“The jungle is dark but full of diamonds.” The line arrives near the end of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, spoken by Ben Loman as he urges his brother Willy toward the fatal act that he believes will redeem him. The jungle, here, is life itself dangerous, uncertain, unforgiving, while the diamonds shimmer as the promise of success, wealth, or legacy. But in the play’s context, diamonds glimmer only through self-destruction: a final, perverse consummation of the American Dream.

It is from this tragic paradox that Into the Jungle takes shape, gathering the works of Aleza Zheng and Ken Higaki. At the center of the exhibition are two works that crystallize its tension: Zheng’s When the Sky Turns to Earth (2025), painted in response to the Los Angeles fires earlier this year, and Higaki’s Hypocrite (2025), a monumental canvas where the body twists into itself, contorted under the weight of its own demands. Both works, in different registers, trace the collapse of a dream that promises light yet ends in ruin.

Ken Higaki approaches the same jungle from the body outward. His chiaroscuro figures, rendered with Baroque intensity, echo Caravaggio yet remain undeniably contemporary. Flesh distorts, hybrid faces emerge, gazes bear down from darkness. Alongside Hypocrite, works such as Lamb and Mother continue his investigation into the body as a site of both survival and vulnerability. An installation of small oil-on-panel studies shifts into abstraction with gestures and atmospheres that feel like the underbrush beneath the larger dramas, as though the jungle itself were breathing between the figures.

Together, Zheng and Higaki lead us into the jungle: a space where instinct collides with illusion, where desire glitters at its most perilous, and where we find ourselves suspended between light and ruin.

Into the Jungle runs from September 14th to October 26th, 2025, at Sabbatikal, 1226 25th Street, Santa Monica, CA. The opening reception will take place on September 14th from 5 to 8 PM and is open to the public. Please RSVP as space is limited. Afterward, visits are available by appointment or during scheduled events. Sabbatikal hosts bi-weekly private gatherings that provide additional opportunities to engage with the exhibition.

We invite you to join us at Sabbatikal and experience this convergence of art, reflection, and community.

For inquiries on price and availability please connect with Sacha Cohen either in person or by way of one of the resources provided below:

Tel. +1 (508) 237-9457     E-mail. on@sabbatikal.com             Website. www.sabbatikal.com