Ames Yavuz is pleased to present a gesture, a room, a memory, a group exhibition featuring Shane Keisuke Berkery, Mark Maurangi Carrol, Chen Ching-Yuan, Gus Monday, Alvin Ong and Tom Polo.
A gesture, a room, a memory is a conversation between contemporary painters as they contemplate the domestic, the everyday, and the small epiphanies of the moments in-between. Scenes which at first seem at perfectly mundane are re-examined to reveal diaristic moments of desire, reflections on identity and self, and the intrusive thoughts that enter the daily interiors we inhabit. The subtle pleasures and vagaries of the day-to-day are brought to the fore with tenderness, reverence, and a sense of inevitability, crafting a tapestry of experiences which are at once deeply personal and universal.
Shane Keisuke Berkery (b. 1992, Japan/Ireland) works are deeply connected with memory and recollection. Commencing with photography, which marks a moment in life, Berkery revisits past events during the image selection process, calling forth new details, ideas and connections: “I think of my paintings as existing at the intersection of our internal and external worlds. I explore the blurred boundaries between reality and imagination, and the crucial role memory plays in shaping our conscious experiences. Through painting, I meditate on the internal dialogues, nebulous images and affects that relentlessly race through my mind.”
In his latest works, Caravaggio’s Hand and A Letter from Diego, Berkery draws on his visits to The National Gallery and the Wallace Collection, London (where the artist is currently based) to engage with the lineage of painting as a medium, placing his works conversation with its history, and meditating on how technologies of different eras shape not only the creation of art but also its perception and persistence in our minds.
Berkery has exhibited at institutions such as the National Gallery of Ireland, Saatchi Gallery (London, UK), and the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art (Wisconsin, USA).
Mark Maurangi Carrol is a First Nations Sydney-based artist (b. 1995) whose works explore personal histories and cultural memory. His works uncover universal subjects of desire, loneliness and identity, often drawing inspiration from childhood experiences in the Cook Islands and Australia. Beginning on the reverse side, Carrol bleeds industrial oil enamels through the loom state linen as a tribute to his printmaking training and a continuation of traditional Cook Islander practices of Tīvaevae, Pāreu and Tapa. He explores the intersection between the philosophical concept of hauntology, text and the found word and the representation of the human figure in painting. Hauntology, as interpreted by Carrol, reflects his own interests and examines how the past continues to shape our present experiences. Through his paintings, he encourages viewers to confront their own personal ghosts and contemplate their individual experiences. Carrol presents three new works titled oatu ra tenu au ka aere atu (I will follow soon), great possessions (ōna), and half return (January).
Carrol was the 2023 recipient of the 25th annual Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, resulting in a three-month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France. He was also a finalist of the 2023 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize. Carrol holds a BFA from the National Art School, Sydney, Australia.
Chen Ching-Yuan (b. 1984, Taiwan) captures the subtle sensibility that weaves through literature, mythology, and history in different cultural contexts. The artist’s unique compositions coalesce into a constellation of images where the absence of the temporal element and the fragmentation of meaning elicit unexpected narrative parallels between the artist’s imaginary worlds and the essence of humanity.
Cocooned in a romanticist ambience, Chen’s work is built on a sense of déjà vu that enshrouds mystifyingly surrealist narratives that appear at first glance pregnant with fixed and careful connotations. An overflow of subtle and fragmented symbols pervades his painting, where sensory experiences are reconstructed with plausible, fleeting narrative clues. His intricate palette and loose compositions collapse connections between each work, turning every piece into a fable tinged with the artist’s profound consciousness.
Chen received his MFA in 2013 from the School of Fine Arts of the Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan. He has exhibited across Taiwan, South Korea, France, Australia, Brazil, and the UK.
Gus Monday (b. 2000, UK) meticulously constructs visual narratives within spaces using coded symbols offering a blend of observational and autobiographical elements. These spaces serve as dynamic platforms, revealing insights into our contemporary everyday, societal dynamics and human experiences. A keen observer, Monday unveils the social codes embedded in space with a sharp eye, revealing how individuals interact with their surroundings. In his two new works, Monday depicts the Pitti Palace, Florence and the Timothy Taylor Gallery, London with a surreal twist, capturing a sense of alienation and coldness. Monday’s approach embodies that of a draughtsman guiding viewers through a spectrum of reflections and exploring themes that traverse the dichotomy from utopia to dystopia. By presenting societal issues and observations, these spaces become catalysts for critical dialogue, urging viewers to contemplate the intricacies of the environments constructed.
Monday holds a MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, UK and a BA from the City and Guilds of London Art School. He has been nominated and shortlisted for the The HARI Art Prize (2023) and the New Blood Emerging Artist Prize (2023).
Alvin Ong’s (b. 1988, Singapore) paintings playfully capture quotidian moments of our contemporary world in surreal bodily compositions, playfully combining diverse visual vocabularies. Through vignettes of everyday life, the vocabulary of the mundane is transformed into a site of spectacle, a cabinet of curiosities in which audiences are implicated as flaneur and voyeur. In juxtaposing the eccentric against the typical, and the pathological next to the normative, Ong lays bare the multiple prisms of existence around and within us—complexities of attachment, belonging, desire, and distance. Ong presents a new work titled Roots, continuing his tender explorations of desire, care, homesickness and sensuality.
Ong is a graduate of the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, UK (2016) and the Royal College of Art, London, UK (2018). His works are collected by the Sunpride Foundation (Hong Kong), Peranakan Museum (Singapore), UOB Collection (Singapore), ILHAM Gallery (Malaysia), X Museum (China), Fosun Foundation (China), the Ingram Collection (UK), and the Victoria & Albert Museum, Print Collection (London, UK); and in numerous private collections worldwide.
Tom Polo (b. 1985) uses painting to explore how conversation, gesture and exchange are embodied acts of portraiture. Incorporating text and figurative elements, his works draw upon acute personal observations, absurdist encounters and imagined personas. An ongoing interest across his practice is the emotional and performative relationships between people and the social and psychological spaces they occupy. Working between abstraction and figuration, his vibrant paintings blur boundaries between the self and others, to mask and unveil the complexities of our inner worlds. Drawing upon acute observation, social encounters and personal histories, Polo’s practice records the emotional and performative relationships between people within social, theatrical and psychological space.
Polo holds a BFA and MFA from the University of New South Wales, Sydney (Australia). He has exhibited extensively across Australia, at institutions such as the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, amongst others. Polo’s works are in numerous public and private collections, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Artbank, Australia; and the Joyce Nissan Collection, Melbourne, Australia.