A Waking Dream

Artist: Wendy Letven, Sascha Mallon, Davina Hsu

May 7– June 24, 2026

Opening: May 9, 2026, 4–8 pm

Sascha Mallon, Where Thorns Hold Song (Dornen Lieder) (detail), 2026. Porcelain, Wall Painting, Site-specific, approximately 62 x 32 x 1 inches

Selected Works

(New York — April 8, 2026) — If the nocturnal world is the realm of the unconscious mind as described by Carl Jung, then dreams act as a nocturnal theater of symbols where our souls quietly open the hidden door to the cosmic night. Opening on May 7, 2026 at Fou Gallery, the group exhibition A Waking Dream—featuring artists Wendy Letven, Sascha Mallon, and Davina Hsu—invites viewers to step through this threshold, between the visible and the invisible, the conscious and the unconscious, the inner and the outer.

There could not be a better way to describe the arising thoughts behind this exhibition than with the words of Jung: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” It is a vital reminder that true self-awareness comes from introspection rather than external material pursuits—especially in a current era when situationships, FOMO, and ghosting have become the unspoken new norms. In this exhibition, the three artists work across a range of media, including paint, natural wool, clay, aluminum, paper, crochet, wood, and poetry to create a Gesamtkunstwerk: a unified creative environment where architecture, design, and interior merge into a single cohesive whole. This holistic approach encourages the audience to weave the “knots” together with the artists and discover the connection between the fractured ego and the wholeness of the cosmic circle.” ...

(New York — April 8, 2026) — If the nocturnal world is the realm of the unconscious mind as described by Carl Jung, then dreams act as a nocturnal theater of symbols where our souls quietly open the hidden door to the cosmic night. Opening on May 7, 2026 at Fou Gallery, the group exhibition A Waking Dream—featuring artists Wendy Letven, Sascha Mallon, and Davina Hsu—invites viewers to step through this threshold, between the visible and the invisible, the conscious and the unconscious, the inner and the outer.

There could not be a better way to describe the arising thoughts behind this exhibition than with the words of Jung: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” It is a vital reminder that true self-awareness comes from introspection rather than external material pursuits—especially in a current era when situationships, FOMO, and ghosting have become the unspoken new norms. In this exhibition, the three artists work across a range of media, including paint, natural wool, clay, aluminum, paper, crochet, wood, and poetry to create a Gesamtkunstwerk: a unified creative environment where architecture, design, and interior merge into a single cohesive whole. This holistic approach encourages the audience to weave the “knots” together with the artists and discover the connection between the fractured ego and the wholeness of the cosmic circle.”

Sascha Mallon’s artistic practice is informed by narratives and imagery rooted in her early exposure to European fairy tales, particularly stories by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, as well as her experience as a Hospital Artist-in-Residence with The Creative Center at Mount Sinai. In the exhibition, she presents a new work Consequences of a Broken Sky - an immersive, site-specific installation that blends wall drawings with intricate hand-built ceramics, crochet and sculptural elements. Drawing from a lingering poem that continues to adapt into an evolving constellation of blossoms, Sascha Mallon offers a profound meditation on the resilience of life and the “imperfect” beauty of being alive.

Wendy Letven explores a personal language of abstraction that universally implies the mechanism of space and time and the fabric of the universe. Many of her works are created from her abstract interpretations of landscapes and natural phenomena. Her recent body of works explore the “sensation of dreaming” through installations that dissolve the boundaries between the internal psyche and the exterior world. By translating the fluid energy of a “flow state” into intricate paintings, works on paper and laser-cut sculptures, she maps a surreal landscape where cosmic rhythm and microscopic realms converge.

Extending the inquiry into the vastness of the cosmic realm, Davina Hsu’s work functions as a series of anchors and portals for cosmic consciousness and mysticism. For Hsu, the boundary between dreaming and waking is a fluid intersection where altered states and direct insights become "downloads" from the superconscious. Her felted sculptures, such as Clairvoyant and Galactic Guardian, act as encoded symbols made manifest. Clairvoyant activates the pineal gland through techno-mystical frequencies, while Galactic Guardian awakens collective higher purpose as a multidimensional angelic presence. By translating these celestial transmissions into the tangible warmth of wool and gold-leafed resin clay, Hsu invites us to raise awareness of multiple layers of consciousness.

Complementing the exhibition, a series of public programs— including a panel discussion with Civil Art, a ceramic workshop with Sascha Mallon, and a healing herbalism session with Robin Rose Bennett—invites a multidimensional exploration of the psyche through theory, ritual, and craft. By bridging the fragile ripples of individual dreams with the luminous depths of the collective subconscious, the exhibition dissolves the boundary between the dreamer and the dream. It creates a sanctuary for living dialogue, where the solitary soul meets eternal resonance in a shared experience of healing and renewal.

*The press release is based on the essay by Echo Yu He, edited by Iris Zhang.

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Wendy Letven (b.1962) is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation and painting in the New York area. She received a B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. from Hunter College. She currently serves on the faculty of The New School at Parsons School of Design. In 2024, Letven realized a major public commission for NYC’s Percent for Art program, installing a large-scale ceiling sculpture for a public school in New York. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a recipient of the Workspace Grant from Dieu Donné (New York) and the 2023 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship for Sculpture. Her work has been featured in significant public installations and art fairs, including Art on Paper Fair, New York (2025); Arts Brookfield, New York (2024); Riverside Park, New York (2021); Urban Outfitters Headquarters, Philadelphia (2020); PULSE Art Fair, Miami (2019); and the Flatiron Prow Artspace, New York (2018). Her works have been exhibited across the United States, including Fou Gallery, New York (2020/2026); site-specific installations at the Art on Paper Fair in New York and Amsterdam with NL=US Gallery (2023–2025); Brookfield Place Winter Garden Gallery, New York (2022) and Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, New York (2018).

Davina Hsu (b.1981, Taipei, Taiwan ) is a New York–based interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on a fiber-based practice and extends into public art and social practice, exploring the thresholds between energy, materiality, mysticism, and socio-emotional healing. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design (2009) and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (2023). She was a recipient of the New Futures Artist Award from The Other Art Fair (2023) and the Edward Zutrau Memorial Award (2022). Her works have been exhibited across the United States and Taiwan, including Fou Gallery, New York (2026); Turley Gallery, Hudson, New York (2025); Yang.Collective, New York (2025); ArtBridge Projects New York (2025); Wassaic Project, New York (2024) and Soka Art Center, Taipei and Tainan. She has also participated in an artist-in-residence program at the Wassaic Project (2023), and was commissioned by Battery Park City Authority and the ArtBridge to create a public art installation in South Battery Park City, New York (2024).

Sascha Mallon (b. 1967, Linz, Austria) Born in Austria and based in Beacon, New York, Mallon creates a large-scale wall installation incorporating wall painting, textile and porcelain elements. Mallon studied art therapy at the ISSA / School for Art Therapy in Austria and is a certified Meditation Teacher, trained at Tibet House New York. Mallon has exhibited her work internationally, including a spotlight presentation at the Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2026), as well as group exhibitions at Remote Gallery, Toronto (2025); The CAMP Gallery, Miami (2025); Pen + Brush Gallery, New York (2023); Albany International Airport, New York (2021), and the Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2020), among others. Since 2012, she has worked as a Hospital Artist-in-Residence with The Creative Center at Mount Sinai, focusing on oncology and bone marrow transplant patients. In 2014–2015, she received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to work with HIV patients through the PATH program at Brooklyn Hospital.

Curator

Echo Yu He currently serves as Director of Fou Gallery and Research Services Director at Pace Gallery. She previously served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and now teaches at New York University (2026 Spring Semester). In 2013, Echo founded Fou Gallery. In recognition of her curatorial leadership and contributions to contemporary art discourse, Echo has received the Yishu Award for Curating Contemporary Chinese Art (Shanghai, 2016), a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition (New York, 2018), a New York State Assembly Certificate of Merit (New York, 2020), and was nominated as a Rising Star at the AAPI Women’s Gala (New York, 2024). In addition to her curatorial and research work, she is a prolific art writer, contributing regularly to publications such as The Art Newspaper (China), Art China, Condé Nast Traveler, Lens, Marie Claire, Tussle Magazine, and World Heritage Geography.