Part of an annual collaborative exhibition series in which High Art extends an invitation to an international gallery to co-produce an exhibition in the town of Arles, Cortical Systematics is presented alongside Lomex Gallery, a contemporary art gallery hailing from New York City.

Cortical Systematics brings together a group of six artists whose work traverses the line between figuration and abstraction, with a particular focus on the depiction of the human form in states of disintegration, diffusion, and decay. The title Cortical Systematics draws inspiration from a virtual reality company depicted in David Cronenberg’s horror film “Existenz.” This fictional company develops bio-mechanical hardware that directly interfaces with the user’s body, blurring the lines between technology and biology. In a similar vein, the exhibition delves into the complex relationship between the body and artistic creation, considering the body not only as a physical entity but also as a metaphoric substrate of artistic production.

Victor Estrada (b. 1956) is a Los Angeles based artist and educator. His work on view, Purple Cloud Racing Across the Sky to Kiss Me (2019) presents a characteristic heavily layered canvas mixing together a compost of playful images into an anthropomorphized landscape. An artist with a long history as an active member of Los Angeles’ artistic community, Estrada’s work merges a historical engagement with Southern California Latinx and Chicano culture with a whimsical pop surrealism.

Bracha L. Ettinger (b. 1948) is a Paris and Tel Aviv based artist, painter and theorist. Eurydice Pietà n°2 (2018), made over the course of a year with layers of pencil, pen, and acrylic paint, seeks to transfer the matter of memory–personal and historical trauma into a visual plane of aesthetics. Looking at the act of self-recognizance for the feminine subject from the act of maternal care, the work draws from her research in psychoanalysis, aesthetic and ethical philosophy, and exists as a form of visual testimony.

Joseph Geagan (b. 1987) is a Los Angeles based painter whose often comic paintings depict figures both real and imagined in states of enjoyment and excess. Taking cues from Renaissance portraiture, A Pall Mall Bride (2024) and Sophia in Flowers (2024) respectively depict the writer Gary Indiana and New York downtown stalwart Sophia Lamar.

Maryam Hoseini (b. 1988) is a New York based artist and educator. Born in Tehran, her work depicts bodies in social scenes fragmented into fields of near-total abstraction. Across One Thousand and One Nights (Falling Strangers) (2023) a drama unfolds (perhaps remnants of a late night soirée) that distills into an imagined world/space beyond representation.

Kye Christensen-Knowles (b. 1993) is an American artist working in an alternate history of painting that begins with American Neo-Surrealist artists like Pavel Tchelitchew and Paul Cadmus, extending through the outsized legacy of surrealism, drawing influence from comic books, Japanese animation, and the kinds of graphic images common on internet forums and in video games. Lily (2024) continues a series of recent portraits staged in the artist’s studio, depicting his friends and collaborators.

Aleksandra Sidor (b. 1991) is a Polish artist whose paintings render abstracted bodies in various states of abstraction and disassembly. In dialogue with theories drawn from poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis, Tools (2024) and Breathing (2024) show human figures contorted into near machine-like forms.