Mara De Luca: LIGHTBRIDGE

Mara De Luca
LIGHTBRIDGE

Opening reception:
Sunday February 3, 4-7pm

On view:
February 3 - March 17 2019

5513 Pico Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90019

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Hunter Shaw Fine Art presents LIGHTBRIDGE, an exhibition of recent mixed media paintings by Mara De Luca. For the past decade De Luca has examined the aesthetic and conditional extremes of Los Angeles, investigating the city’s coexistent polarities through a considered approach to color, material, surface quality and imagery. Drawing upon cultural phenomena specific to the city such as billboard advertisement, self-improvement ideology and Hollywood, LIGHTBRIDGE articulates an “LA sublime,” in which a slick and attractive surface conceals an undercurrent of desire and unease. Hazy gradients and luminous monochromes suggest LA’s iconic skyspace at once overwhelmingly seductive and highly toxic.

While directly interpreting the cultural and visual climate of the city, De Luca’s work engages with art historical developments specific to LA, such as Conceptualism, Light and Space, Finish Fetish and Feminism. Pleasing aesthetics coexist with ruptures, splices, color shifts and metal interferences, referencing the fractured nature of our constructed reality. Operating within the global lineage of light-obsessed painters from Caravaggio to Mary Corse, De Luca focuses on the spiritual and emotional qualities of illumination. Vast atmospheric planes are bisected by strips of gleaming metal, emblems of desire - enticing, fleeting and finite next to the expansive fields of light. Throughout LIGHTBRIDGE, De Luca adopts a macro view, revealing a kind of perfection in the totality: everything beautiful and horrible, spectacular and mundane, unfolding under the same confluence of sunlight and smog.

Mara De Luca received a MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia CA and a BA from Columbia University, Department of Visual Arts, New York NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Talisman, TOTAH, New York NY (2018); Lead Me Through the Dawn, Quint Projects, San Diego CA (2016); Driving Sunset, Edward Cella Art and Architecture, Los Angeles CA (2016); CRUISE COLLECTION 2013, Luis de Jesus, Los Angeles CA (2013); saltus fidei/ Leap of Faith, Luis de Jesus, Los Angeles CA (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Distant Light, Quint Projects, San Diego CA (2018); Cosmic Connections, TOTAH, New York NY (2016); Atmospheric Abstraction: Larry Bell, Gisela Colon, Mara De Luca and Heather Gwen Martin, Quint Gallery, La Jolla CA (2015).


Sam Rowell - Persistence of Vision: Luminous Flux at the Event Horizon

Sam Rowell
Persistence of Vision: Luminous Flux at the
Event Horizon

A series of performances in light and sound.

January 18: 7pm & 9pm

January 19: 7pm & 9pm

January 20: 3pm, 5pm & 7pm

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Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce Persistence of Vision: Luminous Flux at the Event Horizon, a suite of performances by Los Angeles-based musician, creative broadcaster and visual artist Sam Rowell. Manipulating analog electronics and site-specific colored lighting arrangements, Rowell creates immersive and ephemeral sensory experiences which can produce in the audience meditative states, spatial dissociations, and synaesthetic perceptual phenomena. Passages of incredibly sensitive hue and lush, shifting gradients alternate with moments of intense flicker, accompanied by continually-evolving layers of electronic drones, pulses, murmurs and wails. The audio and visual sequences are improvised by the artist simultaneously though independently - associations between the two occur strictly within the viewer’s mind, illuminating the highly subjective nature of color, experience and reality.

Sam Rowell received a BA, cum laude from Harvard University, Cambridge MA. In September of 2018 Rowell staged Color Objectivism, Harmonic Distortion, and the Illusion of the Noise-Free System, Vol. 2. a series of performances at Human Resources Los Angeles. Other recent activities include light and sound performances at the Getty Center's Friday Flights (2017) and concert events at Club Pro Los Angeles (2017), Night Gallery, and Dem Passwords (2015). Rowell is also the bassist for celebrated radical improv duo Eloe Omoe, and produces the monthly live sound collage broadcast Special Collections on KCHUNG Radio in Los Angeles.


Adam de Boer: Traveller's Palm

Adam de Boer: Traveller’s Palm

Opening reception Friday November 2, 7-10pm
On view November 2 - December 18
5513 Pico Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90019

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Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce Adam de Boer: Traveller’s Palm, the artist’s second solo presentation with HSFA, and the inaugural exhibition in the gallery's new permanent space in Los Angeles. Traveller’s Palm is the culmination of an eight-year-long exploration of indigenous Javanese crafts which de Boer has studied with increasing intensity, most recently on a 2017 Fulbright fellowship to Indonesia. Throughout Traveller’s Palm, techniques such as batik, woven pandan leaf, carved teak and rawhide are integrated with Western modes of landscape and figural oil painting to mount a rigorous investigation of authenticity within the hybrid forms of a post-colonial world, and his own identity as an American-born artist of mixed Dutch-Indonesian heritage.

For most of his life, de Boer’s personal connection to his Eurasian ancestry was obfuscated by a decidedly American upbringing in Southern California. Although only one generation from possibly being born in central Java, de Boer’s heritage was only accessible through grainy snapshots in a family album. This changed on a fortuitous surf vacation to Bali in 2010. Deeply impressed by the culture, atmosphere and people he encountered, the artist commenced on what has become the central focus of his career: untangling the threads of history to reveal the complex tapestry of post-colonial identity. Fusing Indonesian crafts with European painting, de Boer treats both traditions with equal reverence and critique, resulting in images and objects that are at once jarring and harmonious.

Steeped in historical and art-historical reference, the works in Traveller’s Palm are deeply considered, from the choice of materials to the visual motifs employed. In many images, the land and people are depicted as if enmeshed within a seemingly endless sea of so-called “Portuguese Tiles.” These pressed cement tiles are actually English in origin, and were introduced to Indonesia by the Dutch in an effort to bring hygienic surfaces to the colonies. Featuring imagery and designs from around the globe, they are in fact a sanitized visual index of the European colonial project. De Boer deftly interweaves these icons with myriad other cultural signifiers to produce visual puzzles dense with historical technique and personal/political meaning.

Adam de Boer holds a BA in Painting from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2006) and a MA in Fine Art from the Chelsea College of Art, London (2012). Recent exhibitions include Elevator Mondays, Los Angeles (2018); World Trade Centre, Jakarta (2018); Art|Jog, Yogyakarta (2018/2015); Redbase Foundation, Yogyakarta (2017); Hunter Shaw Fine Art, Los Angeles (2016); Riflemaker, London (2016/2013/2011); Indonesian Contemporary Art Network, Yogyakarta (2014); University of California, Santa Barbara (2014); Escuela Taller, Bogotá (2013); Flashpoint Gallery, Washington, DC (2010).

In response to the recent natural disasters throughout Indonesia, HSFA will donate ten percent of all sales from this exhibition to the Indonesian Red Cross. Please inquire at the gallery or via email. Thank you!

Rupture Of Plane

Rupture of Plane:
Alan Shields + Mimbres Painted Pottery

Dedicated to my father George Everett Shaw for his 70th birthday.

Opening reception Sunday September 9, 2-6 pm
On view September 12 - October 7
Wednesday - Sunday, 2-8 pm
1300 Glendale Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90026

Classic Mimbres Black-on-White, painted ceramic, c. 900-1000 CE

Classic Mimbres Black-on-White, painted ceramic, c. 900-1000 CE

Rupture of Plane: Alan Shields + Mimbres Painted Pottery pairs works in handmade paper by Alan Shields with a group of prehistoric ceramics from the American Southwest, illuminating aesthetic and spiritual resonances that transcend history, culture, and geography. The exhibition title alludes to a phrase repeated throughout Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane to describe the experience of hierophany: when the sacred reveals itself to us. “Where the sacred manifests itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence. But the irruption of the sacred does not only project a center into chaos; it also effects a break in plane, that is, it opens communication between the cosmic planes (between heaven and earth) and makes possible ontological passage from one mode of being to another.” Within this text, Eliade elucidates many worldwide similarities of cosmological and cosmographic beliefs that human beings developed in archaic times. This exhibition intends to reveal the hierophany as a continuously occurring phenomenon, accessible in the present moment, universally throughout all time. The geometric abstractions of Alan Shields and those created by the female potters of the prehistoric Southwest both constitute spiritual cartographies, whereby the art object opens a portal through which one may pass “from one mode of being to another.”

Sometime around 900 CE the inhabitants of the Mimbres River Valley in present-day New Mexico broke from the traditions of the Mogollon culture of their surrounding area, evolving a unique belief system which is reflected in the radically innovative painted ceramics they produced. For two-and-a-half centuries, the Mimbres people flourished as an independently governed and autonomous society engaged in trade routes that extended from Mesoamerica to Mesa Verde. By 1200 CE, they had disappeared, abandoning their homeland and dissolving into nearby cultures, most likely due to extreme drought and climate change. Caches of Mimbres pottery were rediscovered and excavated by amateur and professional archaeologists in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Today, Mimbres ceramics can be found in the collections of museums across the world.      

Gila Wilderness near Mimbres River Valley, NM

Gila Wilderness near Mimbres River Valley, NM

Mimbres painted pottery is remarkable for its technical mastery and meticulous expression of mystical principles. Although the Mimbres people traded their other ceramic wares, painted pottery was reserved exclusively for local, ceremonial use. Applying a mixture of carbon and hematite with the fine point of a yucca blade, the Mimbres artists executed intricate and expressive images with exquisite precision on the interior of hemispheric vessels. A mysterious and complex geometric iconography was rendered in both naturalistic and highly-abstracted images, depicting mythical and cosmological notions related to emergence, death, rebirth, nature, fertility, orientation, migration, ancestral spirits, supernatural beings, and the cosmic center. For the Mimbres artists, the hemispheric vessel itself was representative of the barrier between the Underworld of the dead and Upperworld. Painted bowls were often used in funerary rites, placed inverted over the face or head of the deceased. These bowls were usually “killed” - intentionally punctured through the center creating a literal and symbolic rupture of plane, a gateway through which the spirit may pass “from one mode of being to another.”

In her landmark study of Mimbres painting Within the Underworld Sky, historian Barbara Moulard argues that the “kill hole” is representative of the sipa’pu, the hole in the Underworld sky described in Pueblo mythology. She affirms, “this hole is symbolic of the original aperture from which the ancestors emerged from the Underworld as well as a passageway for traveling between metaphysical worlds. Because of the similarities between the form of the Mimbres hemispheric vessel as it appears in its burial context and the description of the Pueblo mythological ‘dome of the Underworld sky’ and its sipa’pu, hole of emergence, it is plausible to suggest that the Mimbres form represented a barrier between two worlds and that the ‘kill hole’ is a means of exit for the spirit of the Mimbres dead. It is within this context of meaning that all other elements of the Mimbres ceramic art form should be viewed... The geometric composition should be placed in the context of the interior of a dome-shaped object which symbolizes the surface of the barrier that separates two metaphysical worlds… On the interior of the ceramic form, this spatial model becomes a symbolic cosmological map.”

Classic Mimbres Black-on-White, painted ceramic, c. 900 - 1000 CE

Classic Mimbres Black-on-White, painted ceramic, c. 900 - 1000 CE

Metaphysical realities are most effectively communicated through symbolic abstractions. In the visual arts, the metaphor of compositional center as cosmic Center has occurred throughout worldwide modes of geometric abstraction from prehistory to the present. In The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series (1985), American artist Alan Shields created a suite of works which express the possibility of transcendence through material experimentation and a visual language of complex center-oriented geometry. Throughout his career Shields forged a deep connection with his materials in a lifelong investigation of their expressive capabilities that was almost monastic in its rigor and dedication. Yet, there is a persistent joy to his work - the joy of seeing, the joy of being. It is the joy of being brought into the present moment by the excitement of the senses. Shields described this intention in a 1998 interview, saying “I do have a spiritual connection with these things like my materials… [My] art is not about politics. I think it has more to do with introspection than with politics. My work is going to be completely about my philosophy of visual stimulation and visual energy. It’s a visual energy that I’m trying to present. That doesn’t have a language barrier, a political barrier, or even a historical barrier. It could’ve happened anytime. One of the things I’ve wanted to do is do things that were timeless. The pieces could’ve been made anytime, and they still are about what they’re about.”

In the 1970s, Shields was celebrated for works which blurred the distinction between painting and sculpture. The influential Gridworks were constructed from lushly stained and painted strips of canvas woven and stitched together into large grids which were suspended freely in space, to be experienced in the round. This aspect of viewer-engagement is essential to Shields’ artwork, presenting the art object as a tool for bringing the beholder more deeply into the present moment through visual and spatial interaction. When experiencing a gridwork, the viewer is struck by how the work permeates life, integrating into the environment; she not only sees the object in space, she sees space through the object.

During this time Shields also began experimenting with printmaking and papermaking techniques, which proved to be an equally fertile and inventive branch of his practice. In 1971, he created Sun Moon Title Page, an experimental work in paper which defied the traditional expectations of a print edition. Sun Moon Title Page is double-sided, the recto and verso offering complimentary experiences, like the two sides of a record. Across the edition of 100, no two are the same: the ground layer is stained by hand, creating variance in pattern and saturation. Furthermore, the surface is interrupted by a series of slits, through which strips of printed paper were woven in chance configurations by his assistants. These openings give Sun Moon Title Page a dimensionality which transcends the usual print. Through the rest of the decade Shields would explore the dimensional possibilities of perforated surfaces, delving deeply into the material capabilities of handmade paper.

Alan Shields sewing together "Equatorial Route," from "The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series"

Alan Shields sewing together "Equatorial Route," from "The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series"

These experiments came to a crescendo in The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series. Undoubtedly the technical and aesthetic zenith of Shields’ printmaking practice, the series debuted at Paula Cooper Gallery in 1985 and was featured on the cover of Artforum in March of 1986. The series is comprised of seven circular compositions, each 47 inches in diameter and constructed from multiple layers of handmade paper “lattices.” To produce these, Shields invented a technique where weblike patterns of strings were attached to a large metal hoop and dipped into paper pulp, creating intricate perforated sheets as the pulp dried around the strings and fell away elsewhere. Elaborate patterns were then printed on these sheets with a profusion of techniques: from woodblock and screen printing to embossing and glitter application, no available method went unused. Finally, these prints were arranged, stacked and stitched together into reliefs 2 or 3 layers deep. The resulting effect is transfixing. Patterns and colors rhythmically flicker through the network of holes in each layer. In the exhibition catalog Alan Shields: Print Retrospective, curator Ronny Cohen describes The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series: “Distributed throughout the surfaces of these multiple layer relief prints, the grids are the forms that hold the compositions together in a state of high energy. Colors pulsate; planes rotate. The grids are also the forces that draw the audience into the enchanted space of the prints, where more of their emblematic aspects are revealed. Throughout this series Shields succeeds in striking a sentient balance between the material and spiritual sides of reality. Again, he is breaking down boundaries.“

The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series can truly be considered a form of “climax ware,” a term coined in JJ Brody’s text Mimbres Painted Pottery to describe artwork “on which a certain set of visual ideals and values is pushed to its ultimate limits.” In fact, there are a number of particular affinities between The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series and the images found in Mimbres pottery. In much the same way that the Mimbres painters utilized a sophisticated geometric iconography to describe a cosmological orientation, The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series constitutes a metaphysical roadmap, in which notions of migration, interdimensionality and interconnectedness are expressed by densely layered grids, webs, and concentric circles. The compositions of both Mimbres painting and The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series display a visceral quality of movement - images appear to morph, spin and pulsate. Additionally, both seem to simultaneously depict a microscopic and macroscopic scale, a hallmark characteristic of elevated abstraction. Unlike Mimbres pottery, which is executed almost exclusively in a monochrome palette representative of the colorless Underworld, The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series is unmistakably alive, blooming in vivid color. This is not to say that Mimbres pottery is morbid or somber, although their culture has often been described sensationally as a “death cult.” In actuality, less than 40% of Mimbres painted pottery was recovered from a mortuary context, and many painted vessels bear markings from utilitarian usage by the living. Barbara Moulard explains, “While the vessels functioned as food, water, or ceremonial containers in daily life, the imagery on the vessels would have been a constant reminder of the spiritual realm.” In this way both Mimbres pottery and Shields’ paper constructions demonstrate art’s potential as a spiritual technology, offering the viewer access to “sacred time,” which, according to Eliade, “appears under the paradoxical aspect of a circular time, reversible and recoverable, a sort of eternal mythical present.” Hence, the rupture of plane truly describes a psychological barrier that exists between the “eternal present” and the profane present. This exhibition contends that artwork remains one of the primary links between humanity and hierophany, dissolving boundaries and offering access to the sacred, even in a desacralised world.

Alan Shields "Rain Dance Route," from "The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series," 1985

Alan Shields "Rain Dance Route," from "The Raggedy Circumnavigation Series," 1985

Alan Shields (1944, Herington, KS – Shelter Island, NY, 2005) has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally and is included in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Collection, London, UK; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Selected museum exhibitions include: "Experiments in Form: Sam Gilliam, Alan Shields, Frank Stella," Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (2018);  "Alan Shields: Protracted Simplicity (1966-1985)," Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2016); "Alan Shields: In Motion," Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2015); "Into the Maze," SITE Santa Fe, NM (2014); "Stirring Up the Waters," Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY (2007); "Alan Shields: A Survey," The Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS (1999); "Alan Shields: Print Retrospective," Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, IL (1986); "1968 – 1983: The Work of Alan Shields," Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (1983), traveled to Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; and "Alan Shields: Paintings and Prints," Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (1981).

 

 

 

BUILT-IN : Chapter 1

NAVEL presents

BUILT-IN : Chapter 1
Carmen Bouyer, Colleen Hargaden, Aaron Meyers

organized by Hunter Shaw

Thursday, April 19th 2018
7:00 - 10:00 PM

1611 S. Hope St. 90015

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HUNTER SHAW FINE ART is pleased to announce Built-In: Chapter 1, the first in a series of collaborative events initiated by Nicolas Grenier for NAVEL. Grenier has constructed a site-specific ensemble of modular space dividers which function as a dynamic and malleable presentation device for screenings, lectures, performances and other forms of public engagement. The inaugural event, organized by Hunter Shaw, celebrates artists bringing new perspective to “real life” applications such as infrastructure, building, land use and environmental stewardship.

The program will commence with a collective experience imagined and orchestrated by Carmen Bouyer. The artist will position Grenier’s modules to enable intimate interpersonal exchanges and the sharing of memories. In groups of two to three people, the participants will be invited to share stories of how they relate to the land and its non-human inhabitants in the Los Angeles cityscape and its vast surroundings. These interactions will be facilitated by cards and objects made available by the artist to help the audience remember and convey their personal relationships with non-human forms of life and intelligence. The simple elements, introducing emotions, senses, landscape archetypes, etc. will be distributed throughout the room, inspiring conversations about the nature of the world that lives inside and around us. Throughout this interaction, a sonic installation will be activated, playing sounds recorded at the nearby Santa Monica Bay, Los Angeles River, and Ballona Wetlands ecosystems. This experience is designed as a collective exploration of the language and emotions that emerge from describing of our sensorial connections to the local earth. The oral narratives that spring from such sharing practices invite us all to attune to one another and to the land that encompasses us. The cities we inhabit are embedded within larger, living landscapes - mountains, forests, oceans, rivers, plains - which shape and inform everything about our lives, from the climate they create to the plants and animals they welcome alongside our own species. By voicing our perceptions of the multi-faceted, multi-species world we are embedded in, we can communally nurture our awareness and respect of the infinite diversity and interconnectedness of all life forms.  

In the conceptual sculpture project Tiny House, Colleen Hargaden explores low-impact dwelling and self-reliance in the Information Age. Utilizing the internet as a primary resource, Hargaden learned everything required - from techniques and materials, to zoning and regulations - in order to design and build a fully-functional “tiny house” from scratch. The work draws attention to the extreme economic and ecological pressures of contemporary life which have motivated the current “tiny house” movement, while simultaneously presenting the finished product and the process of its construction as an exercise in self-reliance and liberation. Tiny House is a modest, yet attractively viable adaptation of the American Dream to contemporary circumstances. For Built-In: Chapter 1, Hargaden will present a performative lecture detailing her process, alongside a screening of documentary video footage of the construction. Hargaden will also make available custom USB drives containing instructional, diagrammatic drawings and information on how to construct a “tiny house” according to her research.

Idea for a Clay Fired Brick by Aaron Meyers consists of the prototype for a masonry unit invented and designed by the artist, accompanied by a suite of schematic drawings illustrating the brick and several possible uses for it. The proposed utilities range from the decorative to the practical. For example:  a floor or ceiling made of this material can span unsupported areas, or, an arch can be constructed without cutting. Smile is a 12 x 18 ft inverted arch made from a different modular unit designed by the artist. The structure utilizes internal tension from its custom hardware to prevent the arch from collapsing outward in this orientation, which would certainly occur by any other construction method. Both works function as simple design propositions, inviting the viewer to imagine possible forms and functions for these unusual units of construction.


Carmen Bouyer received a Master in Design from Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, FR and participated in the Environmental Studies program at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. Since 2015, Bouyer has worked with Pioneer Works Art Center in Red Hook, Brooklyn to develop local organic food access and environmental education programs, in addition to landscape stewardship and environmental art installations in and around Red Hook. In 2017, she developed storytelling and environmental arts activities for the University of Coahuila, Saltillo, MX, the activist group Works On Water, and the STEW-MAP (Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project) in New York City.

Colleen Hargaden received a BFA with Distinction from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena CA and is currently completing an MFA at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Tiny House (End of Build), Deep End Ranch, Santa Paula, CA (2016); Tiny House (Mid-Build), and Tiny House (Pre-Build), both at Fine Art Gallery, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA (2015). Recent group exhibitions include EX-CORPSE, AWHRHWAR booth at Other Places Art Fair, San Pedro, CA (2018); and GROUP SHOW VIDEO SHOW, Henderson's House, Los Angeles, CA (2017). Hargaden is also the co-owner of Roger's Office, an artist-run gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

Aaron Meyers received an MFA in Sculpture and Extended Media from The University of Texas at Austin, and a BS with Honors in Mathematics from Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include (L,W,H), Big Medium at Fusebox Festival, Austin, TX (2015); and Alex.Chitty Aaron.Meyers, Permanent.Collection, Austin, TX (2014). Recent group exhibitions include Strap Your Hands Across My Engine curated by Camille Schefter and Thomas Linder, Tin Flats, Los Angeles, CA (2018); and I Will Go On..., Montserrat College of Art Gallery, Beverly, MA (2016).   

Corpus Alienum

HUNTER SHAW FINE ART

Corpus Alienum
Hayden Dunham, Don Edler, Amanda Vincelli

Opening reception Friday November 3, 6 - 9 pm

On view November 4 - December 1
Tuesday - Sunday, 12 - 6pm

2270 Venice Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90006

 

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Hunter Shaw Fine Art presents Corpus Alienum, an exhibition by Hayden Dunham, Don Edler, and Amanda Vincelli. Examining power dynamics within the Corporation/consumer relationship, this exhibition explores the mutable nature of the body, presenting it as a site of both transformation and control. Probing the topics of agency, biopower, and consent, Corpus Alienum investigates the relationship between corporate personhood and biological personhood in the contemporary consumer landscape.

In 1886, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations were to be considered ‘persons’ under the 14th Amendment, written shortly after the Civil War supposedly to guarantee full citizenship and equal protection under law to former slaves. Henceforth, corporations would also enjoy the same rights and protections as individuals. This is commonly referred to as ‘corporate personhood.’ Problematically, it was left unclear who is ethically accountable when corporations break the law, act sociopathically, or violate the rights of other citizens. Who is responsible when an immaterial entity such as a corporation terrorizes, exploits, or inflicts harm on a biological entity? Who is accountable when, for example, a corporation knowingly uses carcinogenic ingredients in its products?

This line of inquiry parallels the conceptual framework of Hayden Dunham’s installations and sculpture. Dunham translates the formal attributes of ecological disaster and industrial byproduct into sculptural gesture: her materials spill, pool, seep, congeal, evaporate, infiltrate, contaminate. As with carcinogenic industrial byproducts, the locus of interaction with the consumer is often on the chemical or molecular level. Dunham frequently creates and utilizes airborne materials that are imperceptibly absorbed and incorporated into the viewer’s body, reflecting an unbalanced power dynamic becoming ever more familiar as water filtration systems fail to keep up with the veritable pharmacopeia that pollutes drinking water.     

This pervasive and penetrative pharmaceutical contamination is symptomatic of what has been described by gender and sexuality theorist Paul B. Preciado as the ‘Pharmacopornographic Era’ - the contemporary condition wherein the pharmaceutical industry, pornography, and late capitalism intersect to form a highly-normative system of control. The mechanism is fueled by a somato-consumerist feedback loop of manufactured desires - the testing, production, advertisement and sale of products that fulfill those desires - which subsequently reinforce the social, political, and sexual norms that perpetuate the cycle. Excite, control, repeat.

Don Edler’s ‘Pharmacopornographic Triptych’ is a sculptural relief comprised of carved, modular tablets embedded with pharmacopornographic merchandise such as  ‘male enhancement’ pills, birth control pills and sex toys the artist acquired through mainstream online retailers. The tablets are coated in a thick layer of surf wax, producing an unnatural monochrome surface quality, not unlike synthetic stone - a postmodern analog to Ancient Egyptian or Mesoamerican stone carvings, the pharmacopornographic tablets are the mytho-monumental artworks of a pharmacopornographic society. Much like Preciado’s notion of gender hacking, however, Edler subverts pharmacopornographic normativity, reclaiming agency by using components of the mechanism for radical, individualistic ends - queering the system by its own means. The ‘Pharmocopornographic Tryptich’ is a trans-object: modular, mutable, non-fixed, it can be rearranged in dozens of configurations at will. The elements of the triptych are equivalent to bodies with interchangeable parts, literally embedded with methods, products, symbols and signifiers of both ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity.’

This fluidity is taken to its logical extreme in Amanda Vincelli’s video  ‘HYGIENA,’ a narrative loop centered on the interaction of a human and an AI humanoid. Taking place in an alternate reality, virtual space, or near future, ‘HYGIENA’ focuses on a ritualized maintenance procedure executed within the high-key lighting and commercial production values of what could be an advertisement, music video, or porn clip. A presumably biological human carefully cleans an android whose physical and sexual characteristics are mutable according to the human’s desires. With a finger’s swipe on the corresponding app, the AI’s physique can be transformed within gradients of criteria such as muscle mass, skin color, sexual organ, etc. This transference of subjugation onto the AI blurs the distinction of who is being cared for, who is receiving pleasure, who is being used. The AI is inherently an extension of contemporary capitalism. Accordingly, ‘HYGIENA’ uncovers an essential objective of that system: identify and exploit emergent markets, even if they contradict existing normative paradigms. Capitalism will supply for any demand, whether it's for a multisexual humanoid companion or the latest esoteric ‘wellness’ program.

Corpus, the Latin word for ‘body,’ is the etymological root of the word ‘corpse.’ The medical term corpus alienum literally translates to ‘foreign body’ - something that originates outside  the corporeal perimeter of an organism. The word ‘corporeal,’ also derived from corpus, articulates the ontological distinction between the body and spirit - i.e. ‘corporeal’ vs. ‘ethereal.’ The word ‘corporation’ refers to a group of people authorized to act as a single entity and recognized as such in law. The aim of this exhibition is to explore the links between these categories and question how to draft a future cartography whereby ‘corporate persons’ bear the same accountability as biological persons, and individuals can assert autonomy over their own corporeal experience.

Hayden Dunham received a BA from the Gallatin School of Individual Study at New York University, studying environmental science, applied psychology, advertising and gender / sexuality. Exhibitions include Apocalypse Summer, Ltd. LA, Los Angeles, CA (2017); As Above So Below: Portals, Visions, Spirits and Mystics, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2017); Watermark, SIGNAL, Brooklyn, NY (2016); bio:dip: Hayden Dunham and Nicolas Lobo, Red Bull Studios, New York, NY (2016); EVERYTHINGS: Hayden Dunham, Parker Ito, Timur Si-Quin, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NY (2015); FORMS, in collaboration with Center for Light Research, Farewell, Austin, TX (2015).

Don Edler received an MFA in Studio Art from New York University,  and a BFA in Sculpture from University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Edler also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME. Recent group exhibitions include The Useful and the Decorative, The Landing, Los Angeles, CA (2017); Memory Room, curated by Andrew Ross, Outpost Artist Resources, Queens, NY (2016). Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include The Father The Sun and the Holy Road, San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA (2016); COBRA DESTROYER, Central Park Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Boredom is the Ultimate Weapon, HQHQ, Portland, OR (2015).

Amanda Vincelli is completing an MFA in Photography and Media from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. Additionally, Vincelli has studied Strategic Design at Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY; and Health Sciences at André-Grasset College, Montreal, QC, Canada. Recent exhibitions include Clothing Optional, curated by Sohrab Mohebbi, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2017); The Public Space: Regimen, Studio XX, Never Apart, Warren G Flowers Art Gallery, and other public locations, Montreal, QC, Canada (2017); Body of Research, Sloan Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Regimen, MFA Mid-Residency exhibition, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA (2016).

PRIVATE VIEWING Vol. 1 - Aspen, CO • July 26 - August 6, 2017

Historic pottery and sculpture from the Mimbres and Hopi cultures of the Southwestern United States, as well as Nazca and Jalisco era Pre-Columbian artworks.  

Contemporary and modern works by Claire Colette, Brian Hunt, Aaron Morse, Jean Nagai, Kelly Palmer, Ken Price, Robert Richenberg, Alan Shields, and Grey Turner.

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AVAILABLE WORKS BY AARON MORSE

Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce available works by Aaron Morse. 

Aaron Morse
Cloud World (Western Creatures)
2017
Acrylic and watercolor on paper
30 x 22 inches

Aaron Morse
Temple of Nature
2017
Acrylic and watercolor on paper
30 x 22 inches

Aaron Morse
Mt. St. John (Color Variant)
2017
Acrylic and watercolor on paper
30 x 22 inches

Aaron Morse
Philosophical Creatures (Study)
2011
Acrylic and watercolor on paper
16.5 x 21.5 inches

SPRUNG! • May 20 - 31, 2017

HUNTER SHAW FINE ART
presents:

SPRUNG!
Dan Beard, Jamie Felton, Daniel Ingroff, 
Jonny Negron, Kira Shewfelt, Sarah Ann Weber

Opening reception Saturday, May 20, 7 - 9 pm.
On view May 20 - 31, 12:00 - 6:00 pm.

Sarah Ann Weber, 'Jardin des Plantes,' 2016, Prismacolor colored pencil on paper and mat board, 12 x 14 inches

Sarah Ann Weber, 'Jardin des Plantes,' 2016, Prismacolor colored pencil on paper and mat board, 12 x 14 inches

Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce SPRUNG! a group exhibition celebrating late spring, and exploring the connections between nature and eroticism, seasonality and sensuality.

Although the human animal is generally thought not to have a mating season, springtime holds a particular importance for us, as for most of our earthly coinhabitants. For thousands of years, in cultures worldwide, Spring has been represented and regarded with distinct connotations of romance, vitality, and sexual desire. As days grow longer, warmer and brighter, the world blooms and ripens, arousing not just the libido, but the awareness of nature and our place amongst it. Research indicates that as the body receives higher levels of sunlight, it produces increased levels of serotonin and Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone (MSH) which are linked to increased happiness and sex drive. In other words: in sunlight, we flower.

This eco-biological connection was not lost on our ancestors and is reflected in ancient spring fertility and copulation festivals from the Celtic Beltane, to the orgiastic “Lesser Mysteries” of ancient Greece, to Japan’s Onda Matsuri, to name just a few. Central to each of these celebrations is the ritualized ingestion and fetishized representation the Earth's bounty in the form of grapes, wine, pomegranates, blue lotus, cannabis, mushrooms and many other psychoactive and aphrodisiacal products of the land. This terrestrial communion no doubt amplified the sensory engagement with the natural environment, reinforcing the psychological connection between the senses and the seasons.

The artworks in this exhibition explore these age-old associations through the language of contemporary painting and drawing. By means of color, gesture, and line, these images are ripe with the gushing urgency of a late spring bloom. This exhibition is meant as a timely reminder that the appreciation of nature, beauty and romance is intimately entangled with what it means to be human.

Dan Beard received his BFA in painting from Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK (1996-1999), and has exhibited extensively in Europe. This is his first exhibition in North America. Recent exhibitions include ‘Discerning Eye,’ Mall Galleries, London (2016); ‘Correspond,’ Interview Room 11 Gallery, Edinburgh (2016); 'Anthology,' Charlie Smith Gallery London (2014); and 'Teleology,' Undead Painters, Husk Gallery, London (2014). Dan has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at Assembly Rooms, London (2013); Exposure Gallery, London (2010); Brinkkala Gallery, Turku (2008); Galleria Rajatila, Tampere (2008) amongst others.

Jamie Felton attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014) in addition to receiving her MFA at Tyler School of Art, Rome, IT / Philadelphia, PA (2013) and her BFA in painting at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (2009). Recent exhibitions include 'Daydream Nation,' Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2017); ‘John Emison and Jamie Felton: Sun Power,’ Ms. Barbers, Los Angeles, CA (2016); and  ‘Jamie Felton and Natalie Smith: Decorative Woman,’ Central Park Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2016).

Daniel Ingroff received his MFA from University of California, Irvine, CA (2014) and his BA from Pitzer College, Claremont, CA (2006). Recent exhibitions include ‘Get Ready,’ curated by Shaun Johnson, 24 Hour Charlie’s, Los Angeles, CA (2017); ‘Flames on the Side of My Face,’ Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY (2015) ; ‘The White Album,’ Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA (2014).

Jonny Negron is a self-taught artist and illustrator. His illustrations  have  been commissioned by publications such as The New York Times, Pitchfork, and Vice, as well as for album artwork by bands Thee Oh Sees (‘Drop,’ Castleface Records, 2014) and Twin Sister (‘In Heaven,’ Domino USA, 2011). Recent exhibitions include ‘BIBLIOTECHA,’ ATM Gallery, Austin, TX (2017); ‘Maren Karlsen, Matt Lock, Jonny Negron: Formative World,’ Farewell, Austin, TX (2016-2017).

Kira Shewfelt received her MFA from New York University (2015), along with her MA in Art History from University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (2010), and her BA in literature from Yale University, New Haven, CT (2006). Recent exhibitions include ‘Darren Goins / Kira Shewfelt,’ Elevator Mondays, Los Angeles, CA (2017), ‘Remedios/Winter in Brazil,’ Largo das Artes, Rio de Janeiro (2016); and ‘Nobody Died That Year’ 80 WSE, New York City, NY (2014).

Sarah Ann Weber received her MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2011) and her BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009). Weber has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions ‘Sarah Ann Weber: Scenic View,’ Club Pro, Los Angeles, CA (2017); ‘Brian Rochefort and Sarah Ann Weber: Cavity,’ Some.Time.Salon., San Francisco, CA (2016). Recent group exhibitions include 'Psychonautics,' CES Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2017); ‘How High,’ Left Field, San Luis Obispo, CA (2016); and 'Pulp in Ashes,' Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, CA (2015).

Claire Colette : Widening Circles

HUNTER SHAW FINE ART
presents:

Claire Colette : Widening Circles

Opening reception Sunday, February 26, 3 - 9 pm.
On view February 26 - March 6, 12:00 - 6:00 pm.

857 S. San Pedro St. Unit #310 *

The Beginning in the End | 2016 | acrylic polymer on panel | 48 x 36 inches

The Beginning in the End | 2016 | acrylic polymer on panel | 48 x 36 inches

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

-Rainer Maria Rilke


Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to present Widening Circles, an exhibition of new works by Claire Colette, the artist’s first solo show in Los Angeles. Coinciding with the publication of a book of her drawings and poetry of the same title, the exhibition presents a selection of thematically-related paintings which showcase Colette’s ethereal brand of geometric abstraction.

At once deeply expressive and highly-technical, Colette’s meticulously-rendered compositions invite deep, meditative viewing. Operating at the nexus of spirituality and science fiction, the artist utilizes a refined geometric language to depict mental and emotional landscapes, liminal spaces and expanded states of consciousness. Recurring visual motifs are imbued with symbolic resonance: translucent planes intersect and overlap suggesting interconnectivity, planes of understanding and experience - widening circles, expanding into other ways of knowing.

Claire Colette received her MFA in painting from Mills College (2013). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Ever/After,’ Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA (2015); ‘Last Light Before A Long Night,’ Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX (2014); ‘Small Moves in Strange Rooms,’ Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2014). Colette’s work has been included in recent group exhibitions such as ‘Thick as Paper Thin,’ Brilliant Champions Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2016); ‘Form Is Not Different From Function,’ Left Field Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA (2016); ‘That’s My Trip,’ Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY (2015).


* Exhibition space generously provided by WAYSIDE.LA

Adam de Boer : Night Swimming

HUNTER SHAW FINE ART
presents:

Adam de Boer : Night Swimming

Opening reception Thursday, December 8, 6-9 pm.
On view December 9 - December 12, 12:00 - 6:00 pm.

857 S. San Pedro St. Unit #310 *

Night Swimming No. 2 | 2016 | wax-resist acylic dye, oil paint, silver leaf on linen | 45 x 45 inches

Night Swimming No. 2 | 2016 | wax-resist acylic dye, oil paint, silver leaf on linen | 45 x 45 inches

Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce its inaugural pop-up exhibition, Adam de Boer’s Night Swimming, the artist’s first solo presentation in Los Angeles. On view are eight new canvases showcasing the painter’s multi-layered approach to image-making. Harmoniously blending modes of abstraction, representation, landscape and figure, Night Swimming is imbued with a musical, narrative sensibility, propelling an aesthetic investigation into the complex dynamics of romantic love.

Across the series, we see moments from a love affair - the first encounter, the seduction, inevitable conflict - each rendered in a tropical, dreamlike palette. In much the same way that the dynamic of romance consists of the integration of disparate, often conflicting elements, each composition in Night Swimming arrives at a congruous image through the layering of various materials, processes and conceptual themes. De Boer begins each painting as a batik, a traditional wax-resist dyeing process the artist studied while traveling in Java, investigating his own Eurasian heritage. Once the wax and dye are boiled out of the surface, the resulting field of geometric abstraction serves as the ground for multiple layers of oil paint and details of silver-leaf. Occasionally the canvases are ornamented with intricate hand-carved teak wood embellishments, an art form also endemic to Indonesia.

The visual and material influence of Javanese craft and culture are central to the artist’s work and spring forth from his hybrid identity as a Dutch-Indonesian-American. The Javanese craft traditions de Boer draws upon are transformed beyond their traditional boundaries as they combine with western imagery and oil painting styles, ultimately crystallizing into an investigation of postcolonial identity. The artist states, “With images informed by a Western childhood and education, I misappropriate and mutate craft traditions outside their prescribed abstract designs into hybrid forms. Successful work is predicated on the capacity of the batik and carvings to be viewed from different, and oftentimes conflicting, vantages. These conflicts do not call for resolution but for reconciliation and adaption.”

In 2016 Adam was awarded a Fulbright research fellowship to Indonesia, where he will continue his engagement with the region’s indigenous crafts. Other grants include those from Arts For India, The Cultural Development Corporation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and The Santa Barbara Arts Fund.

Adam de Boer received his MFA from the Chelsea College of Art, London, and his BA in Painting from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Recent exhibitions include Art|Jog|8, Yogyakarta (2015); Indonesian Contemporary Art Network, Yogyakarta (2014); Cookhouse Gallery, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (2014); University of California, Santa Barbara (2014); Escuela Taller, Bogotá (2013); Riflemaker, London (2016, 2013, 2011); Flashpoint Gallery, Washington, DC (2010).


* Exhibition space generously provided by WAYSIDE.LA

 

AVAILABLE WORKS BY CLAIRE COLETTE

HUNTER SHAW FINE ART is pleased to announce available works by Los Angeles-based painter Claire Colette. Colette's ethereal brand of geometric abstraction invites deep, meditative viewing. Multiple planes intersect and overlap in meticulously rendered asymmetric or nearly-symmetric compositions that suggest deco/futurist blueprints, alien schematics and spiritual innervisions.    

On Ceremony ; 2015 ; acrylic on panel ; 24 x 18 inches

On Ceremony ; 2015 ; acrylic on panel ; 24 x 18 inches

 

 

On Wildness ; 2015 ; acrylic on panel ; 20 x 24 inches

On Wildness ; 2015 ; acrylic on panel ; 20 x 24 inches

 

 

A Thrill of the Mind, A Theater ; 2015 ; acrylic on panel ; 40 x 30 inches

A Thrill of the Mind, A Theater ; 2015 ; acrylic on panel ; 40 x 30 inches

 

 

On Illusion ; 2015 ; acrylic on canvas ; 40 x 30 inches

On Illusion ; 2015 ; acrylic on canvas ; 40 x 30 inches