Tree. Lingam. Void. is a solo retrospective of work by Nancy Evans, a Los Angeles-based artist with some 40 years of nature-infused work in her oeuvre. At The Jason Vass Gallery through July 24th, work in this exhibition was created in the last 15 years.
Curated by Michael Duncan, her mysterious, sometimes brooding, sometimes triumphal work elegantly portrays archetypical images that transcend cultures and dwell in a gauzy, imaginative realm between faith and fairy tales. Evan’s first major solo project since 2012, the show is inspired both by her global travels and her spiritual travels through a variety of myths, rituals, and shared images.
Evans says her work here is a mix of paint, paper, and sculpture, the sculpture bronze and aqua resin. Regardless of medium, the collection shares three different concepts, which interlock, weaving a story of the natural, the supernatural, the human, the god, and the dream.
Above, Nancy Evans.
“Tree is a dissection of above and below. The tree connects consciousness to something bigger than yourself,” the artist says.
“Void refers to the idea of floating in a dream like structure, floating over an abyss that could be positive or negative,” Evans explains.
Her use of color compels viewers to enter a new visual palette, fresh and awakening, the feeling of a dream within a dream, the completion of a virtual landscape.
Lingam is a symbol for the Hindu deity Shiva, for the force of meeting matter to create existence, to create something out of nothing,” Evans asserts. The cylinder-like shape that symbolizes the deity recurs throughout Evan’s work, as do figurative forms representing Shiva and the Hindu deity Kali in her sculptures.
Altogether, the Vass gallery is hosting a mystic experience, a whole shaped from three mysteriously wonderful parts. The exhibition is a visual swirl that transcends the obvious, and draws viewers into the “roots” of its trees, the unconscious space of the void, and the transcendent creation of lingam.
The gallery is located at 1452 E. Sixth Street, in DTLA’s arts district.
- Genie Davis; All Photos: Jack Burke