E/AB Fair

Adrian Kay Wong (b. 1991) presents encapsulated moments that display a focused lens on the intimate, familiar, and human connection. Wong explores the interactions between negative space and figure, segmenting his surfaces with shapes that are collectively representational, but independently function as abstract forms. By exacting an extreme flatness that forces ground and figure on more equal planes, Wong also levels the attention between primary subject and contextual elements. The paintings are distinctively personal through the portrayal of narratives that are often sourced from his own adolescence. By investigating these sentimentalities with a deliberate and measured simplicity, Wong attempts to glorify the ordinary and reimagine the everyday. Wong was raised in the east San Francisco Bay area and now lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013.

Erin Lynn Welsh (b. 1984) depicts expressive impressions of the natural landscape. Comprised of broad gestural brushstrokes, Erin’s mark-making captures the unpredictability and volatility of nature while also offering a tool for abstraction, allowing her botanical forms to conjure a greater emotional resonance. Erin harnesses the historical symbology of the natural world, from the awesome power of the sublime landscape to the poignancy of a simple flower, to explore the contrast between beauty and violence.

Chad Kouri (b. 1985) is a Chicago, Illinois-based artist known for his intuitive, vibrant compositions that utilize the holistic properties of color and abstraction. His mixed-race identity is mirrored by his multidisciplinary studio practice, focusing broadly on visual art, music, and design while considering theories based in minimalism, color theory, semiotics, improvisation, and radical joy. Utilizing a wide range of skillsets and strategies, Kouri reminds us to stay curious and make time for play, rest, and introspection, enabling us more bandwidth for mutual aid and collective community care.

Senem Oezdogan (b. 1980) is a Brooklyn-based mixed media artist whose works meditate on the visual phenomenon of optical illusions through color and form. Smooth gradients give a sense of volume to the bold shapes depicted in Senem’s work that are subsequently flattened by her illusionistic use of spatial composition. Her color palette is equally beguiling, disrupting foreground and background and constantly forcing the viewer to reorient their sense of perspective.

Scott Sueme (b. 1986) is a Canadian artist raised in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Scott attended Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2006, and has since worked in many fields including fine art, graphic design and large-scale wall paintings. Scott has exhibited throughout Canada, as well as internationally, including New York, San Francisco, Miami and Cape Town. Recent exhibitions include ‘Building Buildings’ at Mayberry Fine Art in Winnipeg (2020) and ‘Intercepting the Nature of Colour and Form’ (2020) at Gallery Jones in Vancouver.Scott’s paintings are rooted in an exploration of materiality – principally, the quality and perception of color. In his work, color manifests as an abstraction of various elements of life, interacting to recall memories, capture the passage of time or connect with the subconscious. Scott’s hard-edge painting techniques create a subtlety of depth that reveals a new resonance to color and an admission of the human hand. This “imperfect” process of making speaks to a nostalgia and authenticity – an honoring of the handmade. Through an intimacy of material interaction, Scott’s works act as small records of larger lived experiences and a conversational catalogue of human imprints.