John Hee Taek Chae: Third takes its title from multiple convergences — the artist's third exhibition with the gallery, his third year living in rural western New York, and his newborn son's identity as a third-generation Korean American. Found and excavated images drawn from small-town "Hometown Heroes" banners, family archives, current events, and Korean, European, and American art histories are dissected and reconfigured into two-sided banners collapsing propaganda and paintings of masks — historical remnants and those worn today. Anchoring the exhibition, Quilt reconstructs previous paintings and military patches into a record tracing through time, while The Death of the Buddha — painted by Chae for the third time — offers a site of meditation against unceasing regeneration.
