AndrewShire Gallery is pleased to present Mind Game, a group exhibition by artists Hei Myung C. Hyun, Yoshio Ikezaki, Scott Katano, Franklyn Liegel, Jin Yong Lee, Kaoru Mansour, and Joseph Piasentin who utilize assemblage, collage, painting, and sculpture to represent a range of topics and shared interests.

Hei Myung C. Hyun paints one of her most treasured places located off the south eastern coast of Korea. Her Hado paintings, rendered in acrylic using a watercolor technique, are surfaced with tiny glass beads. They depict this much loved spot on Jeju Island where fresh water lakes and rivers meet the salty sea. In the Korean language, Hado has many meanings including island, region, and island in the sea.

Yoshio Ikezaki has for over thirty years been making complicated paper sculptures that transcend the limits of both abstraction and representation. His multi-layered works, using Washi paper made from Kozo fibers, often exceed several hundred sheets. By connecting the heroic determination of being human to time and space, Ikezaki extracts deep mystical beauty from these paper fibers.

Scott Katano makes rich multi-colored works that often have sculptural ingredients. In his current art practice, Katano plays with questions that interest him: Where do ideas come from, how do they develop, and in what form are they expressed? This gesture signals greater questions that highlight the uncertainty found at each crossroad of a single lifetime.

Franklyn Liegel combines found material, painting, collage, and even sewing into compositions filled with delicate details resembling miniature geographical sites seen from above. At first glance, one may see a small cityscape with buildings, or meandering roadways and blurbs of color that look like pools. But on closer inspection, the work becomes thoroughly abstracted and more poetic.

Jin Yong Lee produces work that condenses notions of time to reveal its capricious fleeting nature. The antique and vintage items he has collected are recontextualized with present-day things to reflect on the social order and traditions of the past while offering a more contemporary reading of historical artifacts.

Kaoru Mansour arranges various found materials—string, pins, vinyl letters, et cetera—on assorted organic gourds that look like small planets. The gourds, which help form the artist’s ideas by balancing her experience with new self discoveries, function as sculpture once they are accented with iridescent and metallic acrylic colors and mounted on a wall.

Joseph Piasentin has developed a way of working with paint, pastel, graphite and other mediums that not only draws attention to his process, but also engages the viewer in a spatial event that offers continuation and potential for something new. When viewing Piasentin’s art, one can sense the artist being lost in meditative thought—his absorption in progress—on the verge of discovery.