Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) is proud to announce Negative space, a new solo exhibition by acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist Luke Chueh, opening June 27, 2026, in the Main Gallery.

For more than two decades, Chueh has cultivated one of the most recognizable visual languages in contemporary pop surrealism. Through deceptively simple compositions, minimalist environments, and his iconic anthropomorphic characters, he has built a body of work that explores the complexities of the human condition with equal measures of vulnerability, dark humor, and emotional precision. Rather than relying on elaborate narratives or visual excess, Chueh's paintings often derive their power from what is left unsaid. In Negative space, the artist turns his focus towards the psychological weight of absence itself. The exhibition serves as both a continuation and distillation of the visual language that has defined his career—a meditation on silence, isolation, restraint, and the emotional resonance that emerges from emptiness.

"Negative space is less a thematic exhibition than a reflection on a visual language I've found myself returning to throughout more than twenty years of painting," Chueh explains. "I've long been interested in the emotional potential of what might outwardly appear as 'empty space'—the way silence, isolation, and restraint can shape the psychological atmosphere of an image."

Throughout the exhibition, Chueh employs his signature sparse compositions to create works that feel at once intimate and universal. Figures occupy carefully measured spaces where every gesture, glance, and pause carries emotional significance. The resulting imagery invites contemplation rather than conclusion, encouraging viewers to project their own experiences onto the scenes before them. This deliberate ambiguity has long been central to Chueh's practice. His characters who are often vulnerable, isolated, or caught in moments of quiet absurdity, operate as emotional stand-ins rather than specific individuals. Existing somewhere between innocence and melancholy, they reflect the contradictions that define contemporary life: humor intertwined with anxiety, tenderness shadowed by discomfort, and sincerity existing alongside irony.

What has made Chueh's work resonate so deeply with audiences worldwide is its ability to communicate complex emotional truths through remarkable visual economy. By stripping away distractions, he creates space for reflection, allowing even the smallest details to carry profound psychological weight.

Over the years, Chueh's paintings have become touchstones within New Contemporary art, celebrated for their accessibility as well as their emotional depth. His work speaks to a generation increasingly familiar with loneliness, uncertainty, and the search for connection, yet it does so without sentimentality. Instead, he offers moments of quiet recognition—images that feel simultaneously personal and collective.

In Negative space, Chueh continues this exploration, presenting a body of work that embraces ambiguity while remaining deeply human. The exhibition invites viewers to sit with discomfort, find humor in vulnerability, and discover meaning within the spaces between.