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Born in 1977 in Helsinki, Finland, Elina Salminen lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Born in 1977 in Helsinki, Finland, Elina Salminen lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Salminen’s works are hybrid. They are both paintings and objects, sculptures and installations, light and shadow, floating and barely palpable, yet we are drawn to unveil what lies behind them or else, within the color itself. Salminen surprises us as viewers and we question what we see. Her works play with space and time, they move beyond the surface and reflect on her fascination with color as an intangible source of light. With her paintings, Salminen delicately applies monochromatic hues on edges and corners, then covers the emptiness with translucent materials such as cloth or glass. There is no paint on the surface of the painting, only a reflection of the color that hides behind. Utterly romantic, her works engage us in a conversation about protection and warmth. They are abstracted minimalist compositions that entail infinite meanings, each altered with time and space.

Elina Salminen

Born in 1992 in Seattle, Washington, Brandon Elijah Johnson lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Born in 1992 in Seattle, Washington, Brandon Elijah Johnson lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

As we step into Johnson's world, somewhere between imagination and reality, we become a part of his visual diary. A collector of images, from photographs found on the internet to snapshots taken with his phone, Johnson reinterprets familiar ordinary scenes in his paintings and drawings, perhaps in an attempt to freeze a moment in time. He takes reference images from his direct environment and intentionally - or not - offers a representative picture of today’s world. His vivid compositions draw from pop culture, embrace pastiche, and remain attached to the here and now. As part of a generation willingly returning to figurative painting, Johnson moves away from pure representation, at times infusing a touch of playfulness, and distancing himself from painterly conventions. Between fiction and documentary reality, Johnson’s works reveal a part of our collective memory.

Brandon Elijah Johnson

Born in 1981 in Jacmel, Haiti, Jesse Aridoux lives and works in Queens, New York.

Born in 1981 in Jacmel, Haiti, Jesse Aridoux lives and works in Queens, New York.

A multidisciplinary artist, web, and graphic designer by training, Aridoux tackles various mediums in his body of work. From drawings to paintings, photography to design, his works reflect on the history of surrealism, abstraction, and classical painting while hinting at the notion of identity and existence. With drawings from his Tessonism series, Aridoux crumples the paper as a way to symbolize deconstruction before unfolding and drawing in each crease, sewing the work back together with graphite, in an act of healing. The process reminds us of the Surrealist’s signature method called ‘Exquisite Cadaver’, with the exception that Aridoux acts intentionally and alone. With his paintings, Aridoux subtly blurs the lines between figuration and the hint at contemporary history often tainted with oppression, injustice, and inequality.

Jesse Aridoux

Born in 1995 in Birmingham, England, Molly Kent lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Born in 1995 in Birmingham, England, Molly Kent lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Through the traditional medium of rug tufting, Kent reflects on her doubts as a young individual living in an internet-driven digital world consumed by both technology and epidemics. Moving beyond the craft that traditionally bears a domestic and ornamental quality, Kent creates objects that awaken our senses and challenge our perception while alluding to the struggles one can have with mental health. Her rugs often take on organic shapes, while her colors and patterns are intrinsically inherent to the aesthetics of glitch art. Inspired by unexpected blasts of pixelated jagged lines that sometimes appear on digital screens, she applies these visual glitches to her weaves. The sense of discomfort that she intentionally creates is sometimes reinforced by her use of disruptive and ambiguous words, delicately interwoven in the fiber. The softness and malleability of her objects come to act as a cushion to the doubts and emotional fatigue that have taken over herself and her generation.

Molly Kent

Born in 1993 in Lisbon, Portugal, Pedro Ruxa lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Born in 1993 in Lisbon, Portugal, Pedro Ruxa lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Ruxa is enamored with painting and inspired by words. It is through painting, but also through objects and bits and pieces of poems that Ruxa attempts to communicate with his senses and sensibility. His works create an intimate dialogue, be it actually between himself and the paint, or us and the words. Through a reconstructed language that is his own, shapes, colors, letters, and sentences become his subject matter. Ruxa constantly creates ever-changing clouds of words and imagery and sticks them on his studio walls, making them the starting point to his oeuvre. Yet, he simultaneously explores the restraints of this same language: what is happening before or after what we see? The more Ruxa tends to take control over his words, his sight, and his emotions, the more he is unable to contain it within the realm of comprehension. But all this is exactly at the core of his aesthetic language and it is undeniably touching, both visually and emotionally.

Pedro Ruxa

Born in 1988 in Tehran, Iran, Reihaneh Hosseini lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Born in 1988 in Tehran, Iran, Reihaneh Hosseini lives and works in Vienna.

Born and raised in Tehran, Hosseini studied philosophy before emigrating to Vienna in 2014, where she currently resides. Trained under Austrian abstract artists including Christian Schwarzwald and Gunter Damisch, Reihaneh soon returned to figurative painting, her favored style for reflecting on the world that surrounds her. As a storyteller, she is inspired by her friends and her everyday life experiences, yet she portrays them with a dysmorphic rendition, exaggerated proportions, grotesque, and distorted features, and an incongruous palette. Her strong sense of corporeality coupled with the absurdity of the scenes that she depicts reveal a psycho-emotional approach to life and painting. The figures that populate her works oscillate between beauty and ugliness, they have a cartoonish appearance that adds a glimpse of humor and playfulness to her compositions, yet they are imbued with philosophical subtleties. Hosseini’s paintings take us to a dreamlike world where each of her characters evokes our unconscious thoughts, our inner child, as well as our mental and social imagery.

Reihaneh Hosseini

Born in 1991 in Toronto, Canada, Shantel Miller lives and works in Boston, USA.

Born in 1991 in Toronto, Canada, Shantel Miller lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.

Miller is a storyteller. As the daughter of Jamaican ministers who immigrated to Canada, she takes viewers on an intimate and spiritual journey, shedding light on representations of race, gender, and belief systems. As she documents everyday life and shares with us her ordinary surroundings, her re-imagined spaces specifically depict moments of black life. With oil paints and delicate details, she questions authority, existence, and contemplates what it means to be human. As we enter her meditative space, we find ourselves engaged in a conversation about both the beauties and the limitations of our contemporary visual culture.

Shantel Miller

Born in Tehran, Iran in 1983, Katayoun Vaziri now lives and works between New York City and Mexico City.

Following a voluntary hiatus from the art world, Katayoun Vaziri started painting again, mainly on Sundays and more regularly throughout the pandemic. Her 'Sunday paintings' are her personal visual diary. Vaziri depicts ordinary people, often including herself in ordinary settings, completing everyday activities. With her Memories of a Bourgeoisie Series and her Repetition Series amongst others, Vaziri reflects on each individual as equally a subject and an object of capitalism, as political agents of social transformation who are nonetheless subjects to socio-economic inequalities. With her oeuvre, she reflects on how ordinary people may have to forego their ideals for the sake of survival. Somewhere between empathy and critique, her miniature works are playful, yet engaged, like postcards filled with familiar references that tell the story of each and everyone of us.

Born in Tehran and now living and working between New York City and Mexico City, Katayoun Vaziri graduated from Yale University in 2009 with an MFA in Painting. Since her graduation, Vaziri has had solo and group exhibitions in New York, London, Mexico City and Dubai and has invited to prestigious residencies including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawings in Maine and Eyebeam in Brooklyn.

In continuity with the source of inspiration for her artworks and her active social engagement, Katayoun Vaziri has committed to hold no monetary gain from the sale of her artworks. The artist's proceeds will be donated to carefully selected and vetted community building organizations. For any further queries regarding these causes, please contact us.

Katayoun Vaziri

Founded in 2015, by Amar A. Zahr and Nathalie Ackawi, the Beirut Art Residency is dedicated to supporting the production and dissemination of contemporary art. The program focuses on three main facets; residencies, local exhibitions and public interventions. BAR provides both emerging and mid-career artists with the time and space to work, encouraging artists to venture beyond their usual practice while laying the groundwork for future projects. BAR’s exhibition and public intervention programs enhance the approachability and dissemination of contemporary art. The work BAR presents is often experimental in nature, allowing artists to take a more conceptual approach with their practice. Ultimately, BAR’s activities strive to provide insight on the culturally rich Lebanese climate whilst creating a global network of meaningfully engaged artists.

Beirut Art Residency

Dan Nguyen is a New York-based physician, entrepreneur, and avid collector of contemporary art with a particular focus on artists of Asian descent and hands-on expertise in NFTs. As the co-founder of The Here and There Collective, his mission is to make space for narratives often overlooked in the Western art canon, through a programming focused on Asian diaspora artists, curators, and collectors.

Dan Nguyen

<div dir="ltr">The founder of renowned Instagram account She Curates (@she_curates_), Mollie E Barnes is an Independent Curator based in the UK, with a particular interest in the works of women and queer artists.</div>
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Mollie E Barnes

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Reality Looks Like

Not How I Left It

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Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 
2022
In her most recent series of work, Shantel Miller explores moments of intimate exchange or embrace between people, often times her surrounding friends or family members. Taking the form of parent-child relationships, her depicted relationships draw metaphor to the artist’s relationship with her faith and fatherlike religious figure.

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With a certificate of authenticity signed by the Artist.

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Painting

Forgiveness

Gouache on Paper 
2021
With her Memories of a Bourgeoisie Series, Vaziri reflects on each individual as equally a subject and an object of capitalism, as political agents of social transformation who are nonetheless subjects to socio-economic inequalities. With her oeuvre, she reflects on how ordinary people may have to forego their ideals for the sake of survival. Somewhere between empathy and critique, her miniature works are playful, yet engaged, like postcards filled with familiar references that tell the story of each and everyone of us.

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Memories of a Bourgeoisie, Labor Day Weekend in America (Tribute to David Hammons)

Oil on canvas 
2021
A collector of images, from photographs found on the internet to snapshots taken with his phone, Brandon Elijah Johnson typically reinterprets a familiar an ordinary scene, perhaps in an attempt to freeze a moment in time.

Mise en place

Mixed Fibre, Polyester Fabric and Latex Glue 
2021
Evaporating Psyche is the first work in Kent's new series 'Dream Weaving', which reflects on feelings of loss, anxiety, trauma and stems from the artist's experiences with CPTSD. Many images created in this series come from Kent's dreams and nightmares. Evaporating Psyche examines the artist's relationship with her sense of self, and the idea of having lost part of herself as a result of her mental health condition, which was heightened with the recent pandemic.

Description 

Textile

Evaporating Psyche

Acrylic on Wood 
2021
When a person disappears, everything becomes impregnated with that person's presence. Every single object, as well as every space, becomes a reminder of absence as if absence were more important than presence.

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Disappearance

Oil on Canvas 
2019
Lukewarm represents a pivotal point in Miller’s spiritual journey. The state of being ‘lukewarm’ is articulated clearly in Revelations 3:15-16 (NLT) and reads ‘I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!’. In the painting, the figure stepping into the bathtub signifies decisiveness. Body language and color are used throughout the composition in tandem with biblical references and symbols to explore personal experiences of Christianity, through rituals of cleanliness in the privacy of a bathroom.

Elina Salminen

Aperture 1

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Forgiveness

Memories of a Bourgeoisie, Labor Day Weekend in America (Tribute to David Hammons)

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Our Artists

Elina Salminen

Artist from Brussels, Belgium

Brandon Elijah Johnson

Artist from Brooklyn, NY

Jesse Aridoux

Artist from Queens, NY

Molly Kent

Artist from Edinburgh, Scotland

Pedro Ruxa

Artist from Brussels, Belgium

Reihaneh Hosseini

Artist from Vienna, Austria

Shantel Miller

Artist from Boston, MA

Katayoun Vaziri

Artist from Mexico City, Mexico & New York, NY

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"Many emerging artists try to follow what is “trendy”..."

Beirut Art Residency

"The only philosophy I adhere to is that I buy works..."

Dan Nguyen

"My practice as a curator focuses largely on women..."

Mollie E Barnes

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