As summer officially comes to an end, Thinkspace welcomes the New Contemporary Art community to their space once again, displaying five brand new solo shows, each with a diverse style and approach.

In the Main Gallery, Thinkspace Projects is pleased to present Yosuke Ueno’s Beautiful Noise, inspired by the reborn aesthetic of the Japanese art of “kintsugi,” which refers to repairing broken pottery by mending the breaks with powdered gold. Rather than dispose of or hide the breakage, it highlights the process of repair as beautiful. Ueno explores the Japanese tradition of admiring beauty in the incompleteness of objects, acknowledging breakage, damage, and noise as proof of existence. Beautiful Noise carries creation and destruction, life and death, all at the same time.

In Gallery II, Dan Lydersen’s Plasticine Dream takes the idea of the Plasticine Epoch a step further, imagining an outlandish scenario where plastics have entirely merged with organic matter so that the two are indistinguishable from one another. Taking form as a series of absurdist portraits, sentient still lifes and fanciful visions of inanimate objects come to life, the paintings are filled with strange amalgamations of plastic, clay, and various synthetic and organic materials. The work dabbles in the trappings of traditional portraiture and still life painting but is thoroughly removed from the narrative and allegorical inclinations that define those genres.

In Gallery III, Thinkspace Projects presents Floyd Strickland’s Super Rich Kids, the artist’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. Featuring a body of work that delves into the rich tapestry of African American culture, history, and its pivotal economic contributions, Strickland has created a collection of 12 meticulously crafted oil paintings. The exhibition artfully weaves together historical imagery and contemporary scenes to illuminate the significance of cultural and financial districts from the past. Beyond aesthetics, Super Rich Kids resounds with a powerful message. It underscores how African American prosperity and wealth have functioned as an agent of change, challenging oppressive systems within the broader American society. The show captures the essence of the cultural and financial districts that were pivotal in the past, showcasing their role as spaces of empowerment and resistance.

Gallery IV holds Where the Spirit Meets the Skin from Priscilla S. Flores. A convergence of reality and fantasy, Flores draws from memory and personal experiences with sensuality, exploring the external and internal relationships she has with the world around her. Through various paintings and a few small graphite drawings, Flores allows the viewer to gaze into her world.

In the Dog House, Thinkspace’s newest Gallery, Allison Bamcat brings her affinity for confectionery and phantoms. Through the use of acidic color, her paintings work to elicit feelings of her neon, nineties-childhood in Los Angeles, surrounded by sun-bleached, cheap plastic dolls and doodled-on stuffed toys. A menagerie of animals and creatures serve as avatars for the artist herself, assembling a series of surreal snapshots of her own personal journey, one of beautiful growth and also the simmer of trauma. Fish Fingers works to hypnotize the audience through her dizzying use of color and detail.