FRIENDS & FAAMILY
Miranda Byk
Miranda Byk (b. 1994, Ventura, CA, USA) is a painter who studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (BFA, 2017). In her work, she creates dream-like vignettes that are haunting and immersive in nature, embodying a liminal space. Her practice explores deep personal narratives, including her dreams, traumas, and anxieties. Byk often includes references from her childhood, seeking inspiration from her familial relationships and ideas inherited from childhood. Her work heavily examines nature, using plants, dew drops, and animals as common motifs and explores themes such as the passage of time, the cycle of life, and the ephemerality of existence.
In 2022, Byk had her solo debut Mother, May I? at Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles. She has had numerous group exhibitions at Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles (2023, 2022, 2021); K11 Musea, WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong (2022); Carlye Packer, Palm Springs (2022); The Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Los Angeles (2022); Brothers Marshall Community Center, Malibu (2022); Make Room, Los Angeles (2021); As It Stands, Los Angeles (2021); Layer Studios, Oakland (2017); and Book and Job Gallery, San Francisco (2014).
Veronica Fernandez
Veronica “Ronnie” Fernandez (b. 1998, Norfolk, VA, USA) studied at The School of Visual Arts in New York City (BFA, 2022). Her large-scale oil on canvas paintings and sculptural installations are informed by the artist’s past experiences, familial struggles, and inherited trauma. Throughout the artmaking process, which includes poetrywriting, sketching, and perusing old family photographs for reference, Fernandez taps into childhood memories and the feelings difficult life experiences emit. Her work invites viewers into psychological worlds where these repressed memories often emerge. Her dirty brushstrokes and the thick application of oil paint directly from the tube result in textured canvases where the artist’s physical presence is made visible.
Tidawhitney Lek
Tidawhitney Lek (b. 1992, Long Beach, CA, USA) studied drawing and painting at Cal State University, Long Beach (BFA, 2017), where she received the Linda A. Day Endowed Student Award, the Fine Art Affiliate Scholarship, the Johanna & Richard Baker Endowed Award, and two nominations from the Yale Norfolk program (2015; 2016). Through her work, Lek explores the experiences of diasporic Asians, herself being a first-generation Cambodian-American. Her large-scale paintings are colorful yet somber, often referencing war, trauma, and displacement. The work also presents elements of Southeast-Asian culture through mundane domestic objects and representations of rituals. Using a variety of materials such as pastel, acrylic, and oil paints, Lek plays with perspective and narrative, challenging the medium of painting with the unique pictorial spaces she creates.
Lek has had solo exhibitions at the Armory, New York (2022); Taymour Grahne Projects, London (2022); Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles (2022); and Luna Anaïs Gallery, Los Angeles (2021). She has participated in group exhibitions at Ben and Brown Fine Arts, London (2022); Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach (2022); and Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, New York, Los Angeles (2022), to name a few. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the ICA Miami. Her work has been published in Contemporary Art Review, Los Angeles, Artillery, and Juxtapoz.
Brian Longe
Brian Longe (b. 1945, San Francisco, CA, USA) studied fine arts at Cal State University, Fullerton (BFA, 1969; MA, 1971) and UC Irvine (MFA, 1973) during the golden age of California conceptualism and the Light and Space School. He studied under Robert Irwin, Craig Kaufman, Tony deLap, and alongside students Chris Burden, Jay McCafferty, Nancy Buchanan, and Barbara T. Smith. Growing up in California, Longe’s abstracted, large-scale paintings are undoubtedly informed by the space and physical environments of his surroundings.
Longe has had solo exhibitions at Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco (2017); IPOMAL Galerie, Landgraf (1991); Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco (1986, 1983); and Klein Gallery, Chicago (1984, 1983), to name a few. He has had group exhibitions at One Gee in Fog, Geneva (2016); San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco (1987); The Oakland Museum, Oakland (1975); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (1972); and Newspace, Newport Beach (1974), to name a few. Longe was awarded the Pollock/Krasner Foundation’s Individual Artist’s Grant (1992) and the National Endowment for the Arts’s Individual Artist’s Grant (1983). His work has been featured in Artweek, Artforum, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times, amongst others.
Javier Ramirez
Javier Ramirez (b. 1982, Los Angeles, CA, USA) studied at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design (BFA, 2012). His paintings are composed of acrylic, oil, pencil, airbrush, and solid markers while his sculptures are composed of plaster, clay, metal, and found materials from his neighborhood. His work examines his identity, particularly his experiences living in an immigrant home. Ramirez also references the iconography and the vernacular culture of the San Fernando Valley’s suburban landscape. The imagery of his paintings and sculptures evoke lighthearted, poignant, and tender memories of family, friends, and pets
Ramirez has participated in numerous group exhibitions at Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles (2022); The Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Los Angeles (2022); Franchise, Los Angeles (2022); Gallery Anthony, Chicago (2022); TBN Projects, Los Angeles (2022); Murmurs, Los Angeles (2021); and the Consulate General of Mexico for Pacific Standard Time, Los Angeles (2017). He had his first solo exhibition at Smoke the Moon, Santa Fe (2021) and has been featured in LA Taco.
Sensie
Sensie “Sensational Bobbi” (b. 1987, Houston, Texas, USA) is a multidisciplinary artist working in animation, drawing, painting, performance, and design. At a young age, Sensie identified as an “observer,” turning to drawing as a creative outlet. At the age of twelve, she began experimenting with charcoal and graphite. In her work she pulls from both her imagination and surroundings, creating highly expressive and provocative images of monsters, machines, family, and her Houston neighborhood. In recent years, she transitioned from drawing to photography, animation, and oil painting. Sensie uses cartoons as a medium for storytelling, developing characters and narratives inspired by personal experiences and the women around her.
Sensie had her solo debut The Fallen Woman at Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles (2022). Her work was featured in a group exhibition at The Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, Los Angeles (2022).
Aryo Toh Djojo
Aryo Toh Djojo (b. 1984, Glendale, CA, USA) studied at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design (BFA, 2017). Toh Djojo applies an airbrushing technique to create his paintings, using the fundamentals of design as an important aspect of his artistic practice. He cites Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Vija Clemens, Ed Ruscha, and John Baldessari as influences. Many of his canvases feature unique subject matter such as UFOs and scenes from California’s landscapes, resulting in a blurred sense of reality. In fact, most of the work is set in Los Angeles and is influenced by the city’s airbrush graffiti, car, and skateboarding cultures.
Augustina Wang
Augustina Wang (b. 1999, New York, NY, USA) was formally trained in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA, 2022). Through her practice, Wang explores her historically subjugated identity as an Asian femme and first-generation Chinese-American woman. Through strategies such as worldbuilding, roleplaying power, and creating lore, Wang’s paintings are mechanisms for healing both self-inflicted and generational trauma. Wang cites her childhood self as inspiration; as a young girl, she perused roleplaying blogs, fanfiction forums, and video game sites to practice agency and participate in community in a world where both things were lacking
Kayla Witt
Kayla Witt (b. 1994, Calgary, AB, Canada) works predominantly with painting as well as sculpture, installation, and video. She completed her studies at OCAD University (BFA, 2016) and the University of Waterloo (MFA, 2020). Her work explores contemporary anxieties surrounding place and space, both domestic and urban. She is interested in the socio-political and cultural notions of home, the nefarious side of commodified wellness, and the revolving door of psychic healers in Los Angeles. Her artistic process includes the redrafting of her own photographs, as well as found images from the Internet, magazines, GoogleMaps, and texts. With these references, she creates fantastical paintings which are at times unsettling. With an awareness of the paradox of Pop sensibility, she explores and combines the underlying dark side of place and space with a wry humor that takes the viewer below the surface of the seemingly obvious. As details register and accumulate, a tension becomes apparent.
Shingo Yamazaki
Shingo Yamazaki (b. 1985, Honolulu, Hawai’i, USA) specialized in painting at the University of Hawai’i (BFA, 2014). As a second-generation American artist of Japanese and Korean descent, Yamazaki’s work addresses the complexities of cultural hybridity, identity, and the meaning of home. Through his paintings he navigates having shallow personal connections to a place while being a part of communities with deep ancestral heritages. He draws upon a mixture of cultures, iconographies, and imagery from his upbringing in Hawai’i to his recent migration to Los Angeles. His artistic practice oscillates between the real and the imagery, creating narratives that explore themes such as generational trauma, anxiety, and invisibility