Julian Kent & Emma Kohlmann: Worlds
March 14th - May 18th 2025
works
Julian Kent
A self-taught artist in his early twenties, Kent makes imagined portraits of people caught in the complexities of everyday realities, within the scope of the Black experience. Kent sees his work as "sociological studies of human emotions."
Kent paints specific scenes, mostly of domestic settings, celebrating quiet moments of everyday black people, friends, and family. Using thick, flat planes of oil pigments, Kent makes intimate paintings. Although self-taught, Kent is a sophisticated artist who finds artistic inspiration in films by Mike Leighand Edward Yang; writings by Dostoyevsky and Toni Morrison; and paintings by Jacob Lawrence, Chaim Soutine and Alice Neel.
Kent has had solo exhibitions at Kerry Schuss Gallery in New York city as well as a solo booth at The Independent Art Fair. He currently lives and works in Cleveland Ohio.
Outer Space would like to thank the Kerry Schuss Gallery for their support in organizing this exhibition.
My work is informed by films such as those by Mike Leigh and Edward Yang. I find the distinctive humanist quality to their respective bodies of work extremely moving. These directors along with writers like Fyodor Dostoevsky and Toni Morrison have been instrumental in how I approach the characters in my work. Additionally, painters such as Jacob Lawrence, Chaim Soutine, and Alice Neel have also been major influences. The different ways they have extended the possibilities of figuration and painting in a general sense pushed me to see if I myself could find a new way to extend figuration as well.
With the characters in my paintings, I'm seeking to understand the psychological undertones of a singular emotion or instance by exploring how each exterior moment is charged and influenced by one's interior reality. I feel that each little expression and gesture are rich with the history or nature of an individual. I want these paintings to feel lived in like a glimpse into the day to day of these characters.
- Julian Kent
Julian Kent
Read full story from The New York Times
Julian Kent: Drama of Silence
Julian Kent: Black History on Canvas
emma kohlmann
For the past decade, Emma Kohlmann has been primarily working in watercolor and painting, creating a distinct universe in which anthropomorphous figures, flora and fauna peacefully coexist in spiritual spheres. Visually informed by a variety of cultural references encompassing Greek and Roman mythology, modern painting history, folk art and DIY punk ephemera, her paintings manifest a cosmos free from hierarchies. Stylistically naive and folksy, the absence of perspectives and lack of relational scales translates the egalitarian belief system Kohlmann's practice is rooted in. Considering not only human beings, but every living organism, a sense of togetherness and community is palpable throughout her work. In evocative color schemes, Kohlmann's palettes transcend from nature's elements to the spiritual, mirroring the unique spaces she creates at the intersection of the earthly and fantastical.
Emma Kohlmann (b. 1989 in The Bronx, NY) lives and works in Western Massachusetts. She received a B.A. from Hampshire College and has exhibited in the United States and internationally. Most recently she has had solo exhibitions at the Silke Lindner (New York), Cooper Cole (Toronto), Jack Hanley Gallery (New York, NY) and V1 (Copenhagen, DK). She has been included in numerous group exhibitions including shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, (Tucson, AZ) Venus over Manhattan (New York, NY) and Andrew Edlin (New York, NY). Her work is in the collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She publishes her own zines, and frequently collaborates with artists, writers, musicians and designers. She co-founded and co-runs Mundus Press with her sister Charlotte Kohlmann.
Outer Space would like to thank the Silke Lindner Gallery for their support in organizing this exhibition.
I think there is a dance between humans and the natural world. I see that dance within my own work. I have my own visual language that works within this. Each plant, animal, and shape feels alive within this world.
- Emma Kohlmann
Emma Kohlmann's Dance Between Humans and the Natural World
Emma Kohlmann: A Watercolour Journey into Form, Gender and Sensuality
Read full story on Art Plugged
Emma Kohlmann’s New Exhibition Is an Otherworldly Oasis in the Heart of the City