Lomex Las Vegas, a new venture by art advisor Ralph DeLuca and dealer Alexander Shulan, presents The Dream, the first exhibition in their new space in the historic Paradise Palms district of Las Vegas. 

The Dream consists of new work by Heji Shin and Mathieu Malouf installed throughout a historic house, carefully staged with vintage furniture and accessories by close collaborator of the gallery, Las Vegas “Kitsch Connoisseur”, Carlotta Champagne.

Originally conceived as dimensionally identical to a few hand-picked Picasso nudes and portraits of women from the early 1900’s, Mathieu Malouf’s paintings incorporate dehydrated lion’s mane mushrooms that have been silver-mirrored and color-coated in a golden hue. The kaleidoscopic, pullulating compositions appear to multiply throughout the show, sometimes almost vanishing from sight like a fever dream of money, liquid portals of golden refractions.

Aspirational and dynamic, thrusting into the dark firmament against the dramatic evening twilight or heroically piercing through rosy-hued stratiform clouds, Heji’s Shin’s large format rockets sometimes have an almost painterly affect with their sprawling exhaust plume expanding below. They can seem ripe with male sexual tension, almost to the point of aggression, their ravishing beauty and chromaticism offering a striking contrast to the familiarity of the space, one that brings to mind mid-century nuclear tests around Las Vegas and Martha Rosler’s juxtaposition of war images with domestic scenes.