ARTISTS
Abend Gallery
Calvin Lai: Finding Shelter
Abend Gallery is pleased to present Finding Shelter, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Calvin Lai. The series looks at the dual nature of the city, a place that can swallow a person whole and, on another day, hand them the street like a king. Lai walks the gritty corners and underpasses in search of hidden gems, the small refuges found on a corner, under a bridge, or across from traffic while waiting for the bus.
Built on the tension between utopia and dystopia, these paintings hold both the hard edges of urban life and the quiet moments of shelter inside it. Lai's realism drifts into looser, more expressive passages, with marks that break from the subject and blur into the surrounding scene. The effect keeps the eye moving and gives the work a sense of motion and feeling.
Artist on show: