The Drawing Room June 21 - July 27, 2002 Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 6-8PM

Ise Cultural Foundation is pleased to announce a group show entitled The Drawing Room as the foundationﾕs summer project 2002. This exhibition will feature three contemporary artists, Eva Lee, Frank Magnotta and Ayae Takahashi, who are known for a common medium, large-scale drawing.

Eva Lee, who lives and works in Ridgefield, Connecticut, investigates worlds within worlds by making associations between an imagined world of nature and the constructed world of science through her drawings. Her drawings are a series of dots and lines on black paper. The groups of dots, however, form shapes that waver between the microcosmos and the macrocosmos. The expansion of dots and lines seems endless like countless cells and molecules, or spacious galaxies that surround the earth.

The pencil-drawn architecture by the Brooklyn artist Frank Magnotta seems to flow against their white or black backgrounds. He constructs the imaginary buildings based on the TV Guide. The size of each module of the buildings depends on the TV programﾕs time-run and the artist attaches the title of the program subsequently at the exterior. His would-be-American ziggurats represent an atmosphere of a drowsy Monday morning and a feverish Friday night.

In her large-scale drawings on panels, Boston-based artist Ayae Takahashi implies more than Eastern and Western cultural references that enrich and defy the image of fairy tales one has been acquainted with. As many tales begin with the phrase "Once upon a time", viewers are invited to travel into a parabolic world, where neither location nor time is fixed, where everything suggests more than one meaning. In their stillness, her psychologically evocative images postpone the arrival of comfortable conclusion, leaving options other than "happily ever after".

These three artists bring in their different worlds, exploring possibilities of drawing as a traditional and innovative medium. The viewers will be cultivated for further appreciation in the medium throughout this exhibition.

Exhibition Information:
Artists: Eva Lee, Frank Magnotta, Ayae Takahashi
Title of the Exhibition: Summer Project 02: The Drawing Room
Exhibition Date: June 21- July 27, 2002
Opening reception: Friday, June 21, 6 - 8 PM
Curator: Nao Onda, Ise Cultural Foundation

Venue:
Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery
555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 (Between Prince & Spring Streets,
Nearest Subways: N, R - Prince Street, 6 ﾐ Spring Street)
Telephone: 212-925-1649 Fax: 212-226-9362
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12 Noon - 6 PM
iseart@earthlink.net URL: www.isefoudnation.org