SENSING THE UNSPOKEN
Raffaella Descalzi
Hidenori Ishii
Yen-Chao Lin
Juan Miguel Marin
Roberto Rivadeneira
March 9 - April 20, 2024
Organized in collaboration with +ARTE GALLERY (Quito, Ecuador)
TIAN Contemporain is pleased to present its inaugural group show, Sensing the Unspoken, featuring the works of Raffaella Descalzi (Ecuador), Hidenori Ishii (USA), Yen-Chao Lin (Canada and Taiwan), Juan Miguel Marin (USA), and Roberto Rivadeneira (Ecuador and Germany). Organized in collaboration with +ARTE Gallery (Quito, Ecuador), this group exhibition focuses on the theme of memory and connection as a point of departure to navigate the interrelationships between men and their social and natural environment. Consisting of paintings, drawings, and sculptures, this exhibition offers a microscopic view of our immediate surroundings to highlight one's emotional attachment to space, through all that which is quiet, subtle and, often unspoken.
Through a predominantly abstract and conceptual lens, the works assembled in this exhibition hint at the potential of nature to unravel human emotional responses. This is evoked in the sculptural works of Descalzi and Lin, who share a similarity in their tactile and process-oriented approach. As Descalzi examines the theme of nature and flora as a source of nostalgia, Lin does so to question notions of impermanence and ephemerality. These explorations of nature continue with the abstract works of Rivadeneira and Ishii, both inspired by landscape as a visual genre to re-imagine colour and space. In doing so, their work offers a contemplative environment that exhibits visceral experiences of interdependence and fullness. Lastly, Marin’s concept-driven practice brings the viewer into an atmosphere of tranquility through his minimalist drawings, distilled from the unconscious, to study notions of harmony and balance. By bringing together this group of international artists working in both painting and sculpture, this exhibition presents an opportunity to reflect transnationally on the construction of memory from one’s experience of and/or from nature, as means to feel and remember.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Raffaella Descalzi (b. 1990, Ecuador) is a visual artist based in Ecuador. She completed her studies in Contemporary Art at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador (2014) and her master’s degree in Artistic Production at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain (2016). Her multidisciplinary practice interweaves thematic threads of memory and matter, alchemy and transformation, ephemerality and resistance, and notions of decay and destruction. She has had solo exhibitions at the Centro Cultural Metropolitano (Quito), Más Arte (Quito), and group exhibitions at MUNA (Quito), CAC (Quito), PINTA Miami, Museo de América (Madrid), Sala de pintores (Cáceres), among others.
Hidenori Ishii (b. 1978, Japan) is a painter based in Long Island City, New York. He is a graduate of the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Joan Mitchell MFA Fellowship Nominee. His work investigates the paradoxical dichotomy of civilization and nature through the interdependence which lies in between. He has exhibited previously at Erin Cluley Gallery (Dallas), LES Printshop (New York), and Park Place Gallery (Brooklyn).
Yen-Chao Lin (b. 1983, Taiwan) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal, Canada. She obtained her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Concordia University. Through means of intuitive play, collaboration, scavenging and collecting, Lin’s tactile and multidisciplinary practice incorporates various craft techniques, such as copper enamelling, ceramic, textile, and gilding, to unravel social relationships and histories tied to objects. Lin's works have been shown at the MAC (MTL), Art Metropole (TO), and Hong-gah Museum (Taipei), among others.
Juan Miguel Marin (b. 1980, Ecuador) is an Ecuadorian multidisciplinary artist, based in Brooklyn, NY. Marin’s art practice is an exploration of the relationship between memory, sound, and emotion. Marin's work has been performed, installed and exhibited in both cultural and public spaces in New York City, San Francisco, Milan, Amsterdam, Quito, Lima, Buenos Aires, Cannes, and San José, Costa Rica.
Roberto Rivadeneira (b. 1991, Ecuador) is a muralist and visual artist based in Berlin, Germany. After studying design in Sydney, Australia, Rivadeneira’s initial graphic work has slowly transformed into an abstract interpretation in which the artist studies the relationship between abstraction and quotidian elements of our daily lives. He has previously exhibited at Más Arte Galeria (Quito), A7MA Gallery (Sao Paulo), and Volume Gallery (Berlin), among others.
+ ARTE gallery is a space for the exhibition, promotion and commercialization of art in Quito, Ecuador. It has been in operation since 2016 and specializes in exhibiting contemporary work, to promote the career of emerging and mid-career artists and encourage the local art scene.