GROUP SHOW

THE THING

IN ITSELF

INTRODUCTION

Gallery Sonder is pleased to present The Thing In Itself , a group exhibition featuring works by Ruben Benjamin, Jae Ford, Noosha Golab, Gary Lang, Sheng Lor, Susan Maddux, Josh Sperling, and Pilar Wiley.

Thing In Itself brings together eight contemporary artists who reconsider how form, color, and material shape the way we understand the world around us. Inspired by Immanuel Kant’s assertion that we never encounter objects as they are—only as they appear through the lenses of our perception—the exhibition reflects on the subtle distance between what is seen and what is known.

“We can never know the thing in itself, we know only its appearance, shaped by the conditions of our perception.”

-Immanuel Kant

Each artist engages this idea through a distinct visual language. Their works invite viewers to consider how intuition, memory, physical sensation, and cultural experience transform the surface of an artwork into something more than an object. In these pieces, color becomes a mediator, form becomes a threshold, and material becomes a site where internal and external worlds meet.

Rather than offering fixed interpretations, the exhibition highlights the fluid space between perception and truth. What we encounter is not the “thing in itself,” but the constellation of emotions, associations, and reflections that shape our viewing. Through this collection of paintings, textiles, ceramics, and sculptural forms, The Thing In Itself asks us to slow down, look closely, and consider the quiet gap between what is present and what is perceived.

Press Release

MEET THE ARTISTS

Ruben Benjamin (b. 1994) is a German artist known for his three-dimensional, highly luminous work. His practice deals with perspective, natural phenomena, technology, and motion. Through the tremendous visual depth of the pieces, created by the complex layering of pigment, the artworks amaze and bewilder the senses. Ruben Benjamin began working with spray paint and textures at 14, studied mechanical engineering, and produces his art in his studio in Munich. His work is internationally spread in art collections across LA, New York, Stockholm, London, and Seoul.

Jae Ford (b. 1982) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates how bodies, materials, and meanings are oriented in space. Integrating drawing, painting, and sculpture, Ford creates gestural forms that extend in relation to the viewer, illuminating a multidimensional interior and social space. Their work explores the dynamics of desire, touch, and perception through expressive choreographies of line, reimagining minimalist and phenomenological traditions through a queer lens. Using steel, resin, and paint, Ford constructs sculptural drawings that invite reflection on embodiment and relation.

Noosha Golab (b. 1985) is an Iranian American artist based in Southern California. After years working in graphic and jewelry design, she turned to painting to embrace a more intuitive and expressive practice. Golab’s work bridges geometric structure and abstraction, built through repetition and a search for balance. Working primarily on paper, she uses the material’s fragility to form subtle textures and patterns. Her process incorporates drawing, printmaking, and a tactile method of dabbing and rubbing pigment with her fingertips, allowing forms and colors to surface gradually. Through this, she shapes a visual language rooted in perception and feeling.

Gary Lang (b. 1950) is an American artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, muralism, and decades of teaching. Known for his celebrated series—including Concentric Circles, Squares, Zipper Paintings, Stars, and Word Paintings—Lang develops his works through an organic, meditative process grounded in present-moment awareness. His hand-painted concentric line works, created without mechanical tools or preparatory sketches, pulse with vibrant chromatic rhythm and decades of refined technique. Lang has lectured at UCLA, the Claremont Colleges, and Yale University, and his public art includes major murals in La Jolla and outdoor sculptures in New Haven.

Sheng Lor (b. 1987) is a Los Angeles-based textile artist working within the context of sculpture, painting and drawing. Her work draws from Hmong histories and experiences of fugitivity, especially those parts which are secret and silent. Born in a Thai refugee camp to parents who survived the Secret War in Laos, Lor has spent her practice unraveling memories, dreams, and folktales that are full of hidden information, exploring the motifs of personal and collective traumas through pattern and material.

Susan Maddux (b. 1969) is a Los Angeles–based multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, collage, and painting. She received her BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, and her current practice transforms paintings into wall-based sculptures through origami-influenced folding and collage. A former surface and textile pattern designer, Maddux developed this tactile approach in pursuit of a deeper spiritual connection to her materials. Her folded, pigment-stained canvases echo garment construction and domestic craft, exploring the tension between concealment and revelation. Inviting contemplation of transformation and inner expansion, her work is held in collections across the United States.

Josh Sperling (b. 1984) is an American artist based in Ithaca, New York, working at the intersection of painting and sculpture. Drawing on the visual language of 1960s and 1970s minimalism, he is best known for his shaped canvases, built from intricate plywood structures that he stretches and paints in vivid, often contrasting color palettes. Sperling’s works blur distinctions between image and object, pairing rigorous construction with rhythmic, expressive energy. Informed by design, architecture, and art history, he has developed a distinct vocabulary of sculptural painting. His work is held in major public collections worldwide, including Fondation Louis Vuitton and Longlati Foundation.

Pilar Wiley (b. 1976) is a Los Angeles–based artist whose practice centers on ceramic vessels that function as sculptural canvases for her repeating patterns and pictorial motifs. Her surfaces reveal the immediacy and idiosyncrasy of hand-drawn mark making, drawing influence from global traditions of decorative abstraction, plant forms, and memories of her childhood spent overseas. Inspired by the techniques and silhouettes of West and South African pottery, Wiley uses the repetitive nature of ceramic process to build a personal mythology. Through form, pattern, and gesture, her work explores how cultural memory and lived experience can be carried through clay.