Alexander Berggruen

Yuri Yuan’s landscape and interior paintings explore existential themes of longing and loss through ambiguous figure-ground relationships. While these themes could evoke melancholy, Yuan consistently offers a symbol of hope—often represented by light. Known for framing her work as either “looking in” or “looking out,” she deepens this concept in her solo exhibition Hide and Seek. True to her preference for open-ended narratives, Yuan leaves it uncertain whether her figures are hiding, seeking, or doing both simultaneously. Through visual symbolism, metaphor, and magical realism, she reveals how a subject’s surroundings can reflect internal psychological states. Yuri Yuan Soft Shadows, 2025 oil on canvas 60 x 72 in. (152.4 x 182.9 cm.) Yuri Yuan: Hide and Seek April 16-May 14, 2025 Copyright the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen, NY. Photo: Daniel Greer

Alexander Berggruen is pleased to present Madeline Peckenpaugh: Chosen Places. This exhibition will open Wednesday, May 21, 2025 with a 5-7 pm reception at the gallery (1018 Madison Avenue, Floor 3, New York, NY). Madeline Peckenpaugh renders depth through iterations of adding and subtracting paint, creating a semblance of deep and flat space simultaneously. Probing the slips in perception between corporeal experience, memory, and imagination, she shifts the scale of everyday elements, interlaces components, and depicts forms in both single tones and fluctuating textures. The viewer’s trained perception of the landscape can become questioned, as monumental structures begin to vaporize, and natural forms become paper thin. There is a reconciliation of opposites: deep space of the real world with the flat space of the canvas. Madeline Peckenpaugh Held, 2025 oil on canvas 66 x 80 in. (167.6 x 203.2 cm.) Madeline Peckenpaugh: Chosen Places May 21-June 25, 2025 Copyright the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Berggruen, NY. Photo: Philipp Hoffmann