Michael Kohn Gallery is extremely proud to announce Dorian’s Gardens, an exhibition by New York-based artist Nir Hod. Dorian’s Gardens opens October 4, 2025, and will be on view through January 2026. This new body of work expands upon Hod’s chrome and oil painting series, 100 Years is Not Enough, an ongoing study of various bodies of water rendered by Hod’s loose yet seductive impressionistic style and iconic chroming, mirror-like technique. In addition to the new group of lustrous, pastoral landscapes, this exhibition will include intimate works on paper that appear as details of the much larger canvases, a rare realist portrait, a bronze figurative sculpture, and finally the artist’s self-portrait– a nod to both Édouard Manet and the mirror of the exhibition– Dorian Gray. Most recently, Hod’s work debuted at the House of Dior’s newest flagship store on 57th St. in Manhattan, designed by architect Peter Marino. In his nearly 30-year career, Hod has consistently delved into the duality of human nature as subject matter for his paintings. The dichotomous themes of beauty and death, flourish and decay, vanity, perfection, destruction, and the overall fragility of life permeate from his earliest bodies of work, such as the Genius and Mother portraits, to his most recent, reflective minimal canvases of the series 100 Years is Not Enough. 100 Years…, Hod’s recent chrome painting series, consists of gestural interpretations of flora floating over bodies of water, akin to a minimalist interpretation of Monet’s Waterlilies. These partially idealized works are not exact renditions of nature but impressions that hover between natural and representational beauty. Hod’s scattered mark-making is complemented by the illusion of shimmering water achieved by multiple applications of reflective metallic chrome. Each composition appears to create a singular ecosystem, a simulacrum of the natural world. Upon close inspection, the spectator finds their own likeness reflected in a painterly surface reminiscent of reality, a visual metaphor of vanity, illusion, and the human condition. Appropriately titled after Oscar Wilde’s seminal novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Hod pays homage to the iconic character through the highly reflective chromed surface that allows the viewers to consider themselves within the background of Hod’s painting. The spectator is simultaneously a passive onlooker and an active participant in the physical space of the canvas. Nir Hod’s work is visually exquisite but, like Dorian Gray’s portrait, Hod’s painting ultimately betrays its true nature through rough gestures, ghostly traces of color, and a myriad of painterly “mistakes” that proudly reveal beauty and decay as one. Equally present in Dorian’s Gardens is Hod’s affinity for art history. A palatial ambiance that recalls Old Masters is achieved through color palettes of deep turquoises, jewel- toned reds, and purples melded with black and brown tones. The relaxed brushwork of Life as a Memory, a portrait of a couple taking a stroll, recalls Claude Monet’s expressions. While Hod’s newest sculpture, Lonely girl with tiger, evocates allegoric bronzes from the Renaissance. Dorian’s Gardens opens October 4, 2025, and will be on view through January 2026. ABOUT THE ARTIST Nir Hod (b. 1970, Tel Aviv, Israel) lives and works in New York. He earned his BFA at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, and attended the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City in 1991. Hod has had several solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad with his first show in 1996 at Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv. He has had solo exhibitions at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel; The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel; Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, NY; Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York, NY; Gavlak Gallery in Palm Beach, FL; and Michael Fuchs Gallery, Berlin, Germany, among others. His work has been in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally from New York to London, Berlin, Vienna, and Israel. These include the Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel; Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; The Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum, Berlin, Germany; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, NY; The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; The Vienna Jewish Museum, Vienna, Austria; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; Yerba Buena Center for the Art, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Modern Art, Oostende, Belgium; The Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY; Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY; among others. ABOUT THE GALLERY Since its establishment in 1985 by Michael Kohn, Kohn Gallery has presented historically significant exhibitions in Los Angeles alongside exciting contemporary artists, creating meaningful contexts to establish links to a greater art historical continuum. Kohn Gallery represents important West Coast artists with long careers and rich histories such as Joe Goode, Lita Albuquerque, and Sharon Ellis, as well as the Estates of Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, John Altoon and Martha Alf. Kohn Gallery boasts an expanding roster of emerging and mid-career artists including William Brickel, Alicia Adamerovich, Li Hei Di, Chiffon Thomas, Heidi Hahn, Jinbin Chen, Nir Hod, Siji Krishnan, Sophia Narrett, Shiwen Wang, Rosa Loy, and Mark Innerst. Visit kohngallery.com for the latest information on upcoming exhibitions. Instagram: @KOHNGallery, @nirhod, #NirHod, #michaelkohngallery Press Contact: Elizabeth McNamara, emcnamara@fitzandco.com Gallery Contact: Karys Judd, karys@kohngallery.com Image: Nir Hod, 100 Years is Not Enough, 2025, oil, chrome and patina on canvas, 72 x 90 inches