LAUREN YS + MAKOTO CHI
5 POISONS
collaborative exhibition
April 5th - 28th, 2024
Opening Reception: First Friday, April 5th from 5-9pm
Arch Enemy Arts presents 5 POISONS, a collaborative exhibition by Lauren YS and Makoto Chi that includes twenty-eight pieces ranging in size and medium–from small works on paper to large-scale paintings in acrylic–plus a site-specific mural installation that immerses viewers into the artists’ potent explorations of identity.
The title of this show, “5 POISONS,” refers to an ancient Chinese medicinal concept representing five poisonous animals: the centipede, scorpion, frog, snake, and spider. Mid-year is said to be an inauspicious time, as these poisonous animals emerge from cold slumber; along with them hostile spirits, disease, and often, enemies. During this time, talismans inscribed with these animals, sometimes with the addition of a tiger to ward them off, were worn as protection. Some ingested tinctures infused with small amounts of poison, believing that “fighting poison with poison” could combat the threat of the five beasts or other malevolent spirits.
It is curious that the antidote to a poison might contain amounts of the poison itself; that medicine, in the right dosage, crosses a threshold into toxicity. Lauren YS and Makoto Chi make, traverse, question, and turn these concepts in their hands in this new combined body of work. Their anthropomorphized, hybrid-mythic figures make tactile and explore a means of thinking about our social realities, bringing up questions and paradoxes of the use of force in our social movement spaces and intimate relationships. They grapple with the desire toward violence or revenge in a quest for a just and better world, highlighting the fraught nature of community as we attempt to work around each other towards transformation.
Painting from their respective practices—Makoto in tattooing, and Lauren in muralism—the artists meet and intersect to weave stories soaked with elements of identity, community and heritage. Both draw inspiration from mixed-race East Asian heritages, pulling from a veritable well of invented and historical symbology respective to China, Japan, Judaism and a new synthesis of these backgrounds. Makoto's intricate line-based paintings present writhing humanoid creatures in both tension and intimacy with one another; speaking to the animalism that underscores every human entanglement. Lauren's drawings traverse between images of dreams, processing therapy, and portraits of queer community translated through mythology, in an attempt to capture all that is ephemeral yet held in blood and memory.
Created across the East and West coasts of the US, Makoto and Lauren's works present multi-layered entry-points into illustrated psychosomatic universes, seeking to question as much as to answer: Whose poison do you drink to ward off the unabating hum of pernicious spirits, beings and forces around you? Will you be aware of when your medicine turns noxious? How do we keep loving each other in a hostile culture? Will we be brave enough to hold each other close at the end of the world? Can we reckon with the monsters within ourselves?
HI-FRUCTOSE INTERVIEW / EXHIBITION PREVIEW & INTERVIEW
5 POISONS will be on view from April 5th - 28th, 2024
Sold works will begin to ship the week starting May 5th, unless other rush arrangements have been made.
Payment plan options are available on most works.
All items marked with a red dot have been sold.
"5 Poisons" (2024) acrylic and gouache on wood panel 48" round $7000 USD
"5 Poisons" (2024) ink and gouache on paper 24" x 24" framed $2500 USD
"Falling As Flowers Do, Dying A Glorious Death" (2024) ink and gouache on paper 12" x 12" framed $800 USD
"The End Is Important In All Things" (2024) ink and gouache on paper 12" x 12" framed $800 USD
"Even If It Seems Certain That You Will Lose, Retaliate" (2024) ink, acrylic and gouache on paper 16" x 20" framed $1500 USD
"Siphonophorae" (2024) ink, acrylic and gouache on paper 16" x 20" framed $1300 USD
"I Create As I Speak" (2024) gouache, ink and watercolor on paper 16" x 12" framed $1500 USD
"Sweet Surrender" (2024) gouache, ink and watercolor on paper 16" x 12" framed $1600 USD
"Fallow" (2024) gouache and ink on paper 7" x 10" framed $300 USD
"As Above, So Below" (2024) acrylic and gouache on wood panel 24" x 36" $4000 USD
"Makoto" (2023) acrylic on canvas 48" x 58" $8000 USD
"Kiss of The Rabbit Godx" (2023) acrylic on canvas 48" x 60" $8000 USD
"Stevie Qingming" (2024) acrylic on panel 24" round $3000 USD
"Ren/Nezha" (2024) acrylic on panel 24" round $3000 USD
"Dòngjié (Freeze)" (2024) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Dòuzhēng (Fight)" (2024) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Tǎohǎo (Fawn)" (2024) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Kuìtáo (Flight)" (2024) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Asleep In Cat Alley" (2023) ink on paper 8.3" x 11.7" $1200 USD
"Fushimi Inari Taisha" (2023) ink on paper 8.3" x 11.7" $1200 USD
"Nezha" (2024) ink on paper 16" x 20" $1600 USD
"Peter Lai's Realm" (2024) ink on paper 22" x 30" $2200 USD
“Jiàng shén huì (séance)” (2024) ink on paper 30" x 22" $2200 USD
"To Please A Cyborg" (2023) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Poison for Poison" (2023) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Piscean Daydream" (2023) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Macon Saturniidae" (2023) ink on paper 14" x 17" $1500 USD
"Elom After" (2023) ink on paper 14" x 17" framed to 16" x 20" $1500 USD