In Tabaimo's worlds, nothing is as ordinary as it appears. Light bulbs morph into moons, walls dissolve, and trees turn into snakes. These eldritch environments capture the viewer who stands at the center, and transports him into an unknown underbelly of the everyday. The artist achieves a totaling effect by manipulating architectural elements and allowing hand-drawn animations that reference both Japanese manga and traditional Edo-period prints, to organically bleed out of the two-dimensional plane and into the exhibition space. The result is a pseudo-theater where the viewer is the main actor among anthropomorphic objects and a cast of characters, whose interplay raises social, political, and gendered topics of contemporary import.
Painter Brad Kunkle (featured in HF Vol. 25) delves further into his exploration of spirituality and ritual with his latest solo show, "The Belonging," opening at Arcadia Contemporary in New York on December 11. The artist combines oil paint with gold and silver leaf to create ethereal visions of women traversing windy fields. They seem to be on spiritual quests. We see them being lifted off the ground, their expressions knowing yet still enraptured, as glistening gusts of leaves and feathers sweep them away into the heavens.