Meet the Artists: Perfect Trouble

Pyaari Azaadi (formerly known as Jaishri Abichandani) is a Brooklyn-based artist and curator, who immigrated to NYC in 1984. Azaadi’s interdisciplinary practice focuses on the intersection of art, feminism, and social practice. Her work has been featured in exhibitions internationally, including the critically acclaimed 2022 solo exhibition at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA. Azaadi’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, the Queens Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Asia Society, all in in New York; 798 Beijing Biennial and Guangzhou Triennial in China; Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain and at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, Germany. Her work is in the collections of the Burger Collection Hong Kong; Asia Art Archive, NY and Saatchi Gallery, London, UK. Azaadi was an artist-in-residence at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY and is an honoree of the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Asian Women's Self-Help Association for Women. She is the founder of the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) in New York and London. In 2019, Azaadi organized a trilogy of exhibitions to inaugurate the Ford Foundation Gallery in NYC, centered on the visions of BIPOC artists. She earned an MFA from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Diana Sofia Lozano is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work uses the language of botanical hybrids; the naturally occurring, genetically modified, and the imagined. She is interested in deconstructing botanical taxonomic failures to reveal and redefine the boundaries of colonial identificatory practices and geopolitical borders. Lozano has exhibited at Company Gallery, Wave Hill, Deli Gallery, Rachel Uffner Gallery, and Proxyco Gallery, all in NYC; Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, CA; New Image Art in Los Angeles, CA; Casa Prado in Barranquilla Colombia; Örebro Konsthall in Örebro, Sweden; Parallel in Oaxaca, Mexico; Arto Kyoto in Japan, and Capsule Gallery in Shanghai, China, among others. She received her MFA from Yale University in New Haven, CT, in 2021.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Proxyco Gallery

Christopher Udemezue is an interdisciplinary artist who utilizes his Jamaican heritage, the complexities of desire for connection, and healing through personal mythology and ancestry as a primary source for his work. He has exhibited his work at various galleries and museums, including a solo exhibition at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles, CA, and a two-person exhibition with the acclaimed sculptor Richmond Barthé at Ryan Lee Gallery in NYC. Udemezue’s work has also been presented at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria; Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada; MoMA PS1, New Museum, Queens Museum of Art, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Recess Gallery and The Shed, all in NYC, among others. As the founder of the platforms RAGGA NYC & CONNEK JA, he completed a residency at the New Museum where he presented All The Threatened and Delicious Things Joining One Another. Udemezue served as Co-Chair of the board at Recess Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, from 2021 to 2022. He earned a BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2008.

Photo: Brian Goodwin