MAY 15 – JUNE 21, 2019

Opening Reception with the Artist
Wednesday, May 15, 6 – 8 PM

SOCO Gallery is pleased to present Sentimental Spring, an exhibition of new paintings by Guy Yanai. The gallery will host a public opening reception with the artist on Wednesday, May 15 from 6 – 8PM. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with SOCO Gallery.

Guy Yanai uses a bright, heightened palette and thick, decisive brush strokes to portray the world around him in encyclopedic depths. Yanai’s paintings have a strong structural foundation yet take unexpected liberties, such as broken horizon lines and slightly off center compositions. Large open spaces, shallow depth of field and independent shadows take on a life of their own. The artist has been influenced by painters ranging from Matisse and Cezanne to Guston and Tal R, as well as a lifetime of travel and the music scene he witnessed in New York in the early 2000’s.

For his first exhibition at SOCO Gallery, Guy Yanai has made a set of botanical paintings and works on paper. According to Yanai, “Nature is looking. Looking is observation. Observation is the most profound human activity.”

Guy Yanai (B. 1977, Israeli)

Guy Yanai attended Parsons School of Design, New York, NY; The New York Studio School, New York, NY; Pont-Aven School of Art, Pont-Aven, France; and received a BFA from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. Yanai has had numerous solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include “Boy On an Island,” Conrads Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany; “Barbarian in the Garden,” Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles, CA; and “Calm European,” Flatland Gallery, Art Brussels. Recent group exhibitions include “YUMMY YUMMY,” Flatland Gallery, Amsterdam; “I Dream My Painting and Then I Paint My Dream,” UNIT 5, Los Angeles, CA; and “The Barn Show 2018,” Johannes Vogt Gallery, East Hampton, NY. Yanai is the co-founder of Yundler Brondino Verlag, a publishing house started with Aurore Chauve, and is currently working on a collaboration with Hermes to be released 2019.