Neither Here Nor There, currently on view at RadiatorArts, in Long Island City, presents work by eight artists born in France who have made a home in New York City.

Through mixed media, sculpture, photography and painting, the artists of Neither Here Nor There examine a state of being slightly “out of tune” and how their experience may have impacted their work over the years. While there are no drawings per se included, the show expresses an undercurrent of design through drawing, as well as a performative spirit, which give the presentation a curious unity. The exhibit also aims to highlight a common thread between the works – a feeling of detachment of the human figure from its urban environment, within a context of personal narration.

Nicolas Touron’s ceramic and video installation Artificial Landscape (left) is a visual fable, existing as a landscape of absurdity in which a dead cicada found at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens during his explorations there, plays the main character. Ensconsed in a miniature environment crafted in porcelain, each of the two settings includes video projections, at scale, of the cicadas’ natural habitats.

Jeanne Verdoux’s monotype prints (below, right) show the human figure deprived from any context but in constant motion, sometimes in the verge of falling, where ground and air merge into one dimension. The abstracted figures, a cast of cut-out mylar characters, which are inked and conjoined on a plate, recur in different combinations to create a super-narrative that speaks of chaos. Although these are monotypes, they are sometimes printed in sequence, enabling the artist to also create time-lapse animations during the printing process. Info

Fanny Allié’s characters, collaged in highly textured found papers, seem about to distractedly dance off the scroll-like white background on which they are mounted. The characters in that piece led the artist to study the seemingly random “evil clown” scares that stirred panic in numerous sightings across America last year. Executed in plain and metallic thread on a black background, the clown “drawing” at first reads as a digital image on a tablet until the delicate, interconnected threads become distinguishable.

In his Artforum mashup series, Julien Gardair combines and cuts advertising pages, creating human silhouettes intermingling with animals, body and abstract elements, resulting in a chaotic, multi-page mass. Organized in pamphlet form, these combines ask to be viewed as page-turning videos in order to see the underlying structure of the two pieces.

In her series Gowanus Dance, Marilia Destot isolates and places her model in a cinematic or sequence form, her photographic work focusing on the intimate writing of time and space intercrossed. Exploring the same medium, Simon Courchel creates in each of his photographs an urban choreography or performance thus referencing his background as a dancer; the figure being always insulated and centered within the frame. In Anne Mourier’s small sculptures depicting domestic scenes, the figure is removed all together but constantly in mind, like a ghostly presence, only the habitat remains. Lastly, in order to remedy the isolation she may find in fast-paced cities, Shani Ha creates versatile sculptures and devices in an effort to bring people together or to add a comforting touch to her surrounding.

Neither Here Nor There, curated by Nicolas Touron and Fanny Fanny Allié, continues through February 3 at RadiatorArts Gallery. 10-61 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY Info