FRANCIS AND EMOJI

Francis and Emoji is the first solo exhibition by Chinatown Soup resident artist, Frog. Featuring mixed-media paintings and sculptures, Frog's works utilize layered, repetitious daily motions with spontaneous rearrangements of iconography and color in order to question contemporary spirituo-religious apparitions and observe the numinous corners of our technological realms.

Whereas the name “Francis” bears Latin roots and carries associations of antiquity and piety, the Asian “Emoji” recalls the godless Clouds of contemporary cyber-literati. The two entities, Saint Francis and the Emoji, are dichotomous but similar. Both have brought together different cultures by pivoting towards Universal Love and Communication. Both concern themselves with recreation and re-representation, packaging known imagery into a new form that redistributes messages to a wider audience.

Visitors are invited to examine their own preconceived notions of the Archaic and/or the foreign Other through imagery that mixes elements of the culturally-specific and traditional with the globalized and universal. In turn, Frog meditates on: human connectivity, the spirit-world and cyberspace, time travel, intellectual property, diasporic identity, and what it means to be an American artist in 2018.