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Present beneath the surface, an undertow is more felt by its pull rather than what is immediately visible. The works included in under(s)tow by Amanda Ross-Ho, Kang Seung Lee, and Roksana Pirouzmand deliver heartfelt tugs imparting the importance of remembrance for continual interconnection, both with oneself and with others.
Ross-Ho revisits a work from 2012, B&W, a soft monumental sculpture made of linen measuring nearly 10 feet. When first exhibited in TEENY TINY WOMAN at MOCA Pacific Design Center, the two large-scale black and white shirts patterned after a button-down Ross-Ho consistently wore (also a nod to her background in photography) paid tribute to Ennis and Jack in the film, Brokeback Mountain. Their bloodied shirts nested together discovered by Ennis hidden inside Jack’s closet after his death evoke intertwining of bodies reunited in memoriam. For under(s)tow, the previously coupled shirts are separated and folded, stowed side by side inside a larger-than-life reproduction of a dresser drawer from Ross-Ho’s childhood home, a repository of memory.
From 1963 through 1978, Peter Hujar revisited the coastal town of Sperlonga multiple times, photographing the Tyrrhenian Sea and its changing surface. In the five water portraits after Hujar, Lee retraces the contours of the sea’s varying face continuously touched and reshaped by wind and gravity. Through this intimate process of remembrance, Lee’s work prolongs the camera’s shutter speed from a fraction of a second to a long exposure time of drawing. Lee’s hand, with every ripple and reflection faithfully rendered in graphite, is bestowed with re-sight to bear witness to the undertow of Hujar’s legacy.
Etched with acid on steel, Pirouzmand’s new body of work, sinking within, corrodes and dissolves its surface to reveal a symbolic seascape rendered visible through patinated time. Afloat in a body of water, two interlocked mother and child figures bridge the space between two rock formations redirecting the flow of water from reaching the unseen shoreline. In remembrance of her former self, Pirouzmand offers herself as a refuge for safe stowage.
Amanda Ross-Ho (b. 1975, Chicago; lives and works in Los Angeles) received an MFA from University of Southern California (2006) and a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1998). Selected solo exhibitions have been held at Kunsthall Stavanger (2019); Bonner Kunstverein (2017); Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (2017); Praz-Delavallade, Paris (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2013); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2024); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2021); U-jazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2020); Yuz Museum Shanghai (2019); Qatar Museums, Doha (2019); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2017); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2016), Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach (2011); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008). Ross-Ho is a recipient of Marciano Art Foundation Artadia Award (2025), Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2023), California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2017), and Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2013).
Ross-Ho’s work is in the collections of Aïshti Foundation, Lebanon; Art Institute of Chicago; Birmingham Museum of Art; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Kadist Art Foundation; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mohn Art Collective: Hammer, LACMA, MOCA (MAC3); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; and Zabludowicz Collection, London.
Kang Seung Lee (b. 1978, Seoul; lives and works in Los Angeles) received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts (2015). Solo exhibitions have been held at Alexander Gray Associates (2025); Museu de arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (2024); Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park (2023); Gallery Hyundai, Seoul (2021); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021, 2017, 2016); Hapjungjigu, Seoul (2019); One and J. Gallery, Seoul (2018); and Artpace San Antonio (2017). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Museu de arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (2024); Cantor Arts Center, Stanford (2024); Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis (2024); 60th Venice Biennale (2024); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Deoksugung (2024); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2023); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2023); documenta fifteen, Kassel (2022); Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena (2022); New Museum Triennial, New York (2021); 13th Gwangju Biennial (2021); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2021); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2020); Daelim Museum, Seoul (2020); and LAXART (2017). Lee is a recipient of Angeles Art Fund Artadia Award (2023), California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2019), and Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2018). Lee has participated in residencies at MacDowell (2022); 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica (2020); Artpace San Antonio (2017); and Pitzer College, Claremont (2015).
Lee’s work is in the collections of Cantor Arts Center, Stanford; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; Kadist Art Foundation; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mohn Art Collective: Hammer, LACMA, MOCA (MAC3); Museu de arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Sunpride Foundation, Hong Kong.
Roksana Pirouzmand (b. 1990, Yazd; lives and works in Los Angeles) received an MFA from University of California, Los Angeles (2022) and a BFA from California Institute of the Arts (2017). Solo exhibitions have been held at Vernacular Institute, Mexico City (2024); François Ghebaly, New York (2024); Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2024); and Murmurs, Los Angeles (2022). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023); Del Vaz Projects, Santa Monica (2022); Guest House, Inglewood (2022); Make Room, Los Angeles (2022); Simon Lee Gallery, London (2022); Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana (2021); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2020); and The Box, Los Angeles (2019). Pirouzmand has participated in residencies at Taoxichuan International Art Center, Jingdezhen (2024) and Automata Projects, Los Angeles (2023). Pirouzmand is a recipient of Bank of America Artadia Award (2025).