photo above, courtesy of Wonzimer Gallery
Curated by Lawrence Gipe, how swift, how far is a beautiful, cohesive group show with a pointedly ecological theme. Riveting, captivating works provide diverse perspectives on nature and humankind’s havoc upon it. The show includes work by Gipe, as well as from Luciana Abait, Johnnie Chatman, Lawrence Gipe, Alexander Kritselis, Aline Mare, Liz Miller-Kovacs, Ryan McIntosh, Beth Davila Waldman, and Daniel Tovar.
Thematically inspired by Risa Denenberg’s “Ice Would Suffice,” the nine artists reach beyond typical documentary-style depictions of ecology, climate change, and the like, creating instead rich metaphors for our ecologies, and adding other concepts into the mix, such as identity, class, and societal norms. The entire exhibition is poetic visually as well as in concept. Mysterious, magical, and momentous images converge in a heady mix of painting, photography, sculpture, and video.
In the center of the room, Alexander Kritselis offers a large-scale mixed media work, acrylic on metal panels, along with a variety of other materials. “We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat” references the cultural zeitgeist of recent years past, the television series Lost, in its use of iconic figures from the show as well as in the title, and with words painted on the piece.
Angled and metallic, it evokes a grounded airplane wing (another Lost reference) and touches how past culture influences present and future action – or inaction. What have we all “lost?” What might we find if we were to build that bigger boat?
The large sculpture works impactfully with curator Lawrence Gipe’s massive two back-wall canvases, part of his Russian Drone Paintings Series. Based on footage taken from drones, Gipe’s luminous large-scale oil works shine with complexity, as with “Russian Drone Painting No. 7,” in which he leads us right to the edge of fiery cataclysm, the Darvaza Gas Crater, otherwise known as The Gates of Hell.
In shimmery contrast, “Russian Drone Painting No.5 (Hong Kong, 2019, Pro-democracy protesters on Lantau Peak)” presents the shadow of hope and sunrise. Eerie and heartbreaking, in Gipe’s hand, even disaster is beautiful to witness.
Aline Mare also offers work that shimmers with an interior glow. Taken from Her Dangerous Landscapes series, Mare gives us fecund, lush images the color of Earth and the crystals taken from her heart, emeralds and topaz and sapphires.
Working in both photographic and painted mediums on metallic paper, entering Mare’s verdant, magical space offers a sense of fragile succor, one that is fleeting in a riparian world deeply affected by drought.
Beth Davila Waldman layers her visceral work of acrylic paint and pigment on tarp mounted on panel in “La Ocupación No. 2.” The uneven bifurcated surface poignantly reveals what appears to be tent and shack houses lost in the wasteland of rough desert border land.
Liz Miller-Kovac’s multiple works are mysterious and catharctic. Whether in video projected in the gallery’s backroom, or in large photographic images that include parched earth, rare red algae blooms in the desert, and a supple, surreally fabric-covered model, her work speaks to longing, desire, death, and resurrection. These striking, entirely unique and surreal visions weave both landscape and human body in a hum of beautiful, if terrible, despair.
“Owens Venus” positions a bright aqua-swathed figure against that cracked Owens Dry Lake ground and ruby algae; “Caspian Siren” gives us a red cloaked goddess wading and adrift toward massive oil platform in the sea. It is beautifully paired with Miller-Kovac’s “Anthropocene Artifact,” a mixed media installation that includes a suspended black torso that appears to be dripping black oil into a metal pan, in which an iPad floats, playing images of water. It is the ultimate depiction of pollution – and the fossil fuel industry.
Luciana Abait’s images stun, involve, and evolve before the viewer’s gaze. A mix of photography and acrylic paint on raw canvas – the texture of which Abait says appeals to her for these works, and it truly does offer an additional layer of involvement, recalling the rough texture of the land she depicts.
Both “On the Verge #4” and “On the Verge #3” offer wildly beautiful, primarily melon and beige hued looks at the American West and are a poignant commentary on open land coopted from nature. Here are man’s encroaching houses, there is the rest stop on the highway, each skewing and stealing from the natural wonder. Abait’s classically precise detail and exquisite use of light shape a visual novel on each large canvas.
An entirely different look at the Western landscape emerges from Ryan McIntosh’s series of 8 x 10 silver chloride contact prints.
Oblique, haunting, and opalescent, images range from an eerily abandoned date farm in Indio, Calif. to oil rigs pumping in the desert around Taft. His Bakersfield gas station evokes a platinum version of an Edward Ruscha’s “Standard Station.”
Daniel Tovar’s looped video is perched on a pole and weighted with hand-cast concrete cylinders.
His “untitled” offers a mix of lush images, urban skyscapes, and forgotten landscapes.
Johnnie Chatman gives viewers two archival inkjet images, self-portrait silhouettes taken in a vast, profound landscape that man’s image only fleetingly – but all too powerfully – can visit. “Self Portrait, Grand Canyon” features a solitary silhouette standing sentinel on the very edge of the canyon; the same hauntingly dark figure stands amid the otherworldly, sensually sculpted boulders of Page, Ariz. We are all aliens, just visiting. We would be wise to remember that.
Above image courtesty of Wonzimer Gallery
The exhibition runs through September 20th, and its images will possess you. See for yourself. Wonzimer is located at 341-B S Avenue 17 Los Angeles, between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights.
- Genie Davis, photos by Genie Davis; installation photos from Wonzimer Gallery