Daniel Arsham explores fictional archaeology and the ways in which iconic objects change and move through time and collective memory. The artist is known for prospected discoveries of objects from pop and tech culture, and has recently turned his focus to statues of classical antiquity. Using scans and molds from original works, Arsham implements geological materials to recreate these seminal forms, and examines our perception of works of art that have eclipsed virtuosity toward archetypal familiarity. Based part within historical record and part in interpretation, Arsham inserts areas of decay within the figures. Crystals grow in existing cracks, and places where he imagines that thousands of years will take its toll. This use of archeological materials suggests an undefined future burial of our cultural artifacts, and subsequent exposure to millennia of natural events. Could art objects of antiquity still be moving towards some future completion?

The work of NY-based artist Kadar Brock is driven by a commitment to theory and a ritual of creation and erasure. Often working on multiple canvases at once - many over months or years - Brock creates spirited abstractions that are born from an arduous process of painting, scraping, priming, sanding, and painting again. In order to realize a fully executed work out of layers of ghosted impressions, the artist is committed to creating detailed compositions at each step before taking the piece back through its genealogy time and time again - until there is nothing left to do. In some cases, parts of the canvas are worn so thin that the material hangs from the stretchers, revealing cuts and burnishes through a stratum of color and texture. In this sense, each painting presents its own creation; the mental, emotional and physical charge of the process of painting becomes its subject.

Greg Fadell is an artist who begins each body of work with an existential question about human nature, history, and physicality. He unpacks widely held beliefs about aesthetics and process, considering each piece created as living evidence that there are infinite perspectives through which it can be read. His Cave Paintings are a continuation of works drawn from art historical texts, where the artist uses written records as a material of free agency. In flipping through a book of figurative sculptures, Fadell was struck by the quality of the background imagery and how it was reproduced on each page: “I was wishing ‘nothing’ was present in each rectangle except for the background and shadows.” A cross between the Caves of Lascaux and Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’, he creates rudimentary archetypes by painting over the images in white. Reconsidered, the figures project their own truth, with “Nothing” as the subject.

Through painting, collage, and installation, Simphiwe Ndzube assembles a subjective account of a post-apartheid South African experience from a mythological perspective. His figures embody elements of beauty and hardship, presenting those who have been rejected, disfigured and discarded after being exploited for their labor. They find reprieve by dressing in the fashions of the Swenkas, or working-class Zulu men. Ndzube engages found objects - construction site material, discarded clothing, and other castaways - as items of cultural exchange that point to a highly interconnected global economy where we are all responsible for pervasive abuse around the world. To Ndzube, it is crucial that his work be relevant to people from communities like his own, reflecting the journeys that so many have attempted to make despite inheriting conditions meant to keep them from a better life. His tableaux are cathartic and optimistic, using surrealism to forge a future worth dreaming about.

The work of José Parlá is driven by experimental abstraction and urban realism. A rarity in the contemporary art world, Parlá skillfully engages the rich history of painting while infusing elements of ephemerality and the life cycle of cities. Built with countless layers of texture, writing, acrylic, plaster and paper collage, his works communicate the passage of time within city neighborhoods where posters, weather, construction and demolition leave their impressions steadily over time. The calligraphic script that has become an identifying feature evolved out of his involvement in NY underground writing culture and exposure to the varied scripts he encountered during travels to the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. In a wider sense, his abstractions are those of memory and history, composed of the marks we leave behind. Parlá’s ongoing practice highlights economic, social and environmental issues in cities that have been pivotal in his life, with titles that sway between states of mind and physical place.

Multimedia artist Rachel Rossin is a self-taught coder and programmer who works in painting, installation and virtual reality. In merging traditional techniques with new technologies, she examines the 'slippage between the real and the digital', or embodied and perceptual space. Combining disparate processes in her Hologram Combines strengthens the nature of each; the physicality of paint intensified by ephemeral holographic light. By blending the nuances of real life with those of the avatar, she creates a narrative that is neither physical nor virtual - but an amalgamation of the two - giving the viewer a glimpse of our slow fade into an increasingly virtual world. An early adopter of VR, Rossin welcomes this inevitable transition in both art and human existence: “The gimmick within the work reveals something true about how simple we are; how reality is so frail and simple. A lot of the delight I have with questions surrounding AI involves that.”

Investigating the relationship between color, form, surface and change, Phillip K. Smith's Portals are part of his ongoing series of light works. Each Portal is a highly specific three-dimensional canvas that he paints with light, revealing its slow shift over time. Color transitions are meticulously chosen, and the piece seems almost to recede into itself before slowly shifting its movement outwards. This quiet motion evokes a sense of breath, inspiring calm and a meditative experience within the viewer. By day, the colors balance with sunlight, creating pastel light and softer shadow relationships, while at night, colors saturate and their glow surrounds the piece. Smith hopes that his viewer is inspired to connect with the work, spending a few moments in its glow. “I want to create work that allows people to slow down and really experience the thing that’s in front of them, which often we don’t have the opportunity to do in our everyday lives.”

Kennedy Yanko is a Brooklyn-based artist creating sculpture through the union of found industrial objects and paint skins. Repurposed from salvage yards and demolition sites around New York, the scrap metal pieces that are the foundation of her work are modified following the intrinsic qualities and histories of the material. Yanko responds to incidences of labels, rust, and deterioration as if she had incited them herself, guided by the circumstances inherent to each material until she finds resolve. The paint skins she creates have been perfected over years, and each drapes within its metal structure in a way that softens and anatomizes the work, creating lyrical combinations with divergent tactilities. For Yanko, the process of exploring abstraction has been a journey of uncovering free agency and intuition, and breaking free of prescribed narrow perspectives: “Oftentimes, we let our narratives paralyze us and close ourselves off to opportunities for expansion and evolution.”