Aaron Elvis Jupin, Alli Conrad, Charlotte Hallberg, Ida Badal, Jen DeLuna, Ji Zou, Julia Kowalska, Marina Kappos, Nianxin Li, Peter Opheim, Ryota Watanabe, Samala Meza, Shingo Yamazaki, Tim Irani, Xingzi Gu, Zhongwen Hu and Zigsen Liu

The Hole is pleased to present Soft Focus, a group show curated by Jonathan Kee Bong Hoyt. The show looks at works with softer lines, gentler subjects, diaphanous palettes: in these works the artist’s focus isn’t on exactitude but on the feeling or essence of a scene.

Across the show, and especially in Marina Kappos’s Vibrating Woman, movements feel elongated: Xingzi Gu’s Night Hound, glides through fog, Aaron Elvis Jupin’s Night Bloom unfolds from a dewy haze, Julia Kowalska's protagonists laugh in slow motion and Nianxin Li's Gentle or Fierce gleams at snail's pace. Uniting the show is a welcome lack of rush: without need for immediate comprehension, there’s space for a feeling to take root.

Regarding resolution, the “focus” in the images is itself soft: achieved through the artists handling and understanding of paint, Jen De Luna's glossy portraits from found photographs fade wistfully, her brush marks bringing movement to stillness. The shapes of Samala Meza's abstracted figures read more like cells or flowers fading softly against dark backgrounds, while Xingzi Gu depicts the human form with a more Eastern approach, painting the aura, energy and chi of her subjects instead of the anatomy.

The sharp edges diffused, we see tender brushes in Charlotte Hallberg’s window-like shaped painting where warm yellow wiggles invite us closer. Similarly Peter Opheim’s Morning Flower is created by a thousand tiny brush strokes in shades of yellow and orange to hug us with glowing sunlight. In Shingo Yamzaki’s Bonfire we see a translucent floral arrangement with his grandmother peeking through the leaves, her hands carefully tending the plant cuttings. Ikebana translates to “giving life to flowers” and in this painting the source of light is the plant arrangement itself, giving life, through a cultural tradition passing on the light of past generations.

The focus on mood, energy and diffused light may give us a reprieve from hard edges and didactic forms, satisfying a longing for something dreamy, tender and inviting.