Xiyao Wang is one of the most prominent young voices in abstract painting. Born in 1992 in Chongqing, she currently lives and works in Berlin.

Renowned for her powerful, immersive paintings, Wang’s distinctive use of colour, volume and texture spells out her unique vocabulary. As a way for her to transfer experiences and feelings from her internal space into the external world, her work is highly informed by her personal awareness and sensitivity.

Combining various techniques such as oil and acrylic paint, chalk, graphite and oil sticks, she seeks balance between the canvas and the body in physical displacement. Expressive multicoloured lines evoke the broadness of landscapes, movements and thoughts, composing lyrical arrangements that grace the canvas in harmonious, energetic movements layered onto compact pastel-coloured backgrounds. Through a profound knowledge of both Asian and Western traditions, she instinctively combines influences from Taoism and dance with martial arts. Brimming with energy, her large-scale works capture movement on canvas.

Aaron Garber-Maikovska was born in Washington D.C., in 1978). He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Aaron Garber-Maikovska's work pushes the boundaries of traditional painting as his somatic experience heavily informs his creative process. His artistic practice is a reflection of the interdependence between his physical body and the work he produces. The Los Angeles-based artist employs various techniques to produce richly textured and vibrantly coloured abstract compositions. In his paintings, he creates fields of colour that blend and interact with each other, juxtaposed with a single continuous line. He describes this line as a character that he improvises with, bringing the bi-dimensional surface to life in a way that echoes his somatic approach to creating art. Garber-Maikovska's approach to painting is deeply intuitive, with the artist surrendering himself to the flow of his intuition and allowing his impulses to guide his hand. His fluted poly works become a physical manifestation of his innermost thoughts and feelings, with each brush stroke representing a gesture imbued with a personal yet universal meaning.

Garber-Maikovska's work is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis;Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Long Museum, Shanghai.

Brian Rochefort was born in Lincoln, Rhode Island, in 1985. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Brian Rochefort primarily works with ceramic and glazes as a mixed media sculptor, creating one-of-a-kind vibrant sculptures covered in abstract patterns and fascinating textural features. The process of his work involves breaking apart unfired clay objects and layering them up with more material, then firing between each layer of glaze to produce volcanic masses and craters overflowing with colour. The surfaces of the sculptures are a blend of rough, uneven clumps and smooth, bubbly drips, all suspended in place by the kiln firing.

Rochefort’s work is in the permanent collection of the NMAC Foundation, Cádiz, Spain; the Zabludowicz Collection, London; the Chapman University, Orange and the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, USA. Rochefort was awarded the Lillian Fellowship from the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts in Montana, 2007-2008.

Karin Gulbran was born in Seattle, WA, in 1967. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Gulbran’s ceramic sculptures utilize gestural figuration, blending in recurring abstracted motifs inspired by nature, such as leaf and branch shapes, animals and raindrops, resulting in a distinctive painterly, signature imagery. Gulbran developed an unconventional ceramics technique that involves using high-fire glazes to achieve the painterly imagery that has become a signature aspect of her work. This fusion of expressionistic figure painting and ceramics has become the cornerstone of her artistic practice. 

Karin Gulbran received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (1996) and her MFA from University of California, Los Angeles (1999). Over the years, her work has been exhibited from the United States to Europe, in renowned art galleries and institutions. Her work is also part of the Tia Collection in Santa Fe, New Mexico.