Xin Song: On the Way to Utopia

 On the Way to Utopia #02, from the Tree of Life series, 2025, watercolor, oil pastel, street photography prints, vintage magazines, block prints, mixed-paper collage, and fabric cutout collage on Mylar, 42 × 72 inches.

EFA Studio Artist Xin Song received two reviews for her solo exhibition On the Way to Utopia, which was on view at the Tenri Cultural Institute from September 30-October 14.

“Her materials came from the life around her. Song moved to the United States in 2000, and in that unfamiliar culture, American magazines caught her eye. She began collecting vintage issues from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and she still draws on them, cutting these American images apart and rebuilding them into Chinese ones. Fabric was equally close at hand: her studio stands near New York's Garment District, and its remnants now sit beside textiles her mother gave her in Beijing, so that memory enters the work through the materials themselves.

What interests me most is how freely she accepts all of this. Her cultural background, materials associated with domestic and traditionally feminine practices, and scraps of the city around her are all welcomed into her work. She cuts, collages, sews, and assembles without being constrained by boundaries between fine art and craft, tradition and contemporaneity, or Eastern and Western visual cultures. The same openness extends from gallery installations to public art projects. She makes the freedom of contemporary art her own.”

―Soojung Hyun for Whitehot Magazine

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“Up close, I see human bodies, faces, stores, roads, lettering, seated Buddhas, typewriters, and doorways like those in an American Chinese restaurant, all serving as placeholders for Song's embrace of her Chinese past. Images are boldly chopped from slick magazines, their writing erased by her cut lines. Paper bleeding through the holes reveals fans, archways, machine parts, stacked umbrellas, and columns from real Chinese architecture, all supporting white flowers with yellow tassels crowned by delicate red threads. Fiber art, collage, painting, and glitter on textured and photographic paper: the paper's viscosity coming toward me and receding, à la Hans Hofmann's push-and-pull.”

― Mark Bloch for Culture Catch

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Howard Smith: Tomorrow isn't Yesterday

Howard Smith, River Run #3, 1987–88. Oil on linen, 10 × 8 ½ inches.

EFA Studio Artist Howard Smith received two reviews in Brooklyn Rail for his retrospective Tomorrow isn’t Yesterday, on view at the Jane Lombard Gallery through October 24.

“Remarkably, Howard Smith proves himself to be, in this vast, punctilious retrospective, more than a painter of considerable subtlety, but also a practitioner of various genres that together write his place in the abstractionist art history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He is as much a sculptor, who, as he builds with color creating layered imagery, is a poet able to describe in words the weight of his paintings and what constitutes them. He is something of a musician, as he generates motion and emotion with color intensity gradually emerging. Not least, he is a psychologist, as he seems to parse moods and attitudes through subtle tonalities.” ―Barbara A. MacAdam

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“Smith’s art is one of fundamentals—color, mark, surface—where qualities as slight as the direction of a brushstroke or the pressure of its application yield an outsize pictorial impact. Take Untitled (green) (1978–79), for example, which is comprised of rows of luminous, thinly applied golden green. The terminus of each horizontal mark meets the beginning of the next, creating a brief concentration of saturated color. Repeated across the surface, these points of overlap gather into a drifting vertical column and, in turn, establish the opposing axis of the grid. Rather than imposing a grid upon the picture, Smith allows it to emerge from the accumulation of marks. His art is rigorous without ever becoming systematic.” ―Alex Grimley

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Watson Mere: On Fire, Vodou, and Shango | States of Creation

EFA Studio Artist Watson Mere joins curator Maty Sall on her podcast States of Creation.

“On this episode, Watson speaks about Haitian Vodou and his deep connection to Shango—the Orisha of fire, thunder, and justice. Our conversation explores painting as a portal between the spiritual and physical worlds, and fire as a force of both destruction and renewal—from the burning sugarcane fields of Belle Glade, Florida, to his canvas.

Watson also reflects on what it means to release such deeply personal works into the world, and how he navigates conversations about them with his collectors.”

Watch the first and second episodes here.

After the Rains – How Nature Roots Us Home: ArtSpiel

EFA Studios’ latest exhibition After the Rains was reviewed by ArtSpiel, on view through July 24, 2026.

“When one thinks of nature, the first thing that comes to mind would be a park filled with leafy trees or perhaps a bouquet of vibrant flowers. With EFA Studio’s newest exhibition, After the Rains, artists challenge the idea of how nature can be represented. 

Focusing on the deep intentions behind the material alongside how to engage the viewer through sound, video, and even performances, this group show serves as a reminder to use experiences and relationships to reconnect with nature and repair connections within the cycle of renewal. 

Curated by Deric Carner and Michael Eckblad, the exhibition uses nature to reflect on how our actions as a species have affected the environment around us, implicating the viewer in the moral consequences of our relationship with animals, people, and the natural world.”

Akira Ikezoe: ARTnews

Akira Ikezoe by Christopher Garcia Valle/ARTnews

EFA Studios Member Akira Ikezoe is named This Spring’s Breakout Star by ARTnews.

“[Akira] Ikezoe’s attempts to remake the universe according to his own absurdist logic have earned him many admirers this spring, thanks to his simultaneous appearances in two prestigious New York shows: the Whitney Biennial and MoMA PS1’s Greater New York, a recurring survey for artists based in the city. He is one of just two artists in both of those exhibitions, the other being Taína H. Cruz.

Appearing in both shows would be a career-making moment for any artist, but it’s all the more notable in Ikezoe’s case because he was not so well-known in New York before, despite having steadily shown in the city since he moved from Tokyo in 2010. He doesn’t even have a New York gallery. Instead, he is represented by Proyectos Ultravioleta, a beloved commercial space in Guatemala City that is known for spinning artists with small but loyal followings into biennial-circuit superstars. Ikezoe seems poised for that exact trajectory, with his current showings after he was included in the 2025 Sharjah Biennial alongside artists such as Wael Shawky, Richard Bell, and Raven Chacon.”

Mohammad Omer Khalil: Hyperallergic

EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop’s retrospective of Mohammad Omer Khalil’s work, Common Ground, is now on view at the Blackburn Study Center, and is part of a multi-city exhibition.

Mohammad Omer Khalil with his work in Common Ground at Blackburn Study Center, New York (photo Leslie Jean-Bart, courtesy the artist/Blackburn Study Center)

On view through May 31, 2026
Blackburn Study Center

”In 1964, Mohammad Omer Khalil made his first etching. He was initially dubious about its chemical process, hesitantly dipping his fingertip into the acid to test its safety. But this small print, cautiously rendered during his studies in Florence, Italy, marked the start of a decades-long trajectory toward becoming a master printmaker, working across continents. “Still life (Cafe Roma)” (1964) is now on view through May 31 at the Blackburn Study Center at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, a program of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. The Manhattan gallery serves as the anchor site of Mohammad Omer Khalil: Common Ground, a multi-city retrospective celebrating the New York-based Sudanese artist in his 90th year.

These days, Khalil is sorting through his studio, rediscovering and revitalizing plates from throughout his life. The artist, now and then, celebrates and invites surprise and experimentation. “You have to have your eyes open to whatever happens and see if you can use it or reject it,” he told Hyperallergic.

Though Common Ground is just his third solo exhibition in New York City, Khalil has been celebrated across the Arab and African art worlds, the curators said. They hope the exhibition will raise his profile to deserved new heights. “One of the sparks of our interest in wanting to tell Mohammad’s story is because there were stories that he was left out of,” Hamed said.”