Rui Jiang is a Baltimore-based curator and writer and current candidate in the MFA program in Curatorial Practice at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). From semiotic theory to intimate momentum, from textuality to oscillating dialogues, her research interests encompass the destruction and reflection of various art media and the exploration of mutual construction in a polycentric field. By contemplating the dynamics in art discourse, her curatorial practice continuously focuses o the discussion towards the ethics of curating. Through interdisciplinary research, she experiments with complicity and reflexivity in the narratives of power relations in exhibitions.

Valentino Orlando was born and raised in Lansing, Michigan. Since moving to Baltimore he has taken inspiration from the 20th century infrastructure present on the East Coast to realize the effects of deindustrialization that are present in his home state. An uninformed viewer to the massive abandoned factories and industrial parks in the ‘Rust-Belt,’ Orlando follows intuition and mistranslates the gestalt of his environment through abstraction, naivete, and camp aesthetics. As a contemporary painter responding to nearly century old artefacts, he points towards the effects this environment has on cultural experience, the value of labor, and the skewed social and physical development that is present today.

Kyoungho Isaac Kim’s mixed media art assemblage depicts the juxtaposition of a dual identity between the Korean iconography and the western art canon. He uses mythical and symbolic creatures that he grew up with in Korea that have cultural roots in a way that helped him understand. He was also constantly in an environment where the city walls would be covered with graffiti. Being in art school also taught him how to examine brush strokes and build layers. These elements helped to develop his art practice on the medium being the message. The gestural marks and multiple layers with comical imagery reflects the embodiment of his experience being a first generation Korean in the US.

Born and raised in Taiwan, Chia-Hsiu Liu's work is centered on observing landscapes and translating them into structured forms within her paintings. She also explores her artistic identity and the effects of urbanization through her practice. While pursuing her MFA in Baltimore, Maryland, Liu began to notice parallels between the urban landscape of Baltimore and her hometown in Taiwan, which led her to develop a style of painting that combines structural and city-like elements. Her surroundings became a key influence on her work, especially the random structures she encountered around her, particularly on the campus where she was studying. Living alone and having ample time for reflection provided Liu with the space to explore these themes more deeply. Her paintings emerged as subtle representations of a place—one that remains nameless and undefined. In this process, Liu expresses a sense of confusion about the meaning and direction of her work, unsure of what exactly her paintings are trying to convey.

In Tim Moran's paintings, ordered structures erode, disintegrate, or rebel – undermined by the less rigid, the more organic. Ruled game boards, digital aesthetics by way of science fiction, and other gridded, binary structures encounter liquid stains, improvised patterning, and asemic writing, which cohabitate or clash with the grid. Their conflict forms the ground for featureless figures, whose internal experience has been made external, and whose autonomy at times seems frustratingly limited. These scenarios arise from spontaneous image making, a tool with which to engage the immediacy of thoughts and behaviors. They reflect a lingering sense of mistrust towards our reliance on established systems, especially those which dictate interpersonal interactions. In the space of the paintings, these sentiments leak into the atmosphere, and become omnipresent.