San Poggio’s Paintings Feature Dozens of Minuscule Characters

While most people's experiences with animals involve encountering the domesticated or captive sort, DALeast depicts an animal world far from the civilized, cute and cuddly version we humans like to imagine in his current solo show, "The Laten Photon," at New York City's Jonathan LeVine Gallery. With his abstracted, high-contrast paintings, the Chinese-born, South African-based artist presents a high-intensity drama of predators and prey. Known for his monochromatic street art, in which gleaming, ribbon-like black lines coalesce into expressionistic animal silhouettes, DAL departed from his typical color palette and worked with rich hues of eggplant, indigo and burgundy in addition to his signature tea-stained linen. The title of the exhibition comes from quantum physics, where the photon is defined as a particle that creates light and makes matter visible to the human eye. The title speaks to DAL's continual interest in transformation and evolution.