Meet Hotel Grand Union’s Top 5 Artists:

Evan Desmond Yee
Evan Desmond Yee, a 25-year-old artist and welder, stood smiling in front of his silver sculptural work “Chasing Eternity,” at Gallery 151. It is a square silver light installation in perpetual ‘buffering’ mode.
“My work is a mockery, a satire on modern technology. Chasing Eternity is about waiting. We notice this a lot more now that everything is digital,” said Yee. The artist has even set up a fake Apple store, branded with a colored, rotating computer icon called the Pinwheel of Death. “Waiting for things to load on the internet is akin to meditating in limbo,” added Yee, who self-identifies as a millennial.

Fab 5 Freddy
Fab 5 Freddy is a renowned visual artist and hip-hop music video director. At Gallery 151, he presented “Abstract Remix #4″ (2011) a collage of original 80s-era graffiti using spray enamel, acrylic and crystals on canvas. “This is a throwback to that 80s energy,” explained Fab 5 Freddy. “My work is made the same way urban music is made. Everything is a remix.” Though his street art heyday was in the 70s and 80s, Freddy looks to abstract artists Frank Stella andJohn Chamberlain for his current inspiration.

Justin Jay
Photographer Justin Jay has spent the last several years shooting a book project in Hawaii documenting the subculture of professional surfers on the north shore. At Gallery 151, he presented a photograph of renowned surfer Mark Cunningham.
“I took this photo in front of his house. I love that it shows the vastness of nature with one lone person about to body surf inside a wave. He’s not fighting nature, but resorting it. He’s a peaceful, powerful person. This is his world,” said Jay.

Isaac Aden
Artist Isaac Aden is known for controlling the oxidation of steel in his contemporary work. At Gallery 151, he discussed the process involved in his painting “Book of Exodus.” In it, the melted bronze steel creates a kind of tortured landscape, poured over the pages of a book.
“The point of this book is an escape from bondage. It is a historical, Biblical reference. Ultimately, it is about how people are subjugated and oppressed physically,” said Aden. “I’m interested in how people overcome or contend with that.”

Arthur Cohen
“Leaving,” by artist Arthur Cohen, is a tremendous portrait of a riding bull walking away. Cohen began painting bulls in 2009 after buying a ticket to see a rodeo at Madison Square Garden in New York. “I’m intrigued by the mortality and self-annihilation of it, while still trying to look cool,” said Cohen, before joking, “I myself am aging, and facing mortality – and I’m still trying to look cool!”

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