Felix Art Fair, Los Angeles

Tom Allen, Sophie Barber, Lin May Saeed

February 17 to February 20, 2022

POOL SIDE CABANA 111

Chris Sharp Gallery is pleased to present a three-person booth of work by Tom Allen, Sophie Barber, and Lin May Saeed. The presentation revolves around nature as something at once alien, intimate and mediated. American, Los Angeles-based painter Tom Allen's portraits of flowers, which are depicted with preternatural precision and technique, tread luxuriously upon the unnatural. British, England-based Sophie Barber's small-scale paintings portray British birds on stuffed and misshapen, homemade canvases, while simultaneously nodding to the British, Los Angeles-based painter David Hockney as a symbolic figure of artistic mediation (who just so happens to have decorated the nearby pool at the Roosevelt Hotel). And German, Berlin-based sculptor Lin May Saeed presents a styrofoam wall relief as well as a selection of small-scale, bronze sculptures of animals, all of which foreground and privilege the dignity of animals as beings in their own right.

Tom Allen (b. 1975, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles. A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes “The Song,” Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021; “The Promise,” the Approach, London, 2021; “Praeternatura,” Air de Paris, Paris, 2020; “La-Bas,” Lulu, Mexico City, 2019; and “The Lovers,” Bel Ami, Los Angeles, 2017. Recent group exhibitions include “Particularities,” X Museum, Beijing, 2021; “Blue Flowers,” Le Maximum, Venice, CA, 2019; “Symbolisms,” Cooper
Cole, Toronto; “Ruins in the Snow,” High Art, Paris 2017; and “A Change of Heart,” Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles, 2016.

Sophie Barber (b. 1996, St Leonards-on-Sea, UK), lives and works in Hastings. She has had solo exhibitions at Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021, Alison Jacques, London 2021, Goldsmiths CCA, London 2020, and Project 78 Gallery, St. Leonards on Sea, 2018. Her work has been included in recent group shows Lismore Castle, Lismore, Co Waterford, Ireland, 2022; X Museum, Beijing, China, 2021; LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2020; Flatland Projects, Hastings, 2019; Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, 2019; Niagara Falls Projects, Brighton, 2019; Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, 2018; De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, 2017; and the Observer Building, Hastings, 2016.

Lin May Saeed (b. 1973 Würzburg, Germany) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She has recently had solo shows at Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, 2021; Sipgate Shows, Dusseldorf, Germany, 2021; The Clark Art Institute (curated by Robert Wiesenberger), Williamstown, USA, 2020; What Pipeline, Detroit, USA, 2019; Studio Voltaire, London, UK, 2018; and Lulu, Mexico City, Mexico 2017. A selection of recent group exhibitions includes (all 2021): Painting in Person. The new Collection of Fondazione CRC (curated by Carolyn Chrystof-Bakargiev and Marcella Beccaria), Complesso Monumentale di San Francesco a Cuneo, IT.; Eurasia -A Landscape of Mutability (curated by Joanna Zielinska and Nav Haq), Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, BE.; Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale, ARTZUID 2021 – Imagine (curated by Cintha van Heeswijck), NL. La Mer Imaginaire (curated by Chris Sharp), Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles, FR.; Espressioni (curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Beccaria, Marianna Vecellio and Fabio Cafagna), Museo Castello di Rivoli, Turino, IT.; IUCN World Conservation Congress (curated by Alice Audouin & Catherine Bastide), Marseille, FR.