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Lia Chang Photos: “Swimming Awkward Moment,” the newest works by painter Arlan Huang at Trestle Gallery through March 27

Trestle Gallery opening reception for "Swimming Awkward Moment," new works by Arlan Huang in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Trestle Gallery opening reception for “Swimming Awkward Moment,” new works by Arlan Huang in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

The frigid temps last night did not deter artist Arlan Huang’s fans from turning out for the opening reception of his latest works, “Swimming Awkward Moment,” at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn. 

Trestle Gallery opening reception for "Swimming Awkward Moment," new works by Arlan Huang in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Trestle Gallery opening reception for “Swimming Awkward Moment,” new works by Arlan Huang in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Huang describes his current practice as “looking at myself from the outside.” In 2014, Huang reacquainted himself with his entire body of work through a cataloging process facilitated by a Creating a Living Legacy award from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. This act of retracing allowed Huang to review his painting career through an experienced lens. With Huang’s newest body of work he chooses to embrace awkwardness and paint with a layered perspective about his artistic decisions and the aspirations he held as a younger painter.


From this intensive look into his own history, Huang found that he has been “doing the same things over and over again,” with subtle shifts in color and line from one painting to the next. His search for a meditative “hum” while he paints is ever present as he experiments with the surface, color, and fluid movement of his abstract imagery. The results are layered and stacked linear marks, neat rows, or floating daubs of paint.

Trestle Gallery opening reception for "Swimming Awkward Moment," new works by Arlan Huang in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Trestle Gallery opening reception for “Swimming Awkward Moment,” new works by Arlan Huang in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Arlan Huang (1948) was born in Bangor, Maine and was raised in San Francisco. Huang studied at San Francisco Art Institute (1964-65), City College of San Francisco (1966-69) and received his BFA from Pratt Institute (1972). Huang has permanent installations throughout New York, including the Museum of Chinese in Americas, Jacobi Medical Center, and Baron Capital, and has received awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Board of Education, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Recent solo exhibitions include Red for Yellow (2013), Flatfile Gallery, Japan; and Most Violet Paintings 2003-2008 (2008), Walter Randel Gallery, NYC. Huang has exhibited extensively in group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. He currently lives  in Manhattan and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Trestle Gallery opening reception for "Swimming Awkward Moment," new works by Arlan Huang, here with his wife Lillian Huang, in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Trestle Gallery opening reception for “Swimming Awkward Moment,” new works by Arlan Huang, here with his wife Lillian Ling, in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang

Trestle Gallery
168 7th Street, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11215
M – F, 11am – 6pm
Buzz 35 to enter building 718 858 9069

Contact: Mary Negro Managing Director trestle@brooklynartspace.org

Original Music Composition by GK

Related articles:
Feb. 20-Mar. 27: Trestle Gallery Presents “Swimming Awkward Moment,” the newest works by painter Arlan Huang
Photos and Video: Blowing Glass with Arlan Huang
Oct 18-19: Meet Artist Arlan Huang during Gowanus Open Studios 2014
Photos: Artist Arlan Huang, One Brush Stroke at a Time
medium.com: Arlan Huang: Art and Artists
Arlan Huang Celebrates Most Violet
MOST VIOLET:PAINTINGS 2003- 2008 by Arlan Huang
Inside the fiery furnace of glass sculptor and painter Arlan Huang

Lia Chang, Artist Arlan Huang and his wife Lillian Ling at the opening reception of "Swimming Awkward Moment," at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by GK

Lia Chang, Artist Arlan Huang and his wife Lillian Ling at the opening reception of “Swimming Awkward Moment,” at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn on February 20, 2015. Photo by GK

Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia starred as Carole Barbara in Lorey Hayes’ Power Play at the 2013 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., with Pauletta Pearson Washington, Roscoe Orman, and made her jazz vocalist debut in Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz “LADY” at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. She is profiled in Jade Magazine.

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Click here for the Lia Chang Articles Archive and here for the Lia Chang Photography Website.

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