John William Gallery presents its Spring Group Exhibition, Tour de Force, featuring the various styles and diverse mediums by its six contemporary artists. Inspired by the physical or conceptual world and our place in it, Tour de Force offers a glimpse into the artistic skills of its artists. The collective work is filled with familiar and abstracted objects and subjects to showcase the spirited human tendency to respond to materials, objects, the environment, or the human condition. This multigenerational group of artists represent avant garde trends in contemporary work, from conceptionally driven painting, experimental collage, surrealistic drawings, to novel approaches on pop-culturally driven photography. Though each work stands alone on its own merit, Tour de Force is united by vigorous juxtapositions of curvilinear shapes and carefully selected color modulations created by each artist’s ingenuity and feat of strength.

Maria Bouquet uses a “light loom” to showcase the expressive quality of light. Created in horizontal bands, she indulgences visual sensations. Mark DeMuro mines natural and found objects to revisit the assemblage genre into two-dimensional construction. Hyewon Hahn harnesses the power of visual perception to evoke human experience. Her painting of lines suggests navigation, traveling at a crossroads, or a bird’s eye view of a Los Angeles freeway system. Inspired by his relationship with artists, William John Kennedy’s photographs juxtapose Andy Warhol in imaginary, ethereal environments to evoke surrealistic images to capture moments of mystery and contemplation. Monique Rollins pushes tonal relationships to draw attention to movement and gesture memorializing intimacy and memory. Ola Rondiak exploits collage and painting material into vibrant images inspired by family history, tradition, and socio-political trauma. Through the layering of materials, Rondiak questions the connection of loss and memory.