Dorothy Circus Gallery is proud to present “Refuge”, the first solo exhibition in the UK by Andrew Hem, a street artist and painter born in Cambodia and raised in Los Angeles. The exhibition will present fifteen brand new artworks, which invite the DCG public to a profound reflection on the sense of unity.
In a journey between memory and dream-like landscapes, the Artist, with his iconic style, involves us in his refugee experience, making us part of his survival.
United among themselves and at the same time separated from us by the sea, Hem’s characters invite us to join them on board a boat made of light and possibilities, to find ourselves together in an emotional and perceptive adventure that the Artist masterfully describes with his impressionist style.
Combining a vivid colour palette with fluid and luminous brushstrokes, Hem travels the river of human feeling that binds us, where we now become protagonists, observing our lives and those of ‘others’ in search of recognition in an introspective key, acceptance and of that place we call home.
In this new series, Hem’s palette takes on richer and warmer shades then the previous ones, thus creating a more emotional atmosphere in which elements of realism and surrealism coexist. His technique gives life to a scenario of visions and memories capable of transporting us beyond the water barrier that distances us.
The Artist paints following the influence of impressionist and surrealist techniques, thus creating a body of work linked together by a sublime and intriguing language, typical of his poetics and the unmistakable style that earned him significant international recognition and fame in the United States and Europe.
As a man, as an artist, as a visionary and as the traveller who paints, Andrew Hem draws both from the observation and the memory of an increasingly globalised contemporaneity. The Artist bases his artistic research on the desire to analyse the fragility and strength of human beings and on the power of change in a community and single individuals. His representations show the viewer a ‘tomorrow’ that evolves towards the fluidity of cultures.
Thanks to his Asian and American background and his numerous travels, Hem is, in fact, able to offer a glimpse of this evolution. By documenting people’s experiences in the respective urban and natural environments of the countries, he lived in, particularly in Asia, Hem depicts their everyday life and exceptionality with ease, like a trendy t-shirt, whose texture appears to us as if through a lens with an international perspective.
The work presented on this occasion turns our attention to cultural intersections and transversal visual codes and the encounter that determines collective change and growth. Crowds of people and solitary figures alternate among the dense landscapes searching for welcome, inclusion and belonging. The characters portrayed are hugging and welcoming us, a symbol of closeness that has been forbidden and feared for months, to remind us who we are and where we come from, but above all, the strength of humanity that lies within the sharing of dreams and ideals.
The “Refuge” exhibition will be open from the 18 November 2021 until 18 December 2021 at the Dorothy Circus Gallery in London at 35 Connaught Street, W2 2AZ.
