Sublime Bodies

EVENT DESCRIPTION

AISHONANZUKA is pleased to announce our new group exhibition “Sublime Bodies”, showing brand new works of three artists – Christian Rex Van Minnen, Cleon Peterson, and Javier Calleja. The exhibition will be on view from 6 Aug to 3 Sep, 2022.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Christian Rex Van Minnen

Born in Rhode Island, USA, 1980. Currently lives and works in Brooklyn, USA.
Christian Rex Van Minnen works in the United States and explores many different media and types of paintings. He uses the surreal and abstract to articulate his own art language re-enacting the traditional western oil painting in portraits and still-life.
He has exhibited throughout the US and internationally and was awarded an Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, CO (Fall, 2017).

Cleon Peterson
Born in Seattle, USA,1973. Currently lives in Los Angeles, USA.

Inspired by his personal experience, Cleon Peterson’s chaotic and violent paintings depict a world of brute, in which clashing figures struggle between power and submission. Peterson’s works carry an aesthetics of Greek pottery, sometimes political propaganda posters, attempting to present the dark side of reality. By explicitly depicting acts of violence, Peterson hopes to highlight the overreach of authoritarian power in contemporary society.

Javier Calleja

Born in Spain, 1971. Lives and work in Spain.
Calleja’s works are filled with a diverse array of twists and interventions that bring surprise and humor to various events within daily life. As a self-professed fan of the works of surrealist master René Magritte, as well as artists Yoshitomo Nara and Chris Johanson, he references their techniques in the context of contemporary portraiture, depicting those living in the present through his characteristic appropriation of the “BIG EYE.” Things such as changes in color and shifts in scene, together with the relationship between the facial expressions of his subjects and the texts that accompany them, are aspects that the artist particularly pays close attention to in his work.