JO-HS Gallery and Tequila Komos present “Realities in Dialogue,” a solo exhibition by Costa-Rican artist Melissa Ríos during Frieze New York Art Week

JO-HS works primarily with emerging contemporary artists, supporting them with the production, exhibition and distribution of their art. For the inaugural exhibition, JO-HS will present “Realities in Dialogue,” a solo exhibition of work by Costa-Rican painter Melissa Ríos. The exhibition will include 18 surreal, sensual, and highly techniqued oil paintings that display a mix of body and form.

“Tequila Komos is proud to support emerging contemporary artist Melissa Rios’ first solo exhibition and the upcoming opening of the NYC location of JO-HS, a Mexico City gallery and residency program. By partnering with Elisabeth Johs and Melissa Rios, Komos leans into this distinctive exhibition and global event to bring everyone together, sharing a common passion for art and design.”

Richard Betts, Founder, Tequila Komos

Notables guests at the opening included Joe Marchese (Co-founder, Tequila Komos), Svetlana Marich (Worldwide Deputy Chairman, Phillips Auction House), Jordan Huelskamp (Founder, Salon Art fund), Daria Pahota (Managing Director, Bjarke Ingels), Joshua Pullman (Co-Founder, Silver Art Projects) Maria Vogel (Art Advisor), and Taylor Fisch (Writer/Curator).

Melissa Ríos paints her dreams. Streams of consciousness collaged on canvas and sourced from unconscious states of an impossible dream that seeks the night. There she encounters salons filled with pastel lime wash walls and black-and-white tiled floors that beg us to dance our way to the light. She stumbles upon tangerine curtains and swatches of blue tie-dye fur arranged in the chaos of a studio and walks along green marshes whose wetlands mirror hazy skies on the coast of murmurs.

Melissa Ríos’s more intimate canvases. With looser brushwork, flashes of refracted light from unseen windows, and often muted, two-toned palettes, the paintings evoke the idea of the peak. With every twinkle or tear Melissa Ríos reminds us that love is not without ambiguity, chance is also destiny, and every moment offers a continuous start. In all her paintings, she depicts the intangibility of dreams through a series of haikus and visual metaphors of the real and the imagined, of the then, now, and later. Melissa Ríos paints her dreams and maybe even yours.”

– Text written by curator and writer Taylor Fisch

Tequila Komos, CKBG's top brand, is the world's fastest-growing super-premium tequila. The brainchild of industry veteran Richard Betts, Komos leads in growth and sustainability initiatives in Tequila, Mexico. Betts' "Komos Foundation" converts tequila production waste into adobe bricks for community infrastructure. It promotes the same sustainable practices among other tequila producers and collaborates with ITESO University to devise innovative ways of supporting the community and reusing waste.

The handcrafted Komos porcelain bottle is designed for repeated reuse, reducing the carbon footprint and supporting local artisans. Each flavor of Komos exhibits superior tequila craftsmanship, taking cues from traditional winemaking techniques. The range includes the Añejo Cristalino, aged in French oak white wine barrels, the naturally pink Reposado Rosa aged in French oak red wine barrels, and the Extra Añejo, matured for three years in both French white wine barrels and classic bourbon barrels. Enjoy these luxurious tequilas anytime, because every day is a celebration.

Melissa Rios focuses primarily on painting and drawing where she explores and contemplates images and space from a feminine, literary, poetic and surrealist perspective, using the limits between figuration and abstraction as a stylistic resource. Her paintings aim to create visual and imaginary stories or narratives closer to a dream than to reality. Full of great emotional and existential charge, as an exercise in self-knowledge and catharsis, which he shares in an intimate and almost personal way with the viewer. Her academic training involves architecture and advertising design, in a multidisciplinary way he has developed parallel projects of art direction, internal space, product design, furniture and photography. She has recently exhibited individually at Galeria Cuarto 37 in 2021, San José, Costa Rica and collectively at Valoarte 2020, San Jose, Costa Rica and "We Want to Paint" RegionalMuseum of San Ramon, Costa Rica.

Founded in 2020 by Elisabeth Johs, JO-HS is a gallery, design space, retail shop, and artist studio residency located in Mexico City with offices in New York City and Geneva, Switzerland. JO-HS lies at the intersection of art and design supporting primarily emerging contemporary artists supporting them with the production, exhibition, and distribution of their art.

“Realites in Dialogue” Exhibition
121 Watts Street, NYC
Open by appointment only
Until June 15th
Website