UTA Artist Space LA is pleased to announce Fragile World, an exhibition featuring new work by Carl Hopgood, Samyar Maleki, Ryan Winnen, Jack Winthrop, and Greg Yagolnitzer. Juxtaposing found object and neon sculptures against bold paintings, Fragile World explores themes of identity, masculinity, and our current socio-political climate. Throughout the gallery, Hopgood’s dynamic sculptures bring together word and object, with precariously balanced chairs and other artifacts serving as scaffolding for neon statements of affirmation and hope. Hopgood blurs the lines between digital and physical, past and present, with miniature projections and text bringing life to everyday objects. Alongside Hopgood’s sculptures, paintings and mixed media works by Jack Winthrop, Ryan Winnen, Samyar Maleki, and Greg Yagolnitzer evoke the varied influences of their makers. Winthrop’s colorful paintings from his TOTEM series are titled with the intentions that guided their creation - Gratitude, Love, Serenity – which radiate from vibrant, abstract figures. Winnen’s mixed media works have a muted complexity, with tactile, layered surfaces reminiscent of the graffitied and weathered walls of music venues and old buildings. Maleki’s graphic paintings in bold, primary colors, evoke poses from fashion photography, seen through a pop-art lens and informed by an architectural eye. Greg Yagolnitzer’s photorealistic paintings of dive bar bathrooms capture a grunginess you can almost smell. The works in Fragile World present a complex picture of contemporary masculinity felt through form, color, texture, and Language.