David Von Bahr’s upcoming exhibition, “Vitamins 4 your Soul,” marks the evolution of his signature abstract organic style, aiming to present a collection that offers a more explicit glimpse into characters and figurative references within each composition. Through the use of stylized smiling faces and striking visual contrasts, Von Bahr employs an ironic metaphor, reflecting on the current state of the contemporary art market and exploring the vast possibilities within the vocabulary of abstraction.

Central to Von Bahr’s artistic process is his self-described “dance” with the canvas, enabled by its sheer size, which allows him to move around freely and engage fully with the creation process. This emphasis on movement extends beyond mere physicality; it is reflected in his choice of mediums and motifs as well. Von Bahr’s confrontational style strikes a balance between control and uninhibited expression, resulting in works that possess both boundary and restraint and a sense of release.

Inspired by hyper-magnified interpretations of everyday objects and figures, each of Von Bahr’s work is meticulously crafted in his studio in southern Stockholm. Eschewing drafts or outlines in favor of improvisation and instinct, his process is characterized by bluntness and a direct approach to creation. In transcending traditional art norms, Von Bahr’s art celebrates raw emotions and vivid storytelling, rooted in the cultural milieu of Stockholm. His canvases serve as silent witnesses to his life’s tales, capturing them through audacious fusion of colors and patterns. Employing an automatic, random intuitive approach, Von Bahr’s paintings are built upon a leitmotif that embodies spontaneity and authenticity.

David Von Bahr, born in 1992 in Sweden, graduated from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts & Design in 2019. He currently resides and works in Stockholm, where his work has been showcased in galleries worldwide, including Gallery Steinsland Berliner, Public Gallery, Ojiri Gallery, Good Mother Gallery, Simulacra Gallery, Ruttkowski;68, and Omni Gallery.

Weiyang Gao’s new series embodies a journey through space-time, where ethereality meets order, expressing our desire for liberty within imposed frameworks. Each piece is an adventure, capturing universal rhythms and human emotions. The deliberate placement of hand-painted patterns against cosmic flows illustrates his search for balance between freedom and societal constraints. Color is his medium for conveying the universe’s vibrancy, quantum field’s possibilities, and the depths of his feelings. In ‘The Fire Is Burning in my Heart’ every canvas invites viewers to contemplate their role in the grand expanse of the cosmos, simultaneously significant and minute. His aim is to inspire awe and introspection, connecting the mystical with the everyday, and the fleeting with the everlasting. Wei’s paintings blur the categories of figuration and abstraction. During his creating process, he reduces the human figure into its most basic forms, then repeats the figure over and over again until the individual is lost in a collective pattern. He uses this visual language to bring his insight into the many ways people have used and abused culture and history to create barriers and divisions within the broader spectrum of humanity. Within his paintings, executed with a mix of inks, acrylic and oil, he addresses the feelings of being oppressed by those barriers and aims to find a place that transcends culture and history; he builds imagery of sacred spaces, devoid of specific religious or spiritual demarcations, in order to allow all audiences a place for spiritual and meditative contemplation. He is creating a new system of symbolism within his works in effort to reconnect his audience with the ineffable source of all spirituality, outside of specific cultural or temporal paradigms. Weiyang Gao (b.1993) is a Chinese artist based in New York City. Wei received his BFA in 2018 from Boston University and his MFA in painting and drawing in 2021 from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has shown at Visionary Project in New York, Mu Gallery, Research House of Asian Art, and FLXST, among others.

GR gallery is pleased to present “Kawaii…but painterly”, Takuya Yoshida first solo exhibition with the gallery and in New York City. Spreading around the whole space, the show will be comprised of fourteen new artworks on canvas in various sizes, almost entirely completed by the artist during his summer and autumn art residency in Connecticut and New Hampshire. Appositely conceived for the event, this new body of works expands Yoshida’s visual vocabulary with enhanced colors and symbols inspired by his experience in New England and deepen his discourse on the mythologization of everyday life and his reshaped interpretation of primitive art. Executed with the artist unique style, inspired by a nostalgic naïve aura and characterized by a vibrant and thick palette, these works are advancing a reflection on the importance of an emotional and poetical connection between people and nature, society and environment, especially critical in today’s circumstances.

Inspired by the idea of a cross-cultural exchange, the title refers to Japanese popular culture of cuteness, always vailed with hints of innocence and melancholy, now combined with a more westernized pictorial and perspective style, influenced by the myth of the Garden of Eden and the art movement of ‘Return to Order’.
Yoshida’s canvases convey a desire for peace and universal love; to keep this desire fresh, he strives to complete his paintings in one go before his emotions subside. However, in the process of making a painting he ends up overpainting dozens of times until he is satisfied. The creatures in his paintings may appear kawaii at first glance, but a closer look reveals distinctive textures and brushwork that evokes painters of the Ecole de Paris era. Regarding overpainting, Yoshida describes it as “an indispensable process for turning my ideas and expressions into universal paintings.” The motifs that appear on Yoshida’s canvases include creatures with a somewhat lonesome appearance, evenings, nights, and skulls. These motifs continually appear among rather strange and awkward likenesses of people who strive to be strong in the face of the indescribable feelings of suffering and decay they face. Yoshida’s unique artistic vision may be described as the expression of this not-so-lighthearted subject matter in a unique and interesting way. His paintings use non-realistic colors and creatures to express eternal themes that people must face, including the human-created boundaries of race, border, and gender, along with other boundaries such as Heaven and Hell. The world of Yoshida’s artistic vision, with its harmony of chaotic colors and compositions, is perhaps not an impossible alien world so much as a world of hope that can be realized. Confronting solitude in Hokkaido in Japan’s rural north, Yoshida overpaints day after day, imagining a peaceful new landscape on the other side of the canvas.