrate. Its inaugural show highlights the work of Steve Rockwell. The gallery’s owner, Saeed Mohamed has known Rockwell many years, and has always been greatly impressed by his work.

The space, Mohamed explains, is important in the sense that he understands how art is ineluctably an in-person experience. Indeed, it the experiencing of art in the gallery setting that is a central idea of Rockwell’s work. At the same time, Mohamed is not committed to keeping the gallery in one location. Rather, he appreciates that it is the people – artists, audience, buyers etc. – who together are the essential elements of this experience. Art, he feels, is often elitist and he is keen, instead, to promote art in a way that makes it more relatable to the public, who like himself, may not be connoisseurs in the traditional sense. His hope is to foster an inclusive crowd of art enthusiasts who will facilitate this aim. He sees his role as providing the space and the opportunity to experience art. Certainly judging from the crowd who showed up for the opening reception, he’s off to a good start.

Rockwell’s show is about art. It is, one might say, second order art. Moreover it is a breed of conceptual art, based on performance of a peculiarly inconspicuous kind. Rockwell’s work invariably has some story behind it. For instance, in one of his black and white paintings, one confronts an image of the artist himself, arms fully spread, with bright light radiating from his torso, titled My Spirit Lives Here! (1996). Nearby is another image of him, titled Blackout, which in contrast to his effulgent self, has him shrouded in darkness – his features barely discernible.

These two paintings are part of a series of five, on the theme of meditating on various spaces in galleries, that is ostensibly based on a story akin to that in the Bible of the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. A journey from the infidel’s blindness to the light of faith. But any such story line surmised by the viewer, it turns out, is post hoc. The order of the paintings was chosen long afterwards. Each is a record of some event he experienced while executing a performance he titled Meditations on Space. It involved him showing up in some reputable gallery in Switzerland, France, Toronto, Los Angeles or New York, announcing to its custodians that he was there to meditate on the gallery space. Most acquiesced and let him be. But part of the performance concerned his interactions with people and with the space itself. While in the Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles, for instance, its owner shouted out to Rockwell ‘This is where I live. My spirit lives here!’, hence the title of the painting mentioned above.

While these works are not literally biblical in derivation, they do touch on big questions – on life and death specifically. In Blackout we see a grainy barely discernible image of Rockwell’s face. It inspired by an episode while visiting and meditating on a gallery space when he was suddenly plunged into darkness, due to a power outage of course. In his depiction of this event Rockwell chose to render himself, despite the almost total darkness, as a comment on our perception of darkness. As Rockwell points out, normally – at night, closing our eyes etc., – we do not in fact experience total black. Instead we ‘see’ what are sometimes called phosphenes, namely internally generated patterns. The image of his face that we see imitates this experience. Only death leads to true blackness in this sense. Likewise, light is obviously associated with life. Hence Rockwell’s choice of painting in black and white – emblematic of pure light and darkness, i.e., life and death.

Rockwell’s performances on the theme of galleries goes back to about a decade earlier. In 1988 he decided to drop by at 64 of Toronto’s galleries, and ask their owners or administrators to fill out a form indicating in which direction their main entrance faces – north, east, south or west. Using the information he received he built a model, displayed on the wall, representing each gallery as a compartment on a square grid. A small aperture on the respective wall of each indicates the direction of the entrance. Here one is reminded of Sol Le Witt’s work, e.g., his permutations of the edges of a cube. The appearance of the material art object is entirely determined by the rules underwriting its construction. Indeed, Le Witt has been a major influence on Rockwell. This year Rockwell repeated the performance. In the updated version he struggled, sadly, to find 64 galleries in the city.

Rockwell’s original motive for this earlier gallery performance was to find a way to introduce himself to the various galleries, and learn how they operate. This kernel of an idea became an abiding theme for him. As well, it is illustrative of Rockwell’s entrepreneurship, his willingness to go out and introduce himself and his ideas, more importantly, to people. As testament to the footwork this performance demanded, he has chosen to encase, and thus preserve, the very pair of shoes he wore walking around the city.

Here we see Rockwell’s wit – humour and sharp intelligence – shining through. Although physically the work occupies a modest amount of space, it brims over with ideas and reflections on the nature of art itself. Clearly Rockwell loves art, both the making of it and as its cultural wealth. Not to be missed as well is an array of collages he has meticulously produced – small works on paper – that investigate the margins of pictures and images. Beautiful work altogether.

*Exhibition information: Steve Rockwell, Meditations on Space, June 5 – 30, 2025, Sheff Contemporary, 1276 Danforth Ave, Toronto. By appointment only (416-792-7792).