Art Miami 2017. UNIX Gallery

UNIX Gallery is excited to announce its participation in Art Miami 2017 at booth A103, to be held at a new location One Herald Plaza in downtown Miami on Biscayne Bay from December 5 - December 10, 2017. The gallery is presenting a carefully curated show including new works by Peter Anton, Justin Bower, William Bradley, Desire Obtain Cherish, Ellen de Meijer, Wolfgang Gil, Yibai Liao, Eugenio Merino, C. Michael Norton, KwangHo Shin, and Llewellyn Xavier. Exhibiting paintings, sculpture, and innovative mixed media artwork UNIX Gallery commits to the highest standards of connoisseurship and professionalism within the evolving contemporary art market.

Best known for his series of oversized boxes chocolates and ice cream bars, Peter Anton puts an emphasis on confectionery products. Anton’s artistic style employs humor, scale, irony, and intensity to transform ordinary, common foods into pleasing and often seductive objects of desire. Moreover, the devil is in the details: Peter works different materials including wood, wax, wire, clay, fiberglass, acrylic, ceramic, and resins to make his work as luscious and realistic as possible.

Justin Bower, known for his anonymous portraits, uses his brushstrokes to give us an understanding of an extensive subconscious reaction to technology. The fragmentation of his subjects is a reflection of today’s generational influence from technology. He intends to identify this disjunction and offer a perspective of techno-saturation.

William Bradley’s work begins with abstract gestural watercolors, which are then manipulated into a calculated arrangement. These resolved designs are then repainted in oil on canvas. His work can be described as “abstract art about abstract art” with an underlying concept that explores the communicative disconnect between artist and viewer that is specific to the pure abstract language. Bradley constructs a language of references or quotes from mostly Abstract Expressionists including Motherwell, Still, Gottlieb, De Kooning, while maintaining his own distinctive approach.

Extending a new body of work that features large-scale paintings and photography — a significant departure for the object-oriented artist — Los Angeles based artist Desire Obtain Cherish challenges the decision-making process humans undergo while chasing the elusive state of happiness. Whether happiness is understood through finances, beauty, sex, or intelligence, Desire Obtain Cherish, is fascinated with the pursuit and decisions involved in such a journey.

Ellen de Meijer’s paintings tend to give the viewer a unique feeling of sympathetic tension and pathos, simultaneously. Her portraits show figures of successful repute, yet vulnerable with empty gazes. Ellen de Meijer’s figures are armed with digital gadgets such as Google Glasses or iPhones, which refer to our zeitgeist of access to information and power. This proliferation of technology becomes a point of dependency while our human instincts docilely move to the background.

Wolfgang Gil explores sound as a plastic medium, crafting sounds that can be expanded, compressed, and twisted; filling, narrowing, dividing, coloring, saturating, and emptying the space of listening.The artist’s sculptural approach to sound is predominantly founded on the humans’ natural ability to interpret the physical properties of a space, such as height, width, and depth, through the act of hearing. For example, Aural Fields One is both a sculpture and a generative sound installation. Visually, the piece is a black, monolithic sculpture hung against the wall. Its front-facing side is made of a sonically transparent yet visually opaque black fabric — tightly stretched — which covers a multi-channel speaker system hosted inside the sculpture, pointing outwards.

Yibai Liao creates hand-welded stainless steel sculptures that continuously question today’s skewed concept of value by depicting China’s rags-to-riches story of material obsession. The oversized ostentatious sculptures of watches, rings, handbags, and high heel shoes confront the multitudes of popular brands and logos and their overwhelming presence in today’s society. The artist’s works illustrate the challenges he faced during childhood ­ and his paralleled fascination with American culture. The work examines this increasing obsession with opulence and luxury goods while discrediting and glorifying it simultaneously.

Eugenio Merino is known for his controversial hyperrealist sculptures – including dictators, politicians, artists, and other institutionalized figureheads – tackling themes of politics, religion, and socioeconomic standards with the aim of questioning these systemic, supposed truths. Merino uses irony, metaphor, and satire to make his art a space for the exchange of dialogue, free thought, and finding beauty in the germination of ideas and human agency.

C. Michael Norton’s paintings thrive on a balance between vibrancy and neutrality; between the organic and the geometric. The works begin as bare linen canvas taped to the floor to collect random markings picked up from works in progress. Relying then upon his intuitive reactions to what has been collected, Norton masterfully utilizes a number of methods of paint application to create energetic and surprising compositions.

Evoking themes of Abstract Expressionism, Korean artist KwangHo Shin employs intense and vibrant colors to depict the individualistic expression of emotion and a sense of self. He applies charcoal and oils in thick brushstrokes to distort and exaggerate the subject’s facial features. His technique confronts the viewer with an emotional impact, affecting our understanding of the human form. Whether it is the external pose of the subject or the unique color combinations, abstraction or layered texture, the portraiture of KwangHo Shin is able to document the psychological changes and clashes that arise in us all.

Renowned for using brilliant colors to reflect the light and life of the Caribbean, Llewellyn Xavier’s art serves a multiplicity of functions; philosophical as well as aesthetic. Drawing inspiration from contemporaries of American Abstract Expressionism, Xavier’s bold daring vision and grandiose gestures manifest in a boundless energy of sheer force of purpose and power. His artwork is free of restrain, creating a pure vision that is both relevant and immediate.

SHOW HOURS | DECEMBER 5

FIRST VIEW: 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
VIP Preview: 5:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

SHOW HOURS | DECEMBER 6-9

General Admission: 11:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

SHOW HOURS | DECEMBER 10

General Admission: 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.