Overview

Harman Projects is pleased to announce Making Light of the Darkness an exhibition by artist Luke Chueh.

 

Opening Night Reception:

Saturday, August 16th

6pm to 8pm

 

Gallery Hours

Tuesday - Saturday / 10am - 6pm

Exhibition on view until Saturday, September 6th

 

Harman Projects NYC

210 Rivington Street

New York, NY 10002
(Google Maps)

 

An advance collector's preview will be available online before the exhibition opens, if you would like to receive a price list please contact us at info@harmanprojects.com 

Works
Press release

NEW YORK CITY - Harman Projects is pleased to present Making Light of the Darkness, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Luke Chueh.

 

For his debut exhibition with the gallery, Chueh delves into the delicate art of balancing

contradictions: heartbreak softened by humor, cuteness overcome with melancholy, and sincerity intertwined with sarcasm. Through his latest series of paintings, Chueh explores the darkness enveloping both his personal and our greater cultural lives. Not to extinguish it, but to render it bearable, luminous.

 

Known for his signature totems of bears and rabbits, Chueh draws viewers into an emotional space that is at once deeply personal but yet widely relatable. The works in Making Light of the Darkness reflect a shift in tone for the artist: softer, more introspective, while still subtly playful and self aware. However once the curtain of cuteness is pulled back, the works retain the emotional weight that has long defined his practice. In paintings like Everything’s Fine, a bear sits serenely while engulfed in flames, an analog painting created within a digital meme-ified world.

 

Chueh’s work has often been situated within the Pop Surrealist and low‑brow art movements, drawing visual lineage from artists such as Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, and Mark Ryden. Born in Philadelphia in 1973 and raised in Fresno, California, Chueh studied graphic design at California Polytechnic State University before emerging in the early 2000s Los Angeles art scene. His paintings, toys, and collaborative projects have since been exhibited internationally in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Tokyo, and have been collected by worldwide audiences drawn to his unique fusion of designer‑toy aesthetics, narrative figuration, and disarming emotional honesty.

 

Making Light of the Darkness opens on Saturday, August 16th with a reception from 6 pm - 8 pm. For additional information, images, and feature interview content, email us at nyc@harmanprojects.com.