Saturday, May 4
10 am - 6 pm

Kent Fine Art is pleased to open a special project, Hypnotherapy, in tandem with The New Yorker's Passport to the Arts event on May 4, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. Hypnotherapy, which continues through June 29, presents a multigenerational group of artists working in several media who share an intense and introspective working process:

Hypnosis is a way to connect with the subconscious rather than the conscious mind. The mind accepts what the subconscious creates, however bizarre. Among these artists there is a common thread of a relentless, even myopic, focus on work so personal that its intrinsic value is much greater for the artist than for the audience. Their bond lies in their obsessiveness, idiosyncrasy, and disregard for the mainstream.

JOHN BRILL (b. 1951, Newark, New Jersey) is a school-bus driver and self-taught photographer, whose work has been recently seen in exhibitions at the Austrian Cultural Council in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. He has been the co-chair of the Photography Judging Committee of the American Killifish Association since 1982 and is a former instructor with the International Center of Photography.

LLYN FOULKES (b. 1934, Yakima, Washington) came up in the Los Angeles art scene of the early 60s and has been both a maverick and a force to be reckoned with ever since. His recent exhibition credits include the 2011 Venice Biennial and Documenta 13. Foulkes's current retrospective at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, curated by Ali Subotnick, is a tribute to his craft, his dark humor, and his relentless vision of America on the edge. The retrospective travels to the New Museum in New York, where it opens on June 12.

PABLO HELGUERA (b. 1971, Mexico City) is a visual and performance artist whose projects have included a school that traveled from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego, complete with portable schoolhouse; the recording of dying languages on wax cylinders; a memory theater; and the founding of the Instituto de la Telenovela. His work has been seen most recently at CIFO in Miami, the 2012 Havana Biennial, and the Centro de Arte Reina Soffia in Madrid. Helguera's first solo show with Kent Fine Art will open in September 2013.

DAVID LYNCH (b. 1946, Eagle Scout) was studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, painting "figures just sort of coming out of the darkness," when he made his first film, in 1966: "The only reason I did a film the first time was to see a painting move . . . and feel a mood." In the 70s Lynch began to work seriously in film and made his name with Eraserhead in 1977. Although he went on to make many more acclaimed films, he has continued to paint and exhibit. In 2007 the Fondation Cartier in Paris mounted a forty-year survey of his art, film, and music.

JILL SPECTOR (b. 1976, York, Pennsylvania) has called her sculptures both "performers" and "performances" . . . and has even referred to a sculpture as "she." Working in improbable combinations of materials, she builds movement from the inside out, in open structures that offer audience and backstage views. Spector's work was included in the recent exhibitions Drawing, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils, curated by Diana Thater for the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.