Israel Aten
Veit Laurent Kurz
Quintessa Matranga
May 3 - June 14, 2025

Opening Saturday, May 3, 6-9 PM

What Pipeline presents new paintings by Israel Aten, Veit Laurent Kurz and Quintessa Matranga. This show revisits three artists the gallery worked with previously; Israel Aten in a 2021 solo exhibition, Veit Laurent Kurz in SOAPY III (2014) and Agents of Syphilis (2015), and Quintessa Matranga in Age 81 (2019) and Tables and Chairs (2022).

Israel Aten (b. 1986, Detroit) is based in Detroit and Chicago. Aten’s work centers a colossal figure existing between figuration and abstraction. Informed by sources ranging from 14th century medieval icons to early video games, Aten’s linework delineates the tension between polarities of strength and vulnerability. Masculinity, queerness and race are explored; identity is concealed, revealed, and transcended. Aten will have a solo exhibition in September, 2025, at M. LeBlanc, Chicago.

Veit Laurent Kurz (b. 1985, Erbach, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Kurz’s paintings exist as excerpts from a larger, ongoing narrative in a body of work that includes site-based installations and video collages. The narrative details the semi-autobiographical experiences of a young boy, his fears of ecological and bodily contamination, and fantasies of resulting mutations. Recursively, these new works present a dream sequence within the narrative, exploring dark spaces within a castle depicted in his series Circle of the Bee. Recent exhibitions include Soundwaves Part III, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Omen – Scenes From an Unwritten Play, Weiss Falk, Zurich, and Winterfest, Aspen Art Museum.

Quintessa Matranga (b. 1989, New York) relocated to San Francisco in 2020 after spending a formative period working and exhibiting in New York. Matranga’s paintings capture everyday moments with a relaxed gaze, moving beyond the tighter focus on conceptual absurdity in her earlier work. Rendered in loose washes, these scenes of shoreside leisure maintain her use of a vivid palette, only the bright colors are now infused with the natural light of the outdoors rather than the hard artifice of indoor illumination. Matranga will open Water Signs, a solo exhibition at House of Seiko, San Francisco, on May 11, 2025.