Peter Chan’s paintings focus on the quiet moments — mediation; prayer; a solitary bath. We encounter his characters immersed in a silence that’s almost palpable. Chan is originally from Hong Kong and currently based in Toronto. Religious motifs find their way into his work often. In Green Ecstasy, an alien-green nun tilts her head back in a trance-like state that evokes the near-orgasmic religious fervor of Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. In the rest of Chan’s “Ecstasy” series, contemporary-looking individuals seem to be in the grips of similar encounters with the divine. Coming up, Chan has work in Hashimoto Contemporary’s “Moleskine IV” show in San Francisco and in Galerie Youn’s booth at Love Fair Toronto, both happening this month.
Orion Martin applies a startling ability to play with textures, shifting planes, and focus to an unexpected assortment of objects and characters. His shifting between mediums adds to the guessing game of looking at a particular piece and attempting to dissect each element’s nature. He's often been linked to the representational artists under the Chicago Imagists moniker.
Juanjo Surace’s expertise in animation and character design comes through the murals he crafts on walls across the globe. His surreal work often confronts themes from our own reality, from death and solitude to technology and consumption. The above work, "The Trip," was painted over 14 days in Vinaròs.
Los Angeles painter