Exit
Escape And Rebirth
February 7, 2025 - February 28, 2025
13 Grattan St, #402, Brooklyn, NY11206
Artists
Ruoxi Hua
Chloë Walker
Chloe Abidi
Xiao Guo
Kailey Coppens
Mengru Zhou
Walker Keith Jernigan
Yichen Ji
Rene Gortat
Soo Park
Curators
Adrien Tang
Sumi Zhang
Adela Sun
Art Director
Xianglong Li
A Space Gallery is thrilled to present Exit: Escape and Rebirth, a group exhibition that redefines an exit beyond a doorway—as liberation and new beginnings. A metaphor for transition, Exit is where reality and dreams intersect, self-reflection unfolds, and clarity emerges from chaos.
In a world of pressure and uncertainty, we are often confined by external expectations and internal doubts. This exhibition explores “escape” as both defiance and renewal—leaving not as retreat, but as a bold pursuit of possibility. Hope is not a destination but a force that propels us forward. Through the artists’ perspectives, Exit invites viewers to seek their own paths to freedom, shedding burdens, embracing the unknown, and stepping into personal rebirth.
Ruoxi Hua’s Homesick Alien features two panels of cityscapes, where fragmented space and contrasting lights evoke time, loneliness, and alien abduction. The Three Magi shows discarded toilets at night, with Baroque-inspired light contrasts. The anthropomorphic arrangement blends the sacred and profane, while litter and graffiti anchor the scene in reality, and a flash reflection resembles a glowing star.
Chloë Walker’s Mommy Milker #2 examines mythologized bodies and societal norms around milk-giving. With exaggerated breasts and leaking udders, these hybrid figures challenge perceptions, existing between liberation and objectification. Meanwhile, Chloe Abidi’s Untitled (Window) is a trompe l’oeil illusion of a “window” made from laser-cut wood and dye-sublimated imagery. The sky, reappropriated from a 90s tech catalog, merges physical and virtual worlds with its futuristic aesthetic and CMYK moiré pattern.
Xiao Guo’s Passage 1 explores the connections between textiles, the body, land, and memory. Hand-dyed wefts and warps with exposed ends symbolize liberation, while the modular panels communicate and adapt—vital qualities in times of precarity. While Kailey Coppens’s Location, Location, Location questions the value of a painting’s frame and its relationship to the space it occupies. Viewing the frame as a bridge between art and world, Coppens transforms the work into a sculptural object, blurring boundaries between two and three dimensions.
Mengru Zhou’s The Crying uses color to explore youth's confusion, emotional states, and human complexity. Through the female figure, Zhou examines identity, emotion, and the individual’s connection to society and nature. At the same time, Walker Keith Jernigan’s Nude Revealed explores spatial and human tensions through fluid, research-driven practice, where process and layered signs make art both subject and method.
Yichen Ji’s Replica.txt uses ASCII art from his chat history to explore digital identity, questioning whether online exchanges reflect one’s true self or just fleeting data, while Rene Gortat’s Follow The Light creates a calming, meditative atmosphere, with its clarity shifting based on the viewer's position. It serves as a tool to combat virtual overload, helping to quiet distractions and everyday anxieties.
Soo Park’s DOG HOUSE FIRE HOUSE DOG questions whether the dog is fleeing or causing the fire. The dog's ambiguous expression complicates the dilemma, while the reversal of materials—bronze dog supporting a plastic house—explores power dynamics between the inhabitant and habitat, reflecting the duality of fear, pleasure, escape, and play.
Installation View
