Downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery is proud to announce a three-artist show featuring new series’ from New York-based Japanese artist aica, Canadian-based illustrator and sculptor Dena Seiferling, and established Los Angeles art scene painter and illustrator Luke Chueh, premiering May 30th in Gallery 3.

aica, inspired by Japanese anime, manga and traditional ukiyo-e, creates ethereal worlds whose subjects appear innocent, but carry deep emotional scars. Wanting to create a sanctuary of emotionally scarred girls in her works, aica says, “In their ethereal world, everything has a soul or a spirit. A flower has a soul, even a drop of tear has a spirit, and they keep girls’ hearts warm. Like witnessing a girl's isolated emotions being released into the air. I hope through my work to inspire someone who may hold sadness within to start loving someone or something around them.”

aica’s newest series, entitled Qualia, is her first solo show at CHG and she shares, “This series of paintings came from my own ‘qualia,’ which are the phenomenal qualities of experiences. These raw feels, that I’ve felt, have lived deep inside my heart and I don’t know how to accurately describe them. With my art, I strive to touch the audience’s heart and connect our consciousness through the qualia they feel when they see my work.”

Dena Seiferling ’s pieces hover somewhere between a childhood fantasy and an adult's reality, merging the beauty of nature with irony and satire. Regarding Seiferling ’s newest body of work and first solo show at CHG, entitled Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, which is heavily inspired by the namesake idiom, she states: “My overall intent of this exhibition is to express how harsh truths, anxieties, grief and intimidating realities can be processed through soft and comforting animal themes. Examples of this are proverbs and folk wisdom passed down through the generations. Animal narrative in fables, children’s stories, proverbs, and idioms tamper harsh realities to help us understand and accept them, as well as to feel compassion towards the inevitable paradoxes of life. And of course, it must be acknowledged that the wisdom of animal behaviour is a priceless learning tool for all.

As I worked through why I wanted to create a body of work inspired by proverbs, I began having a conversation with my childhood self about the ones that still resonate with me. And through this project, I have come to the conclusion that I have never really left the headspace where I prefer to process and view realities through animal narratives. It is in this space where I find and express humour and joy. I would like to conclude that it is important to embrace our inner child when needed and let them out every once in a while. I hope my work can make that happen for others.”

Employing minimal colour schemes, simple animal characters, and a seemingly endless list of ill-fated situations, Luke Chueh stylistically balances cute with brute, walking the fine line between comedy and tragedy. Chueh’s latest series, entitled Gravity, explores the concept of the “character study” or expressive character portrayals, featuring his signature anthropomorphized “Bear” character (a metaphorical stand-in for the artist). Replacing humorous narratives and dark editorials he regularly weaves into his work, Chueh’s newest show features “Bear” with a variety of loose and frenetic textures that help tell the story. Chueh shares, “For a while now, I’ve been trying to find a way of incorporating the modern and contemporary art stylings I see all around me. I’m particularly interested in creating works where you can feel the ‘artists hand,’ imagining the way they attack the canvas, celebrating the raw textures and happy accidents.”