Featuring: Tim Doud, Jacqueline Fraser, Debra Hampton, Aaron Johnson, Airan Kang, Ryan Lemke, Chad Marshall, Sybille Rath, Riiko Sakkinen and Rachel Selekman.

Eleven artists express the sensuous imprints that modern culture has left on them. Ranging from social critique to personal narratives, the works included in this exhibition possess a constant undertone that is rife with climactic emotions, colliding senses and pulsating desire.

In their paintings, Aaron Johnson and Chad Marshall depict relationships that are teetering between playfulness and aggression. Debra Hampton and John Sparagana manipulate fashion magazines, a prominent symbol of mass culture, for the purpose of exposing the imperfections of the society they represent. In her drawings, Jacqueline Fraser employs candid text in order to undermine the accompanying depictions of female figures that carry socially-accepted signifiers of beauty and prestige.

Other artists express the vibrant sensations which arise from their urban environment. Riiko Sakkinen exposes in his video the omnipresent undercurrent of ‘illegitimate’ desire, which saturates our roadsides and city streets. Sybille Rath translates into painting and drawing the alluring visual impressions the city has left on her, such as those originating from billboards or graffiti. In his new diorama works, Ryan Lemke creates a contemporary interpretation of a practice that was prevalent in Paris a century ago, which enabled its residents to indulge in lustful acts within a legitimate setting.

Expressions of sensuality are also apparent through everyday forms and objects. In the work of Rachel Selekman, watering-can spouts and pocketbooks embody the male and female. Executed in lavish materials, the conjoined forms are luscious manifestations of love and sexuality. Through a construction of sexually-themed book covers that have been stripped of their usual function and thus transformed from a tangible object to a virtual one, Airan Kang demonstrates the way in which the sensual has infiltrated all aspects of our reality. In his paintings, Tim Doud unveils the personal identity and cultural context of his subjects by depicting them in their ornate work attire, as in the case of the burlesque Dirty Martini, winner of the 2004 Miss Exotic World competition.