Rebecca Dautremer
“Pandora’s Box” features the art of Jean Pierre Arboleda, Anne Bachelier, Bill Carman, Colin and Sas Christian, Dorian Vallejo, Jennybird Alcantara, Jessica Joslin, Kirk Reinert, Lin Esser, Marie Larkin, Nicoletta Ceccoli, Ray Caesar, Rebecca Dautremer, Stan Manoukian, William Basso, Kathie Olivas, and Yoko d’Hobachie. The artists of “Pandora’s Box” manifest their own characters within their own unique universe.
AFA Gallery of SoHo is pleased to present “Pandora’s Box”, an exhibition of new, original works by an international group of established artists. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, December 12th from 6pm to 9pm. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP requested. The exhibition will be on view December 3rd through December 20th in its entirety and thereafter, unsold works will remain on exhibition through January 31st, 2016. “Pandora’s Box”, curated by AFA Gallery owner Heidi Leigh, consists of both 2D and 3D works created by a roster of critically acclaimed artists. The collection is inspired by the ongoing, internationally recognized and sold out museum exhibition “Monsters and Misfits” that debuted in Takayawa, Japan in 2011.
Each artist participating in “Pandora’s Box” shapes their own unique and often macabre universe. Female power figures, lively skeletal beings, psychedelic cephalopods, genteel monsters, and apocalyptic babies are just a few of the denizens teetering between light and dark in this collection of work. The representation of this struggle is extreme, yet perfectly analogous with real-life conflicts. Seductive fantastical imagery is unexpectedly met with unnerving self-reflection.
Innocence and maturity, and pure and evil are rarely two separate things, but rather an intertwined force that tirelessly searches for perfect balance- which of course, can never be met. This inability to maintain moral equilibrium promises free agency- the ability to choose. Whether influenced by inherited traits, environmental circumstance, or crippling self doubt, the players of “Pandora’s Box” embody various shades of good and bad.
Underwritten by AFA Gallery.
The word "escapism" can have a negative meaning, suggesting that escapists are unhappy and unable to connect with the world around them. It sounds like a surreal concept, but in our every day lives, on social media for example, we find ways to divert from reality. 
One could say that Surrealism as a movement is a way for artists to seek distraction from the mundane and engage in fantasy. On his current exhibition at
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