LOS ANGELES
Holding the Unholdable
Sep 28 - Oct 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Sat, Sep 28, 7-10 pm
Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles is pleased to present Holding the Unholdable, a group exhibition featuring the work of iris yirei hu, Cara Levine, and Naomi Nadreau.
Holding the Unholdable explores the paradox of making the invisible visible and the internal external. Each body of work forges a new language for connection, transforming the pain of disconnection and the fear of the unknown into something tangible.
Naomi Nadreau, Cara Levine, and iris yirei hu, each with their own rich mythologies, unite in a shared investigation of interiority. Nadreau’s sculptures, inspired by the estrangement found in science fiction, navigate the tension between the familiar and the strange, reflecting the experience of existing in a state of in-betweenness. Levine’s deconstructed postcards delve into the intimate emotional estrangements that separate us, using flowers as a multilayered metaphor for both connection and grief. Meanwhile, hu’s paintings bridge societal estrangements, creating a metaphysical language rooted in shared suffering. This collective pain reveals our deep connection—the love behind the grief. Her work invites us to be present, listen inward, and reconstruct ourselves and the world from within.
In this exhibition, we are not mere spectators but participants in a dialogue that challenges us to reflect on our own estrangements, deconstruct the familiar, and forge new pathways of connection."
iris yirei hu (b. Los Angeles, CA) is a journey-based artist who expresses her lived and dreamt experiences through paintings, textiles, installations, intercultural collaborations, writing, and public art. She often works across territories and peoples, investigating the ways in which geography, cosmology, kinship, and self-knowledge are reflected in cultural technologies that incorporate soil, plants, and fiber. Her work proposes imaginative ways to reconstruct oneself and expands ways of relating to one another amidst the historical and ongoing effects of imperialism across the world. She has exhibited at the Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA); Center for Arts, Research, and Alliances (New York, NY); Museum of Contemporary Art (Tucson, AZ); Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art (Winnipeg, MB, Canada); John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; among many other venues. In 2022, LA Metro commissioned iris to design a large-scale mosaic artwork for the future UCLA/Westwood Purple Line Metro Station slated to open for the 2028 Summer Olympics. Other public art commissions include California State University, Dominguez Hills and We Rise/Art Rise produced by the Institute for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA-LA) and Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), among others. iris was awarded the Fellowship for Visual Artists from the California Community Foundation and a residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2022. She has been supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the California Arts Council, and has also been nominated for the United States Artists Fellowship. Her writing has been published by Amerasia Journal, the world’s leading interdisciplinary journal in Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, and her art work has been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, Artforum, CARLA, Hyperallergic, and many other publications. She holds a BA in Art from UCLA and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University.
Cara Levine is an artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She earned a BFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI (2007) and an MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA (2012). Using sculpture, video, and socially engaged practices, she explores the intersections of the physical, metaphysical, traumatic, and illusionary. She is the founder of This Is Not A Gun, a multidisciplinary project aiming to create awareness and activism through collective creative action. Her work has been presented in one-person, group exhibitions, and participatory events in venues around the world such as the The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (2023), MOCA Gefen Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Creative Time, New York, NY (2019); The Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK, (2019), Tenderloin Museum, San Francisco, CA (2017); Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel; Wattis Institute For Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA (2012); and Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan (2006). Levine has participated in residency programs including Santa Fe Art Institute (2017); The Arctic Circle, International Territory of Svalbard (2017); Sedona Arts Colony, Sedona, AZ (2016); SIM Residency, Reykjavík, Iceland (2015); Anderson Ranch, Aspen, CO (2014); and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2013). Levine is currently an associate adjunct professor at Otis College of Art and Design, a Lucas Arts Fellow at Montalvo Arts Center (2024-2027) and a Cultural Leadership Fellow at the Mandel Institute
(2023-2025). Lastly, Levine has worked with the disability arts community since 2011 in roles at
various progressive art studios including the Exceptional Children’s Foundation, Inglewood, CA and Creative Growth, Oakland, CA. She organized the first annual Self-Taught Artists Fair with Public Annex in Portland, OR in 2017.
Naomi Nadreau is a sculptor who works with discarded man-made materials, ceramics, metals, and natural materials. Using the concept of estrangement in Science Fiction – making things familiar seem unfamiliar and the unfamiliar seem familiar – combined with acupuncture meridian lines in the body to enhance the slippage of reality. Naomi reflects on their identity as an experience of being in a constant state of in-between and nowhere. They received their MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, and their MA from California State University Northridge. They have participated in exhibitions at Best Practice, San Diego; Espacio Negativo Gallery, Guadalajara; Pangee Gallery, Montreal; Phase Gallery, Los Angeles and co-curated at Vielmetter Greenhouse Gallery, Los Angeles.
photos by Gemma Lopez