Curated by
May 30, 2025
-
June 17, 2025
Image: Juan Alvarez, 'Early Sunset', 2024, Video.
Curated by NARS Curatorial Fellow Joyous Pierce
May 30 – June 17, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, June 6, 6-9pm
NARS Main Gallery
The New York Art Residency & Studios (NARS) Foundation is pleased to present Undercurrents, a group exhibition featuring work from the Season II, 2025 International Residency Artists: Juan Alvarez, Isabel Bonafé, Doreen Chan, Ye Cheng, Nik Cho, Gloria Fan Duan, Brubey Hu, Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge, Sangmin Lee, Camille Lescarbeau, M.E. Sparks, Liza Wolters, and Tianxing Xu, curated by NARS Curatorial Fellow Joyous R. Pierce.
"We are undercurrent, overburden, the rolling earth, the pain that won't be doctored, the healers who want to live well on this revolving planet." — Rita Wong, from undercurrent (2015)
"They ask me to remember / But they want me to remember their memories / And I keep / Remembering mine." — Lucille Clifton, "why some people be mad at me sometimes" (1987)
Undercurrents brings together 13 contemporary artists whose work emerges from the complex flows of memory, identity, and socio-political consciousness. These artists, spanning geographies and kindred waters including Canada, Korea, China, the Dominican Republic, and Spain, converge in a moment when the membranes of borders are simultaneously more permeable and more contested than ever.
In Undercurrents, the artists' practices serve as moorings in turbulent waters. Through investigations of the ripples of settler colonialism, gender constructions, identity politics, grief, and joy, they create works that both obscure and illuminate, employing humor, satire, illusion, and critical commentary to reveal the undercurrents of our time.
Like interconnected channels beneath the tides, these 13 artists navigate the tensions between personal narratives and collective histories, establishing portals between realms of varied experience, from deeply intimate reflections of family heritage to expansive observations of our shared world. The presence of these international voices is a subtle counterpoint to the rising tides of economic nationalism, tariff wars, and border reinforcements. In an era when the flow of goods, capital, and ideas faces increasing restrictions, this gathering of artists speaks to the resilience of creative community, one that acknowledges Clifton's truth of holding personal memory sacred while engaging in collective remembering.
As a meditation on illumination, the physical presentation of Undercurrents unfolds in two distinct waves: first in full luminosity, where works confront viewers with their immediacy and presence; then, turning with the tide into a subdued environment, where multimedia works, paper-based pieces, and delicate installations layer light upon one another, creating unexpected dialogues in the dark.
About the Curatorial Fellow:
Joyous R. Pierce (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary curator/space shaper, artist, and researcher whose practice re-envisions ceremonies of creation and collaboration through intrinsic relationality and care. Her work as an arts and cultural producer engages creative and cultural spaces as liberatory sites for transformation, reflection, connection, expansion, and joy.
She has collaborated with artists internationally and with institutions such as the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, the Guggenheim, the African Artists Foundation, the Apollo, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Barnard, Burning Man, and Google. She was a fellow in Cycle IV of the Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship with the Caribbean Cultural African Diaspora Institute (Harlem) and Nafasi Artspace (Dar es Salaam).
Joyous holds a Bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College in International Relations with a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a Master of Science in International Relations and the Politics of Africa from SOAS, University of London. Some areas of interest include contemporary afro-indigenous migration, seabed mapping & ecosystems in the marine water column, immersive technology, and having way too many tabs open at any given moment.
About the artists:
Juan Alvarez, aka Wamoo, is a Dominican-born, Washington Heights-raised and based musician and media-based artist, working at the border between visual art, music and live performance. His audiovisual work is constructed by means of collage art, reconstructing existing materials and bringing them into new contexts. He is mainly inspired by the video art of Joan Jonas and Pipilotti Rist, as well as music producers J Dilla and Tainy. He has exhibited at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, SuperBlue Miami, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Andrew Freedman Home, among others. He has also been featured on publications like "Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora", an arts publication published by Illinois State University; and "Apricity", published by the University of Texas at Austin. He studied at the University at Albany, SUNY, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in two concentrations, Philosophy and World History.
Isabel Bonafé relates the way we perceive and live with virtual images and some physical phenomena that question our common sense and the ordinary experience. Using elements related to electromagnetism and optics, light and vision, Bonafé creates installations that seem to blur the boundary between the physical and the virtual and are rooted in questions that concern memory, presence and the ontological status of photographic media. BAFA (2014), University of Seville and MAFA (2019) University of Saint Martins, London. 2025- INICIARTE Prize; solo show: messages of the collision, La Madraza, Granada; site-specific installation at San Bruno Chapel for ‘Tablao’ escenarios de formas en el arte contemporáneo andaluz at CAAC; and collective show Omnímoda at MuCAC. 2024 - solo show: la percepción resbala sobre las cosas sin tocarlas, at Espacio Derivado; Prize from the Artists Residency at the Center for Contemporary Creation of Andalusia C3A; nominated for the Prize Miquel Casablancas SAC, Barcelona and collective show Una nova arqueologia de la matèria, Fabra i Coats - Centre d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona. 2023- Prize ASECAS; duo show: Univers d’Itmages L’ETNO Museu Valencià together with Martínez Bellido; collective shows: HotSheet Photo Festival - DnBrixton Gallery, London; Baggage Claim - Staffordshirest gallery, London; among others.
Doreen Chan (b.1987, Hong Kong) is a mixed-media artist focusing on social practice. She was trained in visual communication and photography before receiving her MA in Art Education from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. In her work, Chan re-examines the tensions between interpersonal relationships and subject formation. Through collecting, selecting, and reorganizing fragments from everyday life, she explores how individuals interact with collective and personal memories. She works site-specifically on installations, public programs, virtual projects, and collaborates with a wide range of individuals using images, sculptures, objects, sounds, and performance. Chan has exhibited in institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival 2022 (Linz), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Art Omi (New York), and Para Site (Hong Kong). In 2023, her commissioned project, Sipping Dreams, inaugurated Tai Kwun Contemporary’s V Hall. In the same year, she was listed as ArtReview China’s Future Greats. In 2021, she was an Eyebeam fellow and the 4th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group finalist. She was also selected as Cultured Magazine’s Young Artists (2021). Chan currently lives in New York.
Ye Cheng (b. 1992) is a Chinese American artist currently based in New York. Ye graduated with a MFA degree in Fine Art from the New School at Parsons, New York in 2022. And a BFA degree in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. The experience of living between boundaries and communities as a first generation immigrant in the U.S. greatly impacted her vision of home and identity. Through art, Ye Cheng relates her personal challenges to the larger state of modernity and recalls the loss of Chinese heritage as an expression of displacement, mobility, disjunction, and self-recognition. Ye has had her solo exhibition in Latitude Gallery in New York and exhibited widely include NADA Miami 2023; Chambers Fine Art in New York; Make Room in Los Angeles; and RHAA, Chicago; Soka Art in Beijing, China. Her work was selected in e-flux Education. In 2023, Ye Cheng was featured in Artnet as one of the “5 Artists on the verge of a breakthrough”. In 2024, Ye Cheng was a resident artist at Vermont Studio Center and the NARS 2025 International Artist Residency.
Nik Cho (b. 1993, Seoul, South Korea) is a Chicago-based painter whose work explores intimacy, identity, and the psychological tension between figures. Rooted in figurative painting, his practice draws from personal and social narratives. He holds both a BFA and MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he currently serves as a Teaching Fellow in the Painting and Drawing Department.
Gloria Fan Duan is an artist and professor whose work explores the intersections of art, science, and technology through speculative projects that fuse the organic and synthetic. She has exhibited internationally at Art Basel in Basel, Ars Electronica, Currents New Media Festival, and the Wrong Biennale, with projects featured in Architectural Digest, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.Her teaching at The New School, Parsons and Pratt Institute stems from the foundational aspects of her practice, emphasizing systemic design thinking and craftsmanship. Fan Duan's work has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation Interlace Grant, as well as residencies and collaborations with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, La Prairie, Chicago Botanical Gardens, and Pratt Institute. She holds a BFA from RISD and an MFA from SAIC.
Brubey Hu (b. Xiamen China) is an artist, designer and educator currently based in Toronto, Canada. Her work is a mediation on memory, migration and domesticity shaped through a transcultural feminist lens. Bridging her interests in linguistics and architectural drawing, her practice seeks to delineate how cultural and personal identities are shaped. Hu holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and is currently pursuing an MA in Gender and Feminist Studies at York University. Hu’s work has been exhibited at Art Mur in Montreal; A Space Gallery and Field Projects in New York; Zalucky Contemporary, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Cambridge Galleries, University of Waterloo Art Gallery, and Art Gallery of Mississauga, all in Ontario. She has participated in numerous artist residencies, including the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the NARS Foundation. She has worked as a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the University of Waterloo. She is also a co-director at Tangent Collective. Her practice is supported by Ontario Arts Council and Canada Arts Council.
Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge grew up in a small francophone coastal village in eastern Canada. She completed her BFA in photography at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) and her MFA in electronic integrated arts at Alfred University (Alfred, New York). She has received multiple grants from Canada Council for the Arts and participated in artist-in-residence programs across continents, including Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, New York), La Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, France), AIR 3331 Arts Chiyoda (Tokyo, Japan), SIM (Reykjavik, Iceland), and Arteles (Haukijärvi, Finland) where she produced multifaceted projects published as books, videos, zines, exhibitions, performances, and/or ephemeral installations.
Sangmin Lee is a Korean Canadian artist with a BFA from OCADUniversity and an MFA from Columbia University. They have exhibited nationally and internationally ranging from Osaka, Jeongseon, Paris, New York, Miami,Montreal, Toronto, and Dawson City (Yukon). He is the recipient of the OCADUniversity Project 31 Sculpture/Installation award, with artist grants fromToronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts, and residencies at Vermont Studio Center and NAVE Residency in Ecuador. Currently, they are based in New York and a Bronx Museum AIM Fellow.
Camille Lescarbeau is an ecofeminist textile artist based in Montreal, Canada. She holds a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from Université du Québec à Montréal. Her work has been shaped by residencies at the Musée régional de Rimouski, Atelier Retailles, Zocalo, Créer des Ponts and the Saint-Jean-Port-Joli’s Sculpture Biennale. Lescarbeau’s recent exhibitions include AVE Gallery, Regart, Espace Pierre-Debain and the FOFA Gallery. She has been awarded multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. In addition to her studio practice, she regularly shares her research on craft, ecofeminism and textiles through workshops, roundtables and artist talks. She is the co-founder of UQAM’s papermaking studio.
M.E. Sparks (she/her) is an artist and educator based in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory, Canada. In recent work Sparks uses painting and collage to examine the relationships between surface and image, materiality and content, legibility and disorientation. In her paintings she pulls apart and recombines art historical imagery, searching for the moment a form dislocates from its origins to resist classification. Recently, this method of abstraction occurs through the cutting, draping, and layering of painted canvas. By reconsidering the conventions of painting Sparks searches for uncertain and unsettled spaces of representation, as well as the reconciliation and transformation of historical narrative. Sparks completed her MFA from Emily Carr University and BFA from NSCAD University. She is a recipient of project and research grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council and BC Arts Council. Sparks has participated in residencies in the USA, Germany and Finland, and was a finalist in the 2016 and 2017 RBC Canadian Painting Competition. Sparks’ work has been exhibited at Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art (North Vancouver), Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art (Kelowna), Trapp Projects (Vancouver), Access Gallery (Vancouver), among others. Upcoming projects include a solo exhibition at aceartinc. (Winnipeg).
The practice of visual artist Liza Wolters (1992) is like a fluid repository that is constantly growing, consisting of experiences and encounters, finds and materials that come together and grow apart again. She works with photography, video, installations, text, sound, publications and (found) objects.
Tianxing Xu, a visual artist. He has actively participated in the art scene along the east coast, with solo exhibitions Amherst College，Savannah College of Art and Design. He was involved in resident programs in Gibbes Museum of Art, Artists Association of Nantucket and Lower East Side Printshop. Currently, he continues to advance his artistic career in collaboration with the Alan Avery Art Company and Brooklyn Editions.
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