SYMBOLISM OF THE UNIVERSE
With Richard Goltry, JACDO (Jacques Dominique Joachim) and Katya Leonovich
Concept and Curation:
Elga Wimmer and Priska Juschka
Exhibition Dates: November 1 – November 30, 2024
Press Release:
Lichtundfire is pleased to present SYMBOLISM OF THE UNIVERSE, an exhibition that brings together
three very distinct visual languages in various media. Sharing more than symbolism in diverse
interpretations with their individual visual vocabulary – whether it is with expressive gestural lines on paper
by Katya Leonovich, iconographic collages with signs and symbols by Richard Goltry, or with complex
compositions incorporating figuration, street art and text-based work (JACDO aka Jacques Dominique
Joachim) – each artist uses a form of language that touches us all, as it is universal.
Richard Goltry, a New York-based artist, designer and musician, has worked with a repertoire of
universal symbols combined with his own symbolism throughout his entire career. While initially inspired
by the first large, two-part survey exhibition on Russian Constructivist Art in 1973 at the Guggenheim
Museum in NYC, he also draws his sources from pop art, especially from the work by Roy Lichtenstein
and Andy Warhol. The work in the exhibition, mainly mixed-media collages on paper, looks to the
beginning of his work with symbols, and where they converge with iconographic images of the period of
the 1970’s and 1980’s.
JACDO continues his artistic and personal journey that started with his first solo exhibition in the United
States, appropriately titled The Day I Walked Through The Door, in June of 2024 at Lichtundfire. The
artist, born in Martinique and now living in France, shows a new series of small paintings on canvas titled
Opened Market, 2024 in the current exhibition. Here, he delves into the history of the many Africans,
forcefully displaced to colonies from the 18th Century onwards, and makes it his own personal story. His
references are, among others, African art and historic documents mixed with his uniquely personal
symbolism.
Katya Leonovich, is a New York-based artist, born in Moscow, and lived and worked as a renowned
fashion designer formerly in Italy. As a painter, she is versatile in various formats, both in abstraction and
in expressive narrative figuration that addresses social realities as seen through a very personal lens. In
this exhibition, Katya Leonovich shows free abstract forms with watercolor on paper, relating to automatic
writing, used primarily by the surrealists. Her virtuous watercolor compositions acknowledge the fact that
lines and marks also represent a language with highly symbolic content that might translate universally-.
For additional information and events, please contact Elga Wimmer, curator at elgawimmer2@gmail.com
– +1 646 5154898 and Priska Juschka, curator and director Lichtundfire at info@lichtundfire.com
Instagram: @lichtundfire and hashtag: #lichtundfire Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lichtundfire
Lichtundfire: 175 Rivington Street, New York, NY 10002
Contact: Priska Juschka, info@lichtundfire.com, Tel. 917.675.7835
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 6 pm, and by appointment
www.lichtundfire.com
