Sherbet Green is pleased to present a duo show with Sonya Derviz and Li Li Ren, whose works, combined, underscore a certain attention paid by both artists to fragmentation, bio-morphism, surface and wholeness. The presentation follows solo exhibitions at the gallery from both artists, and builds on a body of work exhibited by Ren at both Frieze Sculpture (2023) and Dulwich Picture Gallery (2024).
Ren's sculptures, which inhabit the centre of the booth, approximate forms associated with the ocean, while also subverting them through unexpected material applications and abstractions. They speak to a desire to flatten and destabilise humanism through an amplification of the similarities, as well as the strangeness, of human and non-human existence.
Around them sit paintings by Derviz, whose images produce a similar friction. They are made wet-on-wet using thinned oils and embedded charcoal, which provide semi-eviscerated contours to the morphing figures, faces and landscapes that capture her interest. Focusing not on the image as a whole, but on the specific elements contained within it, she draws in and repeatedly readjusts these pictures until they dissipate into new metaphysical shapes, an intuitive artistic language that veers towards expression and emotion over linearity and fixed ideas.
Sonya Derviz (b. 1994, Moscow) lives and works in London. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Slade School of Fine Art in 2018, having previously completed her Foundation Diploma at Central Saint Martins.
Solo exhibitions include Closer, Sherbet Green, London (2023); The eyes have all the seeming, of a demon's that is dreaming, Daniel Benjamin Gallery, London (2022); and Pas de Corps, V.O Curations, London (2018). Selected group exhibitions include: Soft Focus, Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal (2024); Into My Arms, Sherbet Green, London (2023); Bury a Friend, Roman Road, London (2023); First Light, curated by Hector Campbell, Collective Ending, London (2022); Inside Out, The Artist Room, London (2022); It Seems So Long Ago, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2020); Minimal | Maximal, LVH Art, London (2019); Parfum d’épines, Phillips x V.O Curations, Paris (2019); and Paintings by, Alex Vardoxoglou, London (2019).
Li Li Ren (b. 1986, Heilongjiang Province, China) lives and works in London. She gained her BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, in 2010, and her MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2017.
Solo exhibitions include: The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot, Sherbet Green, London (2024); Sunset as Burning Bruise, Magician Space, Beijing (2022) and Frantumaglia, Qimu Space, Beijing (2021). Group exhibitions include: Art-o-rama, Marseille (2024; forthcoming); Ruthin International Arts Festival 2024, North Wales (forthcoming performance); Art Basel Hong Kong (2024); The Flow of Art and Value, MOCA Yichuan (2024); Embodied Rituals, Times Museum, Guangdong (2024); ANTIDOTE, Informality Gallery, London (2024); Frieze Sculpture, London (2023); Home is where the haunt is, X Museum, Beijing (2023); Sculptural vibe cutting through (in) accessible sites, Gravity Art Museum, Beijing (2023); Into My Arms, Sherbet Green (2023); We Borrow Dreams from Others, Like Debt, MadeIn Art Museum, Shanghai (2022- 2023); Memorias del subdesarrollo, Qimu Space, Beijing (2021); In/Out, Guardian Art Center, Beijing (2020); Silence in Violence, Spectrum Art Space, Shanghai (2018); and Camden Arts Centre, London (2017).