Heron Arts is pleased to present RECLAMATION, a duo exhibition featuring about forty artworks by Augustine Kofie and Erik Otto. The opening reception is August 23rd, 2025 from 6-9pm. It is free and open to the public. The exhibition will be on view until September 18th, by appointment only.

Kofie & Otto investigate liminal planes of our existence within RECLAMATION. Kofie is currently rebounding from the devastating Eaton Canyon Fires that affected most of Altadena back in January 8, 2025. Because of this unforeseen inferno, he lost his home, studio, library, personal archive and shrine to everything he loves about art and media. Kofie is still coping with an identity chasm due to this natural disaster. For RECLAMATION, Kofie is reviving his collage-based practice which employs heaps of found vintage pressboard, curating colors and shapes with a futurist aesthetic. This exhibition highlights his resilience, experiencing such a terrible tribulation only to spring back into his creative passion and begin collecting and creating again. Many of the pieces in RECLAMATION use his own materials made from ceriograph printing, while also using contemporary pressboard and posterboard, similar to the types of vintage packaging he is known for in his collages.

For Otto, RECLAMATION is a reckoning with grief induced by a sequential loss of loved ones and a personal incident that affected him physically. Like Kofie, Otto felt stumped identity-wise. Through the act of creating, he found himself rediscovering enthusiasm for his practice. Otto emerged from this stagnation by finding new pathways to express this intense wave of existentialism. He found a new intention in his practice, engaging with similar themes from before but also incorporating improvisational approaches, allowing for a finished product that contrasts with his early work. Otto focused on being material-forward, flowing with gestural marks and allowing for luminous layers to optically blend an array of hues. His exploration of control and release are his own reclamation of his artistic voice.