Loyal is proud to present Point of Contact, a group exhibition with six international artists resuming the conversation ignited by Striking (Lightning) Blue, a group show held at Loyal Spring 2024. From the liminal space between the abstract and figurative in Striking (Lightning) Blue, we turn to the dimensionality of forms in space. Surface tension, Tubism (à la Fernand Léger), and the contrast between the softness of the natural world and the hard slickness of the mechanized world converge in Point of Contact.

Point of Contact first occurs when two objects make contact with each other. Knowledge is shared about an activity, project or emotion that can help us better understand information whenever required. Point of Contact is part of a vast web of interconnectedness, it’s verbal just as much as nonverbal. It happens simultaneously between all humans, species, nature, plants and trees throughout the world, with hyper speed, one on one, or broadcasted to many at once, blanketing the world in immeasurable points of contact at any given moment.

Surface tension can refer to the interaction between a medium and the surface it is applied to—from ultra glow and shine to smooth and matte—or the image depicted on the surface, from human hands restraining or holding to orbs pressing against space.

Tubism, associated with French painter Fernand Léger, features vibrant colors and tubular shapes that evoke machine-like forms. Léger’s fascination with industrialization emphasized harmony between humans, machines, and their environments. Léger also recognized the dehumanizing aspects of industrial society. His paintings depict mechanized human figures or workers, suggesting a blend of human and machine that borders on alienation. Léger’s aesthetic both glorifies the machine and subtly suggests its power to diminish individuality and humanity. Today, the relationship between humans and machines, along with natural and mechanized worlds, has greatly accelerated and faces unprecedented scrutiny. Point of Contact touches upon these connections with focused attention on dimensionality of forms within space.

While Léger’s use of tubular shapes in the early 1900s was influenced by a fascination with machinery at the dawn of industrialization, Madeleine Bialke‘s tube-like shapes are inspired by the beauty of the natural world reeling from the cogs and wheels of industry. Embedded in the painting is a sense of nature mechanized, no longer separate from us but deeply intertwined. In her painting Lifeforms an orange sun sets over a glassy lake embraced by mountains rolling softly through the landscape. The warmest tones meet the coldest as soft, tubular shapes wrap around delicate angles. Microplastics likely fill this forest glade, where an alien glint—like dust in the air—casts an artificial light on Bialke’s flora and fauna, mirroring Turner’s atmospheric style that captured the environmental impact of industrialization. Bialke’s use of artificial color highlights the threat these ecosystems face and emphasizes the urgent need for preservation. Bialke portrays the beauty of our natural world at a time when its destruction is imminent.

Alex Gardner‘s painting Circus (Together at Impact) captures a group of four clad in plain white t-shirts with prismatic folds against a cloudless blue. The group’s dynamic is unclear. Is this a family, two parents holding their children? One child covers their face with a hand while the other reaches out in a gesture of care. The lack of facial features and identity markers frees the figures from time, place, and status. They become universal beings defined by the onlookers’ own personal experiences and perspective. Gardner’s characteristically ambiguous backdrops also remind us that the figures cannot be linked to one narrative but many. The title Circus (Together at Impact) insinuates the circus of life with its unfathomable number of possibilities and interactions, on to its inevitable end. There’s a shallow performativity that permeates human nature, but when faced with the impact of mortality and the trials of existence, what could we desire more than a sense of love, presence, and togetherness?

In The View Through, Jordan Kasey‘s colossal figure stares out over a horizon with silvery wind whipped hair and a pair of yellow-tinted glasses. Light and color push through as the prime storytellers with an ominous red checkerboard sky and vast pink fluffy sea. The horizon can be seen as literal, where sky meets water, or viewed as the live wire between reality and mystery. When seen through the yellow lens, the horizon floats into golden calm. Paradoxically, the glasses might obscure instead of clarify, distorting the distant, unseen future rather than bringing into focus. The View Through blends allure with the ominous, the exact balanced tension Kasey seeks to find in her paintings as a means to communicate what reality actually feels like.

Chanel Khoury conjures a timeless, enduring space that bridges the archaic with the imminent, imagining alternate timelines. In these works, hyper-synthetic meets primeval in virtual non-places that hum with a divinely arcadian frequency. Reflective subjects appear suspended in perpetuity as if manifestations of the irrational force that flows between existence and natural phenomena. A sense of coveting lingers within each painting beckoning a metaphysical homecoming abounding with anthropomorphic tension. Notably, the scene shares an uncanny resemblance with Sputnik, the first satellite, floating above Earth in space, suggesting a sense of distance and a longing for connection.

Technically rigorous, Khoury’s practice is flush with precision, from the first virtual construction, to the meticulous application of oil paint on canvas, bridging the digital now with age-old traditions of devotional craftsmanship. Through this diligent process of relearning the image by hand, Khoury revitalizes these digital and “untouched” realms through one of the oldest forms of artistic expression. The process resembles that of an archaeologist seeking to find connections throughout time, reflecting vaguely familiar forms, alongside the elements of worship and physical surrender. Khoury’s references to geomancy and ctenophores believed to be the oldest known life forms on earth, make for a symbolic and electric visual appearance.

Nihura Montiel‘s charcoal paintings on canvas point to a dedication to detail. Though classically trained in oils, Montiel’s chosen method is to render her work with a dry painting technique she has perfected over many years. Montiel grinds charcoal into fine powder in six shades of gray and pure black, which she applies to the canvas working exclusively with the brushes of a makeup artist’s contour kit. This method creates a high level of tension and precision, resembling contouring techniques in makeup. The objects in her paintings—ranging from shiny porcelain figurines to sharp kitchen knives—evoke a spectrum of meanings. The interpretation shifts based on the viewer’s perspective and point of connection. In Witches Witch, a glamorous witch—broom, hat, flowing gown—stands statuesque with her eyes closed, with a quiet determination, as if in expectation or release. Both witch and artist are drawn together by a shared spirit of the creative. The witch stands as a classic symbol of femininity and the powerful, magical female archetype—a figure loaded with meaning, embodying the mysterious, moody, and often misunderstood.

Aryo Toh Djojo‘s practice revolves around a freehand, layered airbrush technique breathing a multilayered approach to everyday reality of lived and perceived experiences. Appropriated images of intimate yet publicly available photos depict a sense of oneness and equalization of his chosen moments. Toh Djojo approaches his practice without an overarching thesis, but with an openness and observational point of view, like an anthropomorphized satellite roving the earth, looking for meaning inside the interactions of its human inhabitants.

A true believer, Toh Djojo also reflects on his own experiences with unidentified flying objects. Seeking to connect that mysterious extraterrestrial reality with things of-this-world, with the same approach, Toh Djojo draws out a detached relevance in his scenes of beauty, orbs, teenage rebellion, spirituality, cars, roads and ethereal light, deserted landscapes, highways. The overview he gives through his selection of images and symbols, gives insight into his own psyche as well as to ours.

From a technical standpoint, Toh Djojo has no point of contact with the surface, rather he directs the vaporized acrylic onto the surface in sprayed strokes. In Crystal, a barely-there portrait of an attractive female figure is painted in a hazy blue wash like a sun-faded beauty salon advert. It does however have subtly placed, glossy words and symbols visible when the light catches them, depicting extraterrestrial tropes, (conspiracy) theories, and symbols like the Om symbol and Aphex Twin logo, implying an equality between these things. The text and symbols in Crystal are painted with clear gloss medium with a paint brush, giving Toh Djojo a rare point of contact with the surface, albeit a transparent and barely visible one. The text and symbols in Crystal evoke a stream of consciousness or visual poetry, leaving the relationship between the enigmatic figure and these elements intriguingly unclear, shrouded in mystery, much as the concepts he invokes.

MADELEINE BIALKE (b. 1991, Elmira, NY) lives and works in London, UK. Bialke holds a BFA from Plattsburgh State University, New York (2013) and a MFA from Boston University, Massachusetts (2016). She was the Artist-in-Residence at North Western Oklahoma State University in 2018 and was awarded the John Walker MFA Painting and Sculpture Award in 2016. Recent solo shows include Nemeth Art Center (Park Rapids, MN), Newchild Gallery at KIAF (Seoul), Huxley-Parlour Gallery (London), Newchild Gallery (Antwerp), Steve Turner Gallery (Los Angeles) and Taymour Grahne Projects (London). Recent group exhibitions include Nassima Landau Foundation (Tel Aviv), Museu Inimá de Paula (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Newchild Gallery (Brussels), Huxley-Parlour Gallery (Milan), Jack Siebert Projects (Los Angeles) and Alexander Berggruen Gallery (New York). Her work is included in the collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody and Fundacion MEDIANOCHE0 (Granada). Madeleine Bialke is represented by Newchild Gallery.

ALEX GARDNER (b. 1987, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Long Beach, CA.Gardner received his BFA from California State University in Long Beach in 2011. Solo exhibitions include Perrotin (New York), X Museum (Beijing), MINE PROJECT (Hong Kong), Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, CA), Loyal (Stockholm), Koenig (Berlin), The Hole (New York), SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, GA), New Image Art Gallery (Los Angeles). Group shows include New Image Art Gallery (Los Angeles), Loyal (Stockholm), Lehmann Maupin (London), The Hole (Los Angeles), James Fuentes (New York), Met Museum (Manila). His work is included in the public collections of Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit), Museo Jumex (Mexico City), Institute of Contemporary Art Miami (Miami), X Museum (Beijing), and Studio Museum (Harlem).

CHANEL KHOURY (b. 1998, Rhode Island) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Khoury earned her BFA from New York University in 2020, along with a degree in philosophy. Solo shows include Micki Meng (San Francisco), Loyal (Stockholm) and Over the Influence (Los Angeles). Group exhibitions include Future Gallery (Berlin), K11 MUSEA (Hong Kong), Loyal at El Royale (Los Angeles), and Friends Indeed (San Francisco). Writing on her work has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Artsy Editorial, Forbes Magazine and Architectural Digest among others. Khoury’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami (Miami), Pond Society (Shanghai) and X Museum (Beijing).

JORDAN KASEY (b. 1985, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Kasey received her BFA at Maryland Institute College of Art. Recent solo exhibitions include Juen Juen Gung (Hong Kong) and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (New York). Recent group exhibitions include Lin Lin Gallery (Taipei), Kaufmann Repetto (Milan), Zabludowicz Collection (London) and Loyal (Stockholm). Kasey’s work is included in Collezione Maramotti (Reggio Emilia) and Zabludowicz Collection (London). Kasey is represented by Nicelle Beauchene Gallery.

NIHURA MONTIEL (b. 1988, San Diego, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Montiel received her BFA from Roski School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. She has exhibited at Sebastian Gladstone Gallery (Los Angeles), In Lieu (Los Angeles), Mrs.Gallery (New York), Carlye Packer (Los Angeles), Padre Gallery (New York), Volery Gallery (Dubai), Château du Marais and Amor Services (Los Angeles). Montiel is represented by Sebastian Gladstone Gallery.

ARYO TOH DJOJO (b. 1984, Glendale, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Aryo Toh Djojo graduated with a BFA from the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena). Solo shows include Perrotin (Tokyo), Stems Gallery (Paris and Brussels), Sow & Tailor (Los Angeles), Wilding Cran Gallery (Los Angeles) and Weekend Gallery (Los Angeles). Group shows include Stems Gallery (Paris), Sow & Tailor (Los Angeles), WOAW Gallery (Singapore), Perrotin (Dubai), K11 Musea (Hong Kong), Another Gallery (Paris), JACCC (Los Angeles) and Volery Gallery (Dubai). His work has been presented in a solo booth with Perrotin at Tokyo Gendai and group booths with Stems Gallery at Art Luxembourg and NADA Miami.