Sagi Refael

Dror Yisrael Hemed

During his 6-week residency at IAILA in Los Angeles and Palm Springs (May–June 2026), Dror Yisrael Hemed created a new series of paintings inspired by Southern California’s LGBTQ communities, landscapes, and cultural rhythms.

In his first solo exhibition in Palm Springs, Hemed - a painter of queer joy - presents portraits of local figures alongside vivid impressions from the Coachella Valley, all painted from direct observation on site. Known for his lively, impassioned depictions of queer individuals, couples, and groups, he brings his curious eye and vibrant palette to this body of work - an exploration of a heated summer, and one destined to be remembered.

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Yinon Avior Philipsohn

During his 3-month residency at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles (November 2025-February 2026), Copenhagen-based artist Yinon Avior Philipsohn created a series of unique, hand-sewn photographic quilts, which are being shown for the first time in Palm Springs, here at Impell Gallery.

The artist’s process started by sourcing photographic images from BDSM pornographic magazines that did not make it to the Tom of Finland Foundation’s library due to their deteriorating condition.  Selected fragments were scanned, enlarged, and reprinted in several layers, echoing the repeating reuse of the model’s body in a multitude of ways through the years. 

Through this repetitive process, those bodies were photographed, printed in a magazine, reused as source material, and reassembled a quilted, put-together object.  The final artwork asks the viewer - how much can a human body endure, how much damage can an image absorb, and how many stitches can a print - or a body - take before it tears apart?