YveYANG Gallery is pleased to present The Blood Vessel, a two-person exhibition featuring the works of Tura Oliveira (b. 1990) and Baxter Koziol (b. 1995). This exhibition weaves the language of craft with science fiction and fantasy to explore notions of gender, the body, hybridity, and unconventional forms of pain. On view from September 6 to October 19, 2024, with an opening reception on September 6 from 6-8 pm, it marks the first collaboration between these two visionary artists, as well as their debut with YveYANG.

Crafted with silk, cotton, steel, found objects, and reclaimed fabric, the works in The Blood Vessel by Tura Oliveira and Baxter Koziol put the morbid bodily fascinations of Renaissance and Baroque art in conversation with American and Italian horror films of the 70s and 80s, including Dario Argento's Tenebrae and John Carpenter’s The Thing. The exhibition will include six newly-executed works, with Koziol's grotesque sculptures positioned by the windows and Oliveira's large-scale mixed media textile works hanging on the walls.

Restrained, pierced, and flayed figures hint at themes of kink, alluding to ecstatically tormented saints and martyrs, and to the recurrent agonies of creature features and slasher films. The repetitive hand-sewn action echoes the compulsive creative impulse of fan zines, while patchwork recalls not only the history of craft and American quilting traditions, but also Mary Shelley’s amalgamated creature. 

Koziol’s figurative sculptures stand silhouetted at the windows in the back of the space, resembling life-sized action figures or the "Anatomical Machines" of Giuseppe Salerno. Facing this trio of humanoids is Deep Red, a large-scale steel and fabric work by Oliveira using light-sensitive chemicals on hand-dyed silk to create an image that evokes the red-gelled lighting of Italian Giallo films.

Flayed and eviscerated figures appear in Oliveira’s silk quilt The Triumph of Death and Koziol’s Invisible Man Security System, with the overgrowth of hair recurring throughout the works. In The Non-Man Incubation Chamber (Koziol) and Agnes in the Wilderness (Oliveira), the spontaneous overabundance of mammalian attributes presents the possibility of pleasure and transcendence in surrendering one’s body to an aberrant metamorphosis.

In these works, creatures at the fringes hatch and transform, internal organs unfurl, and lamb’s hooves sprout from a severed foot like pale mushrooms. The Blood Vessel expands the boundaries of the human form through exoskeletons and tentacles, exploring gendered monstrosity and revealing a potential for both horror and ecstasy.