Hollis Taggart’s booth will highlight the work of four artists: Edward Holland, Dana James, Osamu Kobayashi, and Hayoon Jay Lee.

In keeping with the curatorial theme of Untitled Art 2024, our booth presents a transoceanic dialogue between these contemporary artists and explores the disparate sources of their abstraction as informed by their cultural backgrounds. Prefiguring by centuries the ascendency of abstraction in twentieth century Western art, artistic traditions of East Asia had long experimented with abstraction in the form of gestural brushstrokes or flung ink that resemble what emerged as Abstract Expressionist techniques. Though the integration and mutual influences of Western and Eastern concepts of abstraction from the mid-20th century onwards has rendered such binary divisions unnecessary, it is worth considering how abstraction has long been fundamental to East Asian artistic practice. In that vein, we bring together these four abstract artists who offer their own visions of abstraction. Korean-born artist Hayoon Jay Lee creates abstract sculptural works using rice, a nutritional staple and building block of civilizations as well as a marker of socioeconomic differences. Possessing a remarkable, almost obsessive craftsmanship, these sculptures locate points of contact between Korean material tradition and Western avant-garde vocabulary. Japanese-American artist Osamu Kobayashi is known for his whimsical, playful palette which is paired with control and incredible sharpness of line. The hard-edge imagery and precision recall the simple and clean lines of graphic design, color field painting, and anime. Imbuing the long tradition of hard-edge painting with subtle surrealist humor and a rich palette, Kobayashi has been carving out his own niche in contemporary abstract painting. Drawing from the tradition of twentieth-century color field painting, Dana James gives form to captivating dualities—transience and permanence, geometric and amorphous, light and dark––in her poetic abstract paintings. Departing from the other three artists, Edward Holland incorporates collage in his abstract paintings, bringing its full potential to life as an aesthetic and conceptual device. Often combining mixed media such as oil paint, acrylic, graphite, and printed papers, his compositions are scaffolded by the linear geometry of zodiac constellations that provide a basic framework for each painting. Holland builds on this foundation with brushstrokes and collage, negotiating various elements on the picture plane to create unexpectedly moving juxtapositions.