Seeking the Unseen: Inside Utopia.’s LATENT at the 2026 SPRING/BREAK Art Show NYC

NEW YORK, NY — Set within the sprawling, labyrinthine halls of the former CBS 60 Minutes offices at 555 W 57th Street, the 15th edition of the renowned SPRING/BREAK Art Show returned to Manhattan under the enigmatic, playful curatorial banner of "HIDE N SEEK". Amidst over a hundred independent curatorial presentations, Utopia. (Booth C22)—curated by Jiajia Dou (JJ. D) presented one of the fair’s most contemplative and compelling exhibits: Utopia. | LATENT.

Strategic Concealment: The Core Philosophy

Taking its cue from French auteur Robert Bresson’s philosophical directive—“hide the ideas so that people find them”—LATENT directly challenges the modern art world’s obsession with explicit literalism, performative clarity, and transactional aesthetic consumption.

Instead of shouting for attention under the blinding glare of direct messaging, LATENT champions art as a subtle, layered vessel for codes, subtext, and materialist mysticism. Through motif, delicate underpainting, and oblique storytelling, the exhibition invites viewers to step into a participatory game of visual hide-and-seek, discovering personal, spiritual, and political truths buried just beneath the surface.

The Artists: 11 Voices Exploring Transient Paradises

Spanning diverse cultural perspectives, multidisciplinary mediums, and cross-continental dialogues, the eleven artists assembled at Booth C22 offer unique vantage points on the elusive nature of utopia, identity, and memory:

• Jared FitzGerald: Bridging traditions between New York City and Jingdezhen, China, FitzGerald employs meticulously carved woodblock prints with deliberate background colors to document lived cross-cultural narratives and nature’s poetic gestures (For Chloe, The Gestures).

• Gabrielle Mar: Grounded in art history and Eastern spirituality, Mar’s rhythmic abstract expressionist canvases (Resonance: Where Love Expands, Luminous Becoming) function like spiritual seas, oscillating between high-voltage energetic gestures and serene contemplation.

• Shuling Guo: Working between Philadelphia and her ocean-going sailing vessel Selkie, Guo translates seafaring journeys and the labyrinth of memory into deeply meditative, quiet colored pencil compositions on board (Sun Is Setting, Red Moon).

• Tiantian Ma: Grounded in Transcendentalism, Ma’s lush oil and acrylic resin paintings (Riverbank) explore animism and everyday divinity, materializing the invisible connective threads that bind human interiority to the natural world.

• Tom Prinsell: Blending classical painting traditions with digital aesthetics, Prinsell’s architectural and theatrical oil canvases (Private Arena) feature otherworldly, masked figures negotiating psychological fragmentation and spatial tension.

• Kelly Worman: Educator, archivist, and painter Kelly Worman navigates motifs of renewal, rebirth, and the female form, turning to botanical and celestial geometries (Paradise, Mercury retrograde in Cancer) as modalities of healing and hope.

• Elise Rise: Merging Renaissance symbolism with contemporary surrealism, Rise investigates the sacred geometry and anatomical symmetries inherent in botanical life, revealing organic architecture in works like Forbidden Fruit.

• Ye Cheng: Investigating displacement, architecture, and memory, Cheng uses fluid acrylics on synthetic silk (Happy Excursion No.16) to construct vibrant, semi-transparent imagined homelands.

• Qin Tan: Coining the term "Virtual Realism," Tan’s evocative oil paintings (Held by its Own Light) explore digital-era longing, transforming virtual landscapes into textured, emotionally resonant physical surfaces.

• Sharon Cheuk Wun Lee : Utilizing light as an active sculptural element, Lee’s intricately engraved aluminum panels encased in vintage brass frames (Kapok – 01, Before the Summer Snows) invite slow looking, shifting dynamically with the viewer's motion while meditating on ecological and social boundaries.

• Barbara Kasomenakis: Presenting visceral block print ink works on paper (Polemos), Kasomenakis taps into raw gesture and surface tension to reflect the resilient undercurrents of the psyche.

A Resonant Dialogue in Midtown Manhattan

Throughout its run from September 22 to 28, 2026, Booth C22 emerged as a quiet haven within the vibrant energy of the CBS building. Collectors, curators, institutional patrons, and visitors engaged in deep dialogues around the booth’s cohesive spatial rhythm.

By demanding patience and perceptual engagement, Utopia. | LATENT demonstrated that utopia is not a fixed, utopian destination, but an ongoing act of internal seeking. In an age that often reduces nuance to bite-sized content, the exhibition affirmed a timeless truth: what is hidden often holds the greatest power, and what is buried grows the strongest.

For more information on Utopia., upcoming events, and future exhibitions, please visit https://www.utopiaevent.org/. 

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