Sometimes at the moment of sleep strange figures are born and disappear.
When I shut my eyes phosphorescent blooms appear and fade
and come to life again like fireworks made of flesh.
I pass through strange lands with creatures for company.
No doubt you are there, my beautiful discreet spy.
And the palpable soul of the vast reaches.
And perfumes of the sky and the stars the song of a rooster
from 2000 years ago and piercing screams in a flaming park and kisses.
Sinister handshakes in a sickly light and axles grinding on paralyzing roads.
No doubt there is you who I do not know, who on the contrary I do know.

— “Sleep Spaces,” Robert Desnos (translated by Carmen Lobo)

Polina Berlin Gallery is pleased to present Soft Focus, an exhibition bringing together four artists who explore liminal spaces, opening on June 29 in Paris at superzoom's 81 boulevard Beaumarchais location. Reminiscent of the way consciousness flickers in the space between waking and dreaming, the show pairs artists who explore the edges of portraiture and landscape; the line between process and intuition; and the blurred boundary between a literal interior and interior life. 

Paris was the birthplace of Surrealism, which elevated dream life to a generative plane, a space where the creative mind went both to die and to be reborn. The artists included in Soft Focus masterfully navigate this realm, drawing their viewers inward and outside of themselves.

Jessica Cannon (b. 1979, Brooklyn, New York) lives and works in New York. She earned an MFA from Parsons School of Design and teaches at Parsons and CUNY Queens College. She is a recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council’s Community Arts Fund Grant and has exhibited in solo and group shows at Winston’s Los Angeles, Honey Ramka (Brooklyn), Crush Curatorial (Amagansett, New York), the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (Peekskill, New York), among others.

Parmen Daushvili (b. 1970, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia) lives and works in London. His work has been included in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (London), the Royal Society of British Artists (London) and the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (London). He was selected for inclusion in the BP Portrait Award in 2014, 2019 and 2020 at London’s National Portrait Gallery.

Tamo Jugeli (b. 1994, Tbilisi, Georgia) lives and works in New York and Tbilisi. Jugeli’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Hill Art Foundation (New York), Gallery Artbeat (Tbilisi), TBC Concept (Tbilisi) and Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography (Mestia, Georgia), among others.

Carrie Rudd (b. 1994, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York) lives and works in New York. She completed her MFA at Hunter College in 2021. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Hunter College (New York), Hauser & Wirth (New York) and the Wellin Museum of Art (Clinton, New York).