Blurred Lines

I wanted to hold a space open...where tradition might speak alongside new visions; where cultural myths, personal icons and unexpected juxtapositions can coexist,” says gallerist Ryan Graff of an upcoming exhibition he has curated around the theme of symbolism.

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Soey Milk, Emerald Aenigma Obscura, oil on panel, 20 x 16"

Featuring an international selection of artists, “the show offers a constellation of works that move between the sacred and the secular, the timeless and the right-now—each piece a doorway into a deeper symbolic language waiting to be re-learned.”

Among the featured artists is Rim Baudey, who will be showing an oil and graphite piece that brings together fragments suggestive of photographs. Now living in France, Baudey's The Fog that Holds my Yesterdays draws from her memories growing up in a small industrial city in Kazakhstan under challenging circumstances. It is part of what she calls her Shadow Garden series.

“Shadow Garden is an imaginary universe with fantastical subjects that I began creating in childhood as a way to cope with 'uncomfortable' feelings,” Baudey explains. “Today, it has evolved into a realm where I use symbols and metaphors to reflect on how we are shaped by the real anxieties of modern existence.”

Fog, spikes and shimmering lights are recurring motifs in her work, symbolizing “the boundaries between reality and fiction, and signal transformation through vulnerability, while also allowing me to maintain a sense of personal space,” she adds.