Fragmented, appropriated, or decorated, figures presented in provocative imagined situations are a frequent feature of contemporary narrative art. The present exhibition presents three young artists who are making significant contributions to current trends in figuration.

A blend of comedy, menace and the absurd in are ever present in Edward del Rosario’s figurative fantasies, reflecting the artist’s fascination with the theatrical rituals of Catholicism, the robotic postures of video game characters and didactic children’s book illustrations. Typically, in his small scale drawings and paintings, expressionless clone-like figures often circus performers, children at play, or Latino characters are engaged in enigmatic performances suggesting innocent pastimes or fairytales that have taken a bizarre turn. A Phillipino-American who grew up in St. Louis, del Rosario attended RISD. This is the first time his work is being exhibited in Boston.

Hope Gangloff’s subjects are inspired by the lifestyles and habitats of her friends and peers. Executed in shades of red blue and black ball-point pen, Gangloff borrows the graphically concise presentation of commercial and advertising art with its truncated figures and telescopic views. Her diaristic scenes of casually posed club goers suggest acutely observed snapshots of life on the run among today’s urban hipsters. Hope Gangloff is from Amityville, NY and was educated at Cooper Union. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Naoe Suzuki is originally from Tokyo. She came to the USA and earned her MFA at Massachusetts College of Art and now lives and works in Boston. Her meticulously crafted graphite and mineral pigment drawings are a surrealistic melange of art historical references, pseudo-scientific biotechnical constructions, and botanical observation. The figurative protagonists here are swaddled babies- inspired by representations of the sacred child in Renaissance art- hooked up to tubes that morph into extravagant exotic plants. Allusion is made to the twin themes of genetic manipulation and intelligent design and our skepticism regarding the authority of modern medicine.