Midsummer Night’s Dream

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, reality intertwines with illusion and the boundaries between the natural and supernatural blur. The latest group exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Wandsworth brings that same sense of transformation and duality to life, as three artists – Robin Kang, Julia Blume and Sato Sugamoto – invite us into fantastical realms where ancient wisdom, digital landscapes and evolving ecosystems merge. Through vivid colours, organic forms and sculptural investigations, their works challenge perceptions of reality and beckon us to explore alternate worlds and states of being.

Brooklyn-based artist Robin Kang’s vividly-coloured woven artworks explore the intersections of ancient cultural wisdom, ecological awareness, and technological innovation. Her compositions are created using a digitally operated Jacquard handloom – a contemporary evolution of the first binary-operated machine and a precursor to early computers. Rooted in global weaving traditions, her practice is shaped by immersive training in the Amazon Rainforest where she studied the healing properties of plants and ancestral textile techniques. The resulting imagery blends botanical motifs with circuit-like forms in an otherworldly cohesion between the natural world and the digital realm, the ancient and the new. In Ceiba Tree, for instance, the abstracted shapes and hypnotic patterning of tree limbs simultaneously resemble a coded language while shimmering iridescent colours and frayed edges evoke the pulse of magical energy.

Meanwhile, sculptural works by Julia Blume explore symbiotic processes and forms, imagining a world in which traditional dichotomies – between life and matter, artificial and natural, human and animal – are broken down to bring about new modes of existence. These ideas are visualised through hybrid, evolving forms but also through Blume’s use of non-biological, highly-processed materials such as plastics, fluorescent pigments and fabrics cut and coated to appear as flowers. Spiraling root systems hint at non-verbal forms of communication and the sharing of resources while fringes of threads, in works such as The Light-Eater and 6 Years Old and Cicadas, allude to the passage of energy and light, of personal and collective memories.

London-based artist Sato Sugamoto is also interested in the ways in which colour, material and form can suggest complex neurological systems and emotions. Her work stems from an exploration into how external forces shape our internal landscapes. Glimpse, a bright, whirling twist of electrical cords, examines the impact of social media on our mental stability and sense of self while Balance combines rounded shapes and sharp, rigid forms to negotiate the tension between the desire for individual autonomy and societal norms, particularly in relation to the expectations placed on women.

Presented together, the works in Midsummer Night’s Dream invite us to embrace the transformative power of the imagination as a way of dreaming up new ways of connecting and existing.

Robin Kang

Robin Kang (b. 1981) is from the United States and is inspired by her southwestern Texas upbringing, Robin Kang reinterprets the tradition of weaving within a contemporary context. Utilizing a digitally operated Jacquard hand loom, the contemporary version of the first binary operated machine and argued precursor to the invention of the computer, she hand weaves tapestries that combine ancient symbolism, computer related imagery, and digital mark making. The juxtaposition of textiles with electronics opens an interesting conversation of reconciling the old with the new, traditions with new possibilities, as well as the relationship between textiles, symbols, language, and memory. Kang has exhibited internationally.

Recent institutional shows include the Queens Museum, the Essl Museum, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, U.S Embassy in Saudi Arabia and Brooklyn Academy of Music, among others.

Solo exhibitions include, Galactic Garden, Winter Garden Gallery, Brookfield Place, NY, NY (2024); Ancient Future, 5 Manhattan West, NY, NY (2023); Motherboard Meditation, Cornell Tech Tata Innovation center, NY, NY (2020); Gridkeeper, Super Dutchess, NY, NY (2019); Recovery Patterns, TFNF, Dumbo Archway, BK, NY (2018); Active Circuit, Arts Brookfield commission for 300 Madison Ave., NY, NY (2018); Active Circuit, The Grace Building, NY (2017); Skywoman’s Secret Circuit, Outlet, Brooklyn, NY (2016); Stitch & Pixel, MaxMara, Brussels, Belgium (2016) and VOLTA NY, Field Projects, NY, NY (2016).

Group exhibitions include, Midsummer Nights Dream, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2025); Hi Dose, The Pit, LA, CA (2025); The Golden Thread, BravinLee, NY, NY (2024); NYFA Award ExhibitionL Demystifying NFTs, Voxels Metaverse (2023); When Plants Dream, SPRING/BREAK Art Fair, NY, NY (2023); 'Uprising', Schloss Görne, Berlin, Germany (2022); Art Brussels, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Brussels, Belguim (2019); Salon Zurcher, Mathilde Hatzenberger Gallery, Zurcher Gallery NY, NY (2019); Material Art Fair, Claudia Huiza Presents, Mexico City, Mexico (2019); Over, Under, Forward, Back, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA (2019); NY Abstract Now, Mathilde Hatzenberger Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (2019); Magic Circle, Kunstraum Niederösterreich Gallery, Vienna, Austria (2018); Material Turn Exhibition & Symposium, FOFA Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (2018); Italicized Reality, Sardine, Brooklyn, NY (2018); [Extra]terrestre(s), Cabane Georgina, Marseille, France (2018) and Summer of Love, Freight + Volume, NY, NY (2018).

Julia Blume

Julia Blume (American) is a New York based sculptor, painter, and writer. She received her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2018, after earning her BA and MA in linguistics from Columbia University and UC San Diego. Through sculpture, painting, and narrative, Julia Blume imagines a world where plants and more-than-human animals conspire to break down the received dichotomies of life/matter, artificial/natural, inside/outside, and human/animal. The focus of her recent work is sculptures made from wire mesh, epoxy, pumice, acrylic paint, dyed polyester fringe, meticulously sourced faux flowers, and more. In these sculptures, plants that have been cultivated by humans for economic and agricultural reasons come together to create sinuous, lumpy, symbiotic collectives which reflect their self-determination. Net-like forms reference roots weaving through cracks in walls and tearing them down, and tuber-like forms suggest loci of plant interaction and communication. These organic forms are intentionally created from highly processed materials, leading the viewer to question the false dichotomy of “natural” and “artificial”.

Solo and Duo exhibitions include Julia Blume: The Walled Garden, The Front, New York, NY (2023), Julia Blume and Heather Drayzen: as long as you want, My Pet Ram, New York, NY (2023), Julia Blume: Signs in the Thicket, Brian Leo Projects, New York, NY (2021), Julia Blume: Became the Peregrine, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA (2018).

Group exhibitions include (Upcoming) Midsummer Night's Dream, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2025); Glimmers on the Surface, :iidrr Gallery, New York, NY (2024), In the Garden, Strohl Art Center, Chautauqua, NY (2024), Living Arrangements, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY (2023), Reimagining Rural, ChaShaMa, Brooklyn, NY (2022), A Daze of Roses, Mizuma and Kips, New York, NY (2021), The Other Side of the Rainbow, ArtPort Kingston, Kingston, NY (2021), Strange Paradigm, Youngspace, Virtual (2021), Nice to See You Again, Underdonk, Brooklyn, NY (2021), Good Bones, I Like Your Work, Virtual (2021), Ouroboros, RSOAA, Brooklyn, NY (2021), Remake/Remodel, RSOAA, Brooklyn, NY (2020), Inaugural Show, Brian Leo Projects, New York, NY (2020).

Sato Sugamoto

Sato Sugamoto (Japanese) is a sculptor and visual artist based in London, UK, born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She is a member of The Royal Society of Sculptors. Her work visualizes the complexity of human thought and emotion through conceptual sculptures and installations. Using colorful fibers and electrical cords, these entangled strings evoke neurological circuits symbolizing the harmony and the contradictions within our values, perceptions, and decisions. Her interest in divergent thought stems from her experiences in Japanese society—navigating the tension between expected conformity and desired independence. Projects like Glimpse examine social media’s influence on our physiological states, exposing its tension and seduction. While the Balance series explores women’s struggle to reconcile selfhood with societal expectations. Each of her works reveals how external forces shape our internal landscapes.

Solo exhibitions include Challenge the Binary, Nihonbashi N11 Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2023), SATO SUGAMOTO solo exhibition @Orie Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2019)

Group exhibitions include (Upcoming) Midsummer Night's Dream, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2025); Entangled, MASS sculpture interim show, London, UK (2025), St Giles House x Drug Science Charity Art Exhibition + Auction, Dorset, UK (2024), Kameyama Triennale 2024, Mie, Japan (2024), The Royal Society of Sculptors Summer Exhibition, UK (2024), Textiles Open, no format Gallery, London UK (2024), Single Tree Does Not Make a Forest, Dual Brain, Kindred Studios, London UK (2024), Open Studios, Kindred Studios gallery, London UK and talk Mesmerising Fiber Sculptures 8 June 24 (2024), A SEAT AT MY TABLE, Kindred Studios gallery, London, UK (2024), 'Forging / Foraging', NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, New York (2023), THE MIND ROAMS ABSTRACTION FOR A NEW AGE, St Joseph's University, Brooklyn, New York (2023), Still and Movement by C-Depot, YUKIKOMIZUTANI GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan (2022), ADJUSTED for Inflation, Kunstraum LLC, Brooklyn, New York (2022), mini○ show, Sansiao Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2022), Sources – Materials, Techniques, and Concepts –, Corridor Gallery 34, Park Hotel Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (2021), Gatherings, BnA Alter Museum, Kyoto, Japan (2021), Colors Exhibition Shape of Elements, Park Hotel Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (2020), Independent Tokyo 2020, Tokyo, Japan (2020), Contemporary Art Exhibition with Technical Skill, Isetan Shinjuku gallery, Tokyo, Japan, (2018), Tansei kai, Hotel New Otani, Tokyo, Japan (2018), SICF SPREAD, SPIRAL, Tokyo, Japan (2017).

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Midsummer Night’s Dream: Robin Kang, Julia Blume, Sato Sugamoto