Summer of Lust

UNIX Gallery is pleased to present Summer Of Lust, a group show featuring works that invoke themes of love, lust, obsession, and consumption.

Through painting, sculpture, and mixed media, this exhibition reveals a dialogue that will channel viewers’ passions from the simplistic to sinful. Artists on view include Desire Obtain Cherish, Eugenio Merino, Alfredo Scaroina, Engels, and Zhuang Hong Yi.

Summer Of Lust opens with a public reception for the artists on June 3, 2016 from 6 – 8 PM.

Since his emergence as street artist in the early 2000s, Desire Obtain Cherish (DOC) has become known as pop sculptor working across a wide variety of different media and a combination of styles including street, pop, conceptual and appropriation art. His controversial artwork explores contemporary desires and obsessions with sex, gender, drugs, commerce, media and fame. His vibrant pieces expose society’s voracity and imitations, and questions commercial promises of fulfillment and happiness that end in dependency and obsession.

For Haitian-born abstract artist Engels, painterly elements are just as much an aesthetic choice as a vehicle for the creative process. He builds with wood, paper, and layers of paint, questioning the elemental notions of what is painting. “I believe in the spirit,” says the artist. “Sometimes I enter the work; we become one. I create as if from nothing, always listening to my senses. The process speaks to the poetry of my childhood, the survival strategies that Haitians use to get from one day to the next,” he explains. “The strict economy of line and texture, the use of everyday objects, and makeshift elegance recalls my grandmother’s home in Port-au-Prince, which against all odds had splendor.”

Spanish-born artist Eugenio Merino lives and works in Madrid. His work deals with matters such as politics, religion or society with the purpose of making us question the supposed truths of our lives. For this he will utilize humor, metaphor, and irony — anything to make art a space for reflection and exploration of the present human condition. Known for his more controversial sculptures such as For the Love of Go(l)d or Stairway to Heaven, Eugenio Merino works in different directions and mediums. Drawings, videos, objects and sculpture are all part of his oeuvre.

In his work, Alfredo Scaroina explores the power of the creative impetus, a dedication to process, and material exploration. His techniques both dictate and reveal the subject matter, as he uses different mediums and an array of reclaimed materials. Scaroina’s paintings influence the emotional and physiological perception of the individual from one culture to another, as well as the collective unconsciousness in the Jungian sense.

Zhuang Hong Yi can best be described as a Chinese, contemporary artist who has impressed audiences in different countries by his unique style in his many pieces of modern art. His works represent beauty, sophistication and a high level of perfection with a clear presence of Chinese influence represented in his use of colors, themes, shapes and materials that touch the heart. In his different pieces of art, of which several of his paintings can be considered 3-dimensional, he brings elements from his Chinese background together with Western impressionist elements which has resulted in an impressive and beautiful body of work.

Summer of Lust runs from June 3rd through June 18th, 2016 and the gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.