Chris Oh’s Adrift (2024) is a poignant mixed-media work that appropriates a face from Bronzino’s The Holy Family with St. Anna and the Infant St. John the Baptist (c. 1525–1550), meticulously rendered onto the shimmering surface of an abalone shell. A symbol of fertility and the primeval waters of creation, the shell’s iridescent surface transforms Bronzino’s serene figure into a spectral, timeless presence. Her downcast gaze, full of knowing adoration, drifts through ripples of nacre, slipping freely through time and into the primordial abyss.

Oh’s unparalleled technical skill is evident in the delicate precision of his brushwork, which adapts the subtleties of Renaissance painting to the complexities of the shell’s natural surface. The reflective nacre interacts with light, imbuing the work with a luminous, otherworldly quality. This dynamic interplay between historical reference and organic form underscores Oh’s fascination with the interplay of the natural and the manmade, the historical and the contemporary.

By recontextualizing a fragment of Renaissance iconography within the symbolic and physical properties of the shell, Adrift invites contemplation on devotion, beauty, and the impermanence of existence. The shell’s rainbow-like hues echo the unseen, ephemeral forces that shape both nature and art. Through this juxtaposition, Oh offers a meditation on the ways beauty, meaning, and human connection evolve over time, inviting viewers to consider their own place within the fluidity of time and space.