SOFT–POWER: The Light of the Hand — A Reflection
By Arlina Donnelly
SOFT–POWER returned this past June with its most intentional iteration yet. On the longest day of the year, we gathered the work of seven New York-rooted artists, each working through a different discipline, to open The Light of the Hand.
The exhibition brought together the work of Steffany Trần, Somsack Sikhounmuong, Sasha Veryovka, Jake Jones, Hyungi Park, Elizabeth Shevelev, and Chelsie Craig, revealing the power of restraint and showing how tension in design and dimension could contribute to a wider shared phrase.
With light as the primary material, each artist transcended their own interpretation of the pendant lamp, bringing seven individual but synchronistic pieces that were on view from June through July.
The Works
"Drift Pendant" — Steffany Trần / Dó paper
Steffany is an industrial designer and artist who approaches light as inherited and transformational. Her practice draws on memory and material in equal measure, finding in light a language for things felt before they are seen. Her piece alludes to strong formation while embodying an effortlessness in material, texture, and intent.
"Pendant 001" — Somsack Sikhounmuong / sculpted clay, shiny white glaze, and raffia
Somsack, creative director at Alex Mil, brought to the exhibition a designer's precision and a poet's restraint. His work considers how light behaves outward and within, weaving against structure — simultaneously presenting the familiar while striking a note of referential subtlety.
"Perriot" — Sasha Veryovka / stoneware, composition gold leaf
Independent designer, stylist, and art director Sasha Veryovka constructed her piece at the edge of aptitude and abstraction, where light was both reflected and held captive. Demanding focus without obstruction, the innate intricacies of every corner remained organic and quietly evolving.
"Atomic Heart No. 1" — Jake Jones / blown glass
As a glassblower, Jake engages light as a refined force. His work carried a precision — active, sharp, and imaginative — necessary to executing within exacting constraints. Using a Swedish overlay technique, the white glass is sandblasted away to reveal the red glass bands beneath. The glow it casts reads soft and subtle, yet dominant, drawing you in by its own volition until entrancement.
"Web Lamp Incense Burner" — Hyungi Park / hanji paper, wire, chain, stainless steel; incense papers in elemi, frankincense, camphor, bergamot, and white musk on Korean hanji paper
With a spider-web-like form paired with a laser-cut motif of a spider, Hyungi works as a multimedia artist spanning tattoo, incense, and beyond. She treats light with the intimacy of a material that can be handled, molded, and reconsidered in relation to its environment. Her work considers light as something exchanged rather than observed — a transaction between form and function — offering a sensory exploration of warmth set against light's more familiar form.
"Ghost Bell" — Elizabeth Shevelev / crinoline horsehair, sheer voile, thread
Elizabeth works between disciplines in a way that resists easy categorization, overlapping the anthropomorphic and the archetypal. A self-identified renegade textile artist, she specializes in melting and collaging fabric, giving her pieces the sublime beauty inherent to destruction and reinterpretation. Her contribution introduced a fabricated build of tension, with light not as something resolved, but as something still in question underneath it all.
"Conduit" — Chelsie Craig / stainless steel and Japanese paper
Chelsie, a photographer and director specializing in still life and video, brought to The Light of the Hand a piece emboldened by delicate structure yet grounded in a calibrated sense of establishment. Both intrigue and fragility lived in it — a fracture of light embedded but never ostracized, light treated almost as a belief rather than an assertive physical form.
What's Next
SOFT–POWER continues to evolve with each iteration, as does the community built around it. If you were moved by the work in The Light of the Hand and want to stay close to what Hudson Wilder is making and presenting next, we'd love to keep you in the conversation. The next chapter is already taking shape.
Our next SOFT–POWER will center on "the passage of time." Follow along at hudsonwilder.com and on Instagram at @hudsonwilder.
To Acquire
Several works from The Light of the Hand remain available for purchase. Each piece is offered on consignment directly through Hudson Wilder, and inquiries are handled with the same care and discretion that shaped the exhibition itself.
If something stayed with you, we encourage you to reach out. Works of this nature rarely surface twice in the same way.
To inquire, contact us at studio@hudsonwilder.com
Special thanks to our beverage sponsors, @ChandonUSA and @Aplos, for their generous contributions to the evening.