FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Xanadu* is pleased to announce the opening of Tonight is a Full Moon and Lai-Sze-Lai-Chung, two congruent solo shows that feature emerging international talent from Lebanon and Hong Kong.

Oscillating between soft, subtle mindscapes and densely littered violent undertones both artists seek mental clarity with a similar mandate. As in the heyday of modern contemporary art, the “take a fresh look at things familiar to us, yet uprooted from their ordinary context and reflect upon the contemporary existence”. Both women are beyond ordinary artistic confines in that their end result gives off the effect of not just merely existing, but being alive in the room with you. These objects always have something surprising about them, whether it is in size, material, or texture.

This is wonderfully illustrated in Kazoun’s work. Her pieces are made of everyday materials, such as fabric, threads, stuffing, and trash bags; they are sewn and pieced together to create bulbous organ-like shapes and nightmarish landscapes. The artist feels that there is an emotional bond, certain memories that are attached to items we use everyday. As someone who feels quite alien in today’s world it is a way for her to curtail the social sigma that is placed on her being both being female and of Arab descent. “There is temporary satisfaction in my work, in its organic forms, and the world made with skin-like materials stitched together. I sew them to perfection. I am in physical pain because of the labor of their making and I embrace it, it is the labor of giving birth. The boundary between art and art making and life is very thin, as is the boundary between pleasure and pain. Slipping to the other side is very easy. Human balance stands on a thread. I am more sane than the sane.”

Poon also grapples with assumed roles in society. In her latest work, Lai-Sze-Lai-Chung, she reflects on her many childhood memories of her and her sister fighting, all tangled up, kicking and biting. There is a cuteness associated with violence in Asian society. When asked to define violence the artist simply said “ it is sometimes not about the actual act but how it affects a person in the long term” She is able to capture that relationship in her three dimensional double-sided pieces entitled Panda and Uniform. The dramatic poses, pleated skirts, the intertwined bodies, they represent what little body contact they had and also the pitted competitive nature of their youth. “We do not have an openly emotional society, Chinese families are very cold.” By revisiting this time in her life she was able to reconnect with her sister and those fleeting memories of home.

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about the artist: Marya Kazoun is a Lebanese/ Canadian Artist born in Beirut in 1976. Fleeing the war with her family, she lived in Switzerland and spent her teenage years in Montreal, Canada. She completed degrees in Interior design, Interior architecture and Fine Arts at LAU in Beirut. Marya has been living in NYC for the past 5 years, where she also completed her MFA in Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts.

about the artist: Lai Chung Poon is a Brooklyn-based visual artist who plays between the polar opposites of control and passion. Born and raised in Hong Kong. She now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She recieved her MFA from School of Visual Arts, NY. in 2007. She is a multimedia artist that works in print, painting, performance, and video art.

about the curator: Born and raised in New York, Lynn del Sol currently lives and works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In late 2003 she left the commercial art world and set to create a vehicle for expletory artists to exhibit their works to the public by founding {CTS} creative thriftshop, a young art company that represents international emerging and under-represented artists.

about the curator: Zena el Khalil born 1976 in London, has lived in Nigeria, London, New York, and Beirut. Zena is an installation artist, a painter, and writer and holds a MFA degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York. el Khalil has been involved in a love/hate relationship with Beirut for the past decade- clearly evident in her work. el-Khalil is also the co-founder and director of xanadu*.

about the gallery: xanadu* an art space/collective based in Beirut with a small extension in New York city, dedicated to promoting young and/or under-represented artists. xanadu* was born on the number 2 train in New York City in 2001. Zena el Khalil and Imad Khachan felt that within New York City there was an under representation of budding international artists, especially from Arab and Eastern countries.