Special Soft Sudden
Kasia Houlihan & Xiaoguang Mao

Reception: December 14, 6pm - 9pm
December 14 - 22, 2013

Lease Agreement
3718 Ellerslie Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21218

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Special Soft Sudden features recent works by Kasia Houlihan and Xiaoguang Mao. Using light, careful touch, the works in this two-person exhibition address internal spaces and personal relationships, by embracing sincerity and whimsy, without being overly saccharine or cliché.

In his often sparsely composed series of contour line ink drawings, Is As (2008-2013), Mao depicts landscape scenes, portraits of friends and students, and abstracted genitalia. His works are culled from lived experiences that he translates into gestural form in order to give voice to that which is fleeting and magical.

Houlihan's work is at once intimate and conceptually-grounded. Taking the form of sculpture, book, and video, these works draw out the poetry in everyday objects, actions, and language by altering, ever so slightly, the meanings they connote. The results shift these ordinary signs, re-presenting them as totems to those who are near and dear.

Kasia Houlihan is a Chicago-based artist who works in a variety of media in an effort to get at the experience of relating. With photography, drawing, video, sculpture and language all in her arsenal, she chips away at the concepts of closeness, communication and connectivity. She has exhibited at such venues as EXPO Chicago, Gallery 400, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles; and the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space, Miami. Houlihan received an MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago.

Xiaoguang Mao was born in China and currently works in Beijing. He received his BFA in fine arts from Jiangxi Normal University and his MFA from Renmin University, both in China In addition, Mao was recently a guest artist at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has exhibited internationally at institutions including the Louvre Museum, Paris; New Millennium Gallery of 798 Art Zone, Beijing; Art Museum, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; and Sunshine International Art Museum, Beijing.

More of Houlihan and Mao's works can be seen at their websites, cargocollective.com/kasiahoulihan/ (Kasia Houlihan) and artist.mxg.zhuokearts.com/ (Xiaoguang Mao).