I Hope Your Flowers Bloom
May 16 - June22, 2025
Opening reception Friday, May16th 6-9pm
"I Hope Your Flower Blooms" is a group exhibition that delves into the garden as a timeless space of solitude, where seasons shift, and the physical world reaches toward the spiritual. Inspired by the song "Bloom" by hip-hop artist bLAck pARty (aka Malik Flint), the exhibition mirrors the singer’s ability to transform the natural world into lush, vibrant soundscapes, creating an endless summer.
The artists respond to the garden through sculpture, painting, installation, textiles and photography, engaging the gallery as a site of germination, pollenation, and renewal. The exhibition space transforms into a lush grove where flowers—some floating off the walls and blooming, others still rooted in the ground—represent endless cycles of life. Like plants communicating underground through whispering root systems, the works play off each other in a pulsing biorhythm, deeper than any written or spoken language.
Aruni Dharmakirthi is a Sri Lankan-American artist and educator based in New York City. They received an MFA in Visual Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Florida State University. With my textile work, I process memories and everyday experiences by creating my own visual language. I draw imagery from diverse sources—fish from Western European medieval legends, skies inspired by Mahayana Buddhist meditations, and still lifes that blur the line between everyday objects and shrines. Stitching together fragments of fabric, I use mending as a form of storytelling, each piece carrying an emotional weight that reflects themes of identity, folklore, and the body’s relationship to space and nature.
Julia Blume is a New York based sculptor, painter, and writer. She received her MFA from SFAI in 2018, after earning her BA and MA in linguistics from Columbia University and UC San Diego. In 2023, she opened her solo show, The Walled Garden, at The Front (NYC), and her two person show, as long as you want at My Pet Ram (NYC). Recent group shows include Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Strohl At Center at the Chautauqua Institution, Mizuma & Kips, RSOAA, Field Projects, Paradice Palase, and Established Gallery. She has participated in residencies with The Canopy Residency, Signal Fire, ChaNorth, and ArtsIceland, and she was a fellow in Tania Bruguera’s Escuela de Arte Útil. She was a finalist for the Hopper Prize, and her work has been featured in Two Coats of Paint, Create! Magazine, Youngspace, Bat City Review, Friend of the Artist, and more.
The focus of her recent work is sculptures made from wire mesh, epoxy, pumice, acrylic paint, dyed polyester fringe, meticulously sourced faux flowers, and more. In these sculptures, plants that have been cultivated by humans for economic and agricultural reasons come together to create sinuous, lumpy, symbiotic collectives which reflect their self-determination. Net-like forms reference roots weaving through cracks in walls and tearing them down, and tuber-like forms suggest loci of plant interaction and communication. These organic forms are intentionally created from highly processed materials, leading the viewer to question the false dichotomy of “natural” and “artificial”.
Marissa Graziano is an interdisciplinary artist and curator from Atlanta, GA She received her BFA from Georgia State University in 2015, and her MFA in Painting from Boston University in 2018. She creates paintings, videos, and installations that lure and leer at her audience to provoke paranoia. Her work has been shown at Theodore (NYC), Auxier Kline (NYC), Pio Pico (LA), Clifford Gallery at Colgate University (Hamilton, NY), THE END Project Space (Atlanta, GA), and Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA); among others. In 2019, she co-founded Greene House Gallery with her partner, Samuel Guy, out of their home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. They expanded the project in 2023 to include GH mag, an independent online publication featuring artist-written reviews, interviews, and essays. Graziano is a member of the curatorial collective gallery, Below Grand in Manhattan. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Michael Polakowski was born in Dearborn, MI in 1994 and received his BFA from The College for Creative Studies in 2017. After graduating, he co-founded the “Gold Top” studio space in Detroit. Polakowski’s work focuses on the spirituality and humor found in everyday life, and the tension and absurdity found somewhere between the two. His work has been included in several group shows with Cohle Gallery (Paris), Hashimoto Contemporary (LA), and The MIMA Museum (Brussels) and is included in the Mangroves Foundation Collection. Additionally, Polakowski’s work has been featured in New American Painting and Juxtapoz and was a Vermont Studio Center Fellow in 2024.
Shivani Patel is a Queens-based artist who transforms found materials into elaborate sculptures and installations. Originally from the Midwest, she earned a BFA in Painting witha minor in Ceramics from Michigan State University and later pursued an MFA in Painting at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she focused on material and sculptural studies. Her artistic path has taken her from Chicago, The Gambia and then to Michigan before settling in Ridgewood, New York. For the past three years, her Ridgewood studio has been a hub of tactile, intuitive experimentation, reflecting her engagement with transformation, assemblage, and inspirations drawn from the sacred and the otherworldly. She has participated in group exhibitions in New York City, showcasing her evolving sculptural practice in gallery settings.
SiSi Chen is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Chen approaches the world through a constellational understanding, in which positioning is not measured through fixed coordinates, but is continually shifting, contingent upon one’s own navigation through ever-fluxing time and space. She received a BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design (CA) in 2012, and an MFA from Hunter College (NY) in 2021, and currently teaches in the department of Art and Art History at Hunter College. Recent exhibitions include Tappeto Volante (Brooklyn, NY), Kate Werble (New York, NY), Art Toronto (Toronto, ON), Parent Company (New York, NY), (Satellite Art Fair, (Brooklyn, NY), SPRING/BREAK Art Show (New York, NY), FiveMyles (Brooklyn, NY), and McBride Contemporain (Montreal, Quebec.)
Will Douglas (b. 1988, Charleston, SC) is an artist whose work navigates the intricate intersection of photography and sculpture. He earned his BFA in Photography and Film from VCUarts in 2012 and his MFA in Studio Art in 2015. His solo exhibitions include Spitting into the Wind at Bob's Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Gone to the Dogs and Montage River at Tempus Volta (Tampa, FL), and Drawing on the Hearts of Men at Quaid Gallery (Tampa, FL). Douglas’s work has also been featured in group exhibitions at notable venues such as the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, FL), the Light Factory (Charlotte, NC), and the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL.
This new body of work explores the complex relationship between the ideal of paradise and the inevitability of failure. These themes, seemingly opposites, are deeply intertwined in human experience. Paradise represents an unattainable vision of perfection, an aspiration for a flawless world, while failure reflects the inescapable flaws, setbacks, and disappointments that come with any pursuit. This project aims to explore how these forces coexist, question our attachment to idealized perfection, and reveal beauty in imperfection.
Anthony Padilla is a self-taught contemporary painter known for his richly colored oil paintings of tropical jungles and forests. Inspired by artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and Henri Rousseau, Padilla explores the beauty and complexity of the natural world through his art. Though originally from Texas, Padilla now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been shown in exhibitions across the US. When not in his studio, Padilla can often be found skateboarding around New York City. Padilla's paintings invite viewers into the lush, chaotic realm of nature.
Yi Hsuan Lai, a Taiwanese-born, lens-based artist living in New York. She incorporates sculpture, found objects, and her body in staged photography into two and three dimensions. By examining the intersection of objecthood, bodily projection and mental state. Lai emphasizes the themes of adaptation, uncertainty, and femininity, bridging the material and corporeal realms. She has received residency fellowships from Light Work (2024) and Vermont Studio Center (2023), and participated in the NYFA immigration program in 2023. Her solo exhibitions include NARS Foundation (2024), Gallery 456 (2024), and Spring Break Art Show (2020), with group exhibitions at Photo London (2023), Floor_Gallery (2023), Wassaic Project (2022), and Well Well Project (2022). Lai's work was recognized among LensCulture's Critics' Top 10 Choices in 2022.
Kat Ryals (b. 1988) holds a BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA & Adv. Certificate in Museum Education from Brooklyn College. She has shown her work nationally, including recent two person shows at Elijah Wheat Showroom (2023) and Ortega Y Gasset Projects (2022), in group exhibitions with ChaShaMa (2020, 2021), Ortega Y Gasset Projects (2019), and The Wassaic Project (2018, 2019, 2023), and in solo booths at SPRING/BREAK Art Show (2020, 2022). She has also attended residencies at RONDO in Mexico City (2025), the Studios of Key West (2025), Museum of Arts and Design (2024), Wassaic Project (2017, 2019, 2022), ChaNorth (2019), The Peter Bullough Foundation (2021), and received a Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center (2018). She is a 2022 Joseph Robert Foundation grant recipient, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, White Hot Magazine, Artnet, Forbes, and Hyperallergic. Originally from Arkansas, she lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
clipber aka Ha Tran (born Ha Noi, Vietnam) is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in DMV. She holds a BFA in Parsons School of Design and an MFA at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) - Rinehart school of Sculpture. She has received fellowships and scholarships from Penland School of Craft, Baltimore Jewelry Center, FABnyc, Dogbotic and Pocosin Arts.