Corey Helford Gallery Presents 'Sixth Sense' (4/2)
6-Artist Exhibition Featuring:
Arinze Stanley, Chen-Dao Lee, Chloe Early, Jana Brike, RYOL, and Zoé Byland
OPENING RECEPTION
April 2, 2022 | 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
ON VIEW
April 2 – May 7, 2022
top left to right: Chloe Early, Zoé Byland, Jana Brike, Chen-Dao Lee, RYOL, and Arinze Stanley
Click here for sample of exhibit images
Downtown Los Angeles' Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) is proud to announce Sixth Sense, a six-artist exhibition featuring new works from world renowned Nigerian artist Arinze Stanley, Taiwanese artist Chen-Dao Lee, London-based artist Chloe Early, Latvia-born artist Jana Brike, Indonesia-born pop-artist RYOL, and Switzerland-based painter Zoé Byland, opening Saturday, April 2nd in the Main Gallery.
About Arinze Stanley:
Inspired by his personal experiences growing up in Nigeria and the current state of society around him, Arinze Stanley is driven by creating hyper-realistic drawings that trigger a degree of emotional connection between the viewers and his artworks. Using his works as a form of social and political activism, Stanley hopes to use his art to speak for those who can’t speak out for themselves. CNN shares, “You’re not alone if you do a double-take when you see one of Arinze Stanley’s drawings—his portraits are so lifelike, they are often mistaken for photographs. The Nigerian-born artist has no formal training and works with charcoal and graphite pencils, capturing everyday people and their emotions in extraordinary detail. Arinze uses his art to comment on issues affecting Nigeria as well as the rest of Africa, speaking for people who can’t speak for themselves.” Stanley made his solo show debut at CHG in October 2020 with Paranormal Portraits.
About Chen-Dao Lee’s new series Romantic Romantic:
Chen-Dao Lee creates scenes of extraordinary and ordinary life utilizing the composition style of old master paintings. The artist creates portraits of people wearing masks of celebrities from films or animations and places them in unique frames that look like sculptures. Regarding his new series, Lee shares: “I’m trying to incorporate and combine images from pop and classic art (including comic books and fairy tales), as well as current topics such as gender issues.”
About Chloe Early’s new series Phoenix:
London-based artist Chloe Early adopts tropes from the history of Western painting, seamlessly merging figuration and abstraction. Drawn from her own photographic sources, Early’s meticulously rendered figures evoke both Romantic and Renaissance paintings in their allegorical functions, suggesting pleasure or pain, agony or ecstasy. The series of paintings for Phoenix depict a female figure in various states of rise and fall. Regarding her new series, Early shares: “The paintings take inspiration from the story of the bird “Phoenix” (found in Greek mythology and across many other cultures). Phoenix is associated with the sun and is destroyed by flames only to rise again reborn from its ashes. The predominance of red and warm tones throughout these paintings are a reference to fire; from embers to roaring flames, these paintings aim to portray the cyclical nature of life; a continuous cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and resurrection. The figure spins solitarily through the darkness, alluding to our sun and the infinite other stars in deep space and drawing a micro and macro parallel between the individual experience and the totality of the universe.”
About Jana Brike’s new series:
Jana Brike is a Latvia-born visual artist who creates narrative works utilizing the traditional oil painting medium on canvas. Her work is her poetic visual autobiography. The primary focus of Brike's art is the internal space and state of a human soul - dreams, longing, love, pain, the vast range of emotions that the human condition offers, and the transcendence of them all, the growing up and self-discovery.
Regarding her new series, Brike shares: “This body of work is about the sacred feminine in its growth and transformation steps, its wisdom, pivotal turning points, its deep connections to the world around and the others but also its solitude, its acceptance, and wholeness. This is also my search for a way back to the primordial woman, reconnection with nature, both as a worldwide force that holds us together and the true inner nature of the self.
Beauty is an important aspect to me, beauty in a more profound sense as a mirror to the soul’s strivings. The fleeting touch to the beauty creates loneliness, strong emotion, and longing deep enough that it makes us go out into the primordial nature for the fulfillment, for the true source of strength. Into the wild open spaces where the nature elements flow from and into the human being, where there is no separation. But I also perceive all my work as visual poems, multidimensional, with no one direct narrative. I find it beyond important for people to find their own interpretation and not get attached only to mine.”
About RYOL’s new series INSTANT-MADE:
RYOL aka LAKSAMANA RYO is an Indonesia born pop-artist who creates works utilizing the appropriation method and is focused on themes of consumer culture. Regarding his new series, RYOL shares: “I am a consumer of western culture, such as cartoons, comics, and even fashion. I work by taking what already exists, and then I examine and recreate it with whatever is on my mind. The acceleration of information after the internet has become one of my concerns in reading the general art discourse. It seems that art has become more instantaneous, and information is shared faster. Aesthetics are constantly evolving. I made these pieces based on that acceleration. In each artwork, I learn about an issue then take a stance on the issue I want to raise.”
About Zoé Byland’s new series One of a Kind:
Zoé Byland, the Zurich-based painter, incorporates vintage photography, film noir, graphic novels, superheroes, and tattoos into works that combine the traditional and the contemporary, the classical and the subcultural. Regarding her new series, Byland shares: “We are all unique, nevertheless the handling and liberation of ideas about how one should behave, be and look, accompany us throughout our lives. We spend lots of time trying to conform to a (non-existing) norm, hide our vulnerability, or please others - yet our diversity and uniqueness distinguish us and make us magical. Finding individual expression, being brave, and finding peace with it makes us beautiful. Everyone must find their way to express their very own truth. There are as many ways and meanings as there are individuals.
My characters have their way to meet the world through imagination (“Girl and Ghost Owl”), energy and activity (“Wind up Lady”) through serenity (“Boy and Snail”) or contemplation (“Lady and White Raven”). They invite and encourage the viewer to explore their own uniqueness and find its magic.”
CHG’s six-artist exhibition opens Saturday, April 2nd from 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm in the Main Gallery, alongside a solo show from Miho Hirano, entitled Harmony With Material and Spirit, in the Gallery 3. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required for entry into the gallery, plus guest temperatures will be checked and masks are required.
About Arinze Stanley:
World-renowned artist Arinze Stanley Egbengwu was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1993 and graduated from Imo State University with a Bachelor of Engineering in Agricultural Engineering. Starting at the early age of six, Stanley had always been enthusiastic about drawing realistic portraits on paper. Being exposed to his family's paper conversion business, Stanley grew to love and use paper and pencils as his toys at a very tender age. Over the years he gradually taught himself how to master both pencils and paper in harmony, as a medium to express himself through what he calls his three P's: Patience, Practice, and Persistence. The three P’s have guided him throughout his journey as an artist. Working in a genre of art known as Hyper-realism and drawing from personal experiences growing up in Nigeria, Stanley is driven by creating art that triggers a degree of emotional connection between viewers and his works. Also, gearing his works toward social and political activism, he hopes to use his art to speak for those who can’t speak out for themselves.
Working in a genre of art known as hyper-realism and drawing from personal experiences growing up in Nigeria, Stanley is driven by creating art that triggers a degree of emotional connection between viewers and his works. Also, gearing his works toward social and political activism, he hopes to use his art to speak for those who can’t speak out for themselves.
Stanley’s debut group show was held in Nigeria in 2016 and since then he has exhibited internationally, both in the UK and all around the U.S., plus he’s participated in notable art fairs around the world including: ART MIAMI, SCOPE ART FAIR and 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.
About Chen-Dao Lee:
At first glance, Lee uses people around him as motifs. He creates, however, mainly works of scenes unfolding extraordinary and ordinary life with composition of old master paintings, portraits of people wearing masks of celebrities, and works which consist of characters in films or animations and puts them into unique frames that look like sculptures.
His home country, Taiwan, accepts a lot of culture from Japan and the US, and his paintings incorporate Taiwanese mixed culture. They are works that have been homogenized with the same admiration even for combinations such as "Hollywood films and anime" or "Japanese porn videos and Western master paintings", which are unthinkable overseas.
About Chloe Early:
London-based artist Chloe Early adopts tropes from the history of Western painting, seamlessly merging figuration and abstraction. Drawn from her own photographic sources, Early’s meticulously rendered figures evoke both Romantic and Renaissance paintings in their allegorical functions, suggesting pleasure or pain, agony or ecstasy. “I’ve always been interested in opposites in my work and exploring themes which can have a dual interpretation.”
Chloe Early (born 1980 London) grew up in Cork, Ireland. She graduated from NCAD in 2003 and has been painting ever since, accruing a list of solo and group shows in Dublin, London, Los Angeles and New York. Currently living and working in London.
About Jana Brike:
Jana Brike was born in year 1980 in Riga, Latvia. She has studied academical painting in the Art Academy of Latvia and received her M.A. degree in year 2005. Her work has been exhibited internationally in professional venues since 1996 while she was still a young teenager, and since then she has had 13 solo exhibitions and nearly 100 other projects and group exhibitions all over the world.
Her main interest is visual art with a strong narrative and depiction of a figure, mostly using the traditional medium of oil painting on canvas. She has also explored other mediums like drawing, animation, mixed media sculpture, installation and digital art. The main focus of Jana Brike's art is the internal space and state of a human soul - dreams, longing, love, pain, the vast range of emotions that human condition offers and the transcendence of them all, the growing up and self-discovery. Her work is her poetic visual autobiography.
About RYOL:
RYOL aka LAKSAMANA RYO born in 1993 in Banyuwangi, Indonesia. He has been showing in galleries since 2013, first throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia, before expanding to exhibitions in London, Paris, Japan, Korea, and Los Angeles in 2021. Of his work, he says "the artworks of mine are created from my dissatisfaction with what I imagined about the childhood’s cartoon series. What is imagined does not match with my real world. The dimensions of my imagination are highly beyond my real world."
About Zoé Byland:
Zoé Byland attended the F +F school for art and media design in Zurich (Switzerland). She studied contextual painting at the Academy of fine arts in Vienna with a master’s degree in 2008 and also studied art history at the University of Vienna/Austria, where she lived several years, painting and teaching at an art school. She now lives and works in Bern/Switzerland with her family.
In terms of style and content my paintings are based on elements of vintage photography, film noir, graphic novels, superheroes, tattoos, and classical genres of art history. I combine the traditional and the contemporary, the classical and the subcultural. Disguises are another aspect of my work. My characters never fully reveal their identity; they retain a degree of secrecy, protect themselves, are simultaneously visible and vulnerable. The viewer’s imagination has room to think up their own narrative ideas/meanings. Just like a good story for me a good painting needs an atmosphere that draws you in and defines the genre in which the narrative is taking place.
About Corey Helford Gallery:
Established in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer/creator Bruce Helford (The Conners, Anger Management, The Drew Carey Show, and George Lopez), Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) has since evolved into one of the premier galleries of New Contemporary art. Its goal as an institution is supporting the growth of artists, from the young and emerging, to the well-known and internationally established. CHG represents a diverse collection of international artists, primarily influenced by today's pop culture and collectively encompassing style genres such as New Figurative Art, Pop Surrealism, Neo Pop, Graffiti, and Street Art. Located in downtown Los Angeles at 571 S. Anderson St. Los Angeles, CA 90033, in a robust 12,000 square foot building, CHG presents new exhibitions approximately every six weeks. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm, with visiting hours being Thursday through Saturday from 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm. For more info and an upcoming exhibition schedule, visit CoreyHelfordGallery.com and follow on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. For available prints from CHG, visit CHGPrints.com.
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