Æmen Ededéen / Dean Fox / Daniel Pitín

Æmen Ededéen / Dean Fox / Daniel Pitín brings together three artists whose distinct visual languages challenge viewers to look beyond what is familiar by deconstructing what we see every day. The exhibition is steadily attentive to what remains concealed. The artists unsettle familiar forms, opening up a space where tensions unfold, environments become charged with unfamiliarity, and meaning is found in the mundane. What initially appears recognizable gradually gives way to obscurity, resisting what we believe to be true. 
 

In recent years, Æmen Ededéen's practice has centered around a game of his own invention. The Glass Dream Game begins with six books chosen at random from the artist's personal library. Within their pages, the artist finds meaning and synchronicities spanning art history, philosophy, literature, and beyond. The resulting artworks have a dreamlike quality with abstracted figures often lurking behind layers of paint and glass beads. In The Disappearance (Self-Portrait), a figure seems to emerge but its identity remains unstable, caught somewhere between recognition and disappearance. Tension continues to rise, and the viewer is forced to grapple with what it really means to see oneself. 

Using an assortment of art historical references from Degas to Monet and Renoir, Dean Fox reworks the visual language of painting through a contemporary lens. Starting with a digital collage, Fox moves and manipulates images, playing with the conflict between what isn’t there and what should be. The Dyadic Rule - Three’s a Crowd shows exactly this. Two women appear to be having a conversation. Chaos and empty chairs swirl around them. Strong and expressive brushstrokes gently conceal the scene below. Even in the fragmented construction and underlying instability, everything has its place. 

Daniel Pitín’s paintings take a slightly different approach. His robotic and slightly uncanny figures deconstruct reality by presenting a new one. Layering glued paper, acrylic underpainting, and oil paint, Pitín explores what the future may hold. In Two robots on a beach, one figure reclines while another appears to lean over it. Their postures are distinctly human. While the beach is typically associated with relaxation and escape, the landscape here feels slightly unsettled. The robotic forms occupy a recognizable human space without exactly belonging to it, blurring the distinction between human experience and artificial existence.

Together, these three artists challenge the boundaries between what we know and what we see. By abstracting the familiar, the obscure is delicately unveiled. 

Æmen Ededéen (b. 1979, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho) is a first-generation graduate with a graphic design degree from The University of Arizona. A 2018 grant recipient of the Roswell Artist in Residence Program, Hagler has since made New Mexico his permanent home. Currently, he lives with his wife and daughter in the high desert village of Placitas at the foot of the Sandia Mountains.

Exhibitions include: Æmen Ededéen / Dean Fox / Daniel Pitín, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2026); The Glass Dream Game, Marauni Mercier, Brussels (2026, solo); The Noise of Fear is Drifting down the River, (You cannot Die), Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas (2026, solo); THE BODY DOES NOT EXPLAIN ITSELF, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2026); Ángeles Agrela / June Canedo de Souza / Æmen Ededéen / Samantha Joy Groff / Teresa Murta / Daniel Pitín, Nicodim, New York (2026); The Amber of this Moment, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2025); Mystical Me, Corridor Foundation, Shenzhen (2025); Nihil III: Already Paradise, Nicodim, New York (2024, solo); The Ballad of the Children of the Czar, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2024); Overserved, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York (2024); Focus: Joshua Hagler, Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas (2024, solo); Nihil II: Nor The Moon in its Water, Old Jail Art Center, Albany (2024, solo); Arcadia and Elsewhere, James Cohan, New York (2024); Nihil I: I Would Not Speak of the Mountain, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2023, solo); The Descendants, K11 Musea, Hong Kong (2023); MATERNITY LEAVE: NONE OF WOMEN BORN, Nicodim in collaboration with the Green Family Foundation, Dallas (2023);  Joshua Hagler, Devin B. Johnson, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2023); DISEMBODIED, Nicodim, New York (2023); Unmatter, Secci, Milan (2022); The Living Circle Us, Unit, London (2021, solo); Witness or Pretend, Bode Projects, Berlin (2021); Drawing in the Dark, Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas (2021, solo); Figure as Form, Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York (2020); Love Letters to the Poorly Regarded, Roswell Museum and Art Center (2018, solo), and The River Lethe, Brand Library and Art Center, Los Angeles (2018, solo).