Curated by Anne-Laure Lemaitre | Los Angeles
1923 S. Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Opening Reception: September 14, 6:00 - 8:30 PM PST
September 14 – October 26, 2024
Christian Ruiz Berman | Jenny Hata Blumenfield | CARO | Cathy Della Lucia | Sarah Favreau | Jessica Goehring | Kerin Rose Gold | Julie Henson | Lizette Hernandez | Alex McAdoo | Matthew Morrocco | Louisa Owen | Jacqueline Qiu | Jackie Slanley | Krista Louise Smith | Astra Huimeng Wang
Aurora Borealis presents a series of works which escape set, piece-meal, easily contained definitions. Using colors for their permutable, versatile or spectral abilities, these pieces are boundless, transient, liminal, allusive and evocative. They offer an expanse in which to lose oneself, and meet oneself. Shying away from their own materiality as a source of permanence, they contain the infinite multitudes one may grasp hidden within their subtle hues.
The act of creating, the making of an artwork stems from a series of deliberate decisions in which a mind and gesture work in concert to translate an idea, emotion, concept from an intangible plane into the physical realm. What appears and becomes embodied in this process, this form, relic and testament to an originative act is but a shadow of the forces at play in its inception.
Translation is inherently the admission of loss. And in the interstice of what is left, what is intended, what is shed, what is misunderstood, what is forgotten, what is shared and what is perceived are hints of the broader mechanisms of our greater world, in their ungraspable complexity and sheer intangibility.
“Color… thinks by itself, independently of the object it clothes.” reportedly stated Charles Baudelaire. Color is often reduced to its ability to delineate and qualify the surface it occupies as a main determining factor. But narrowing color to this sole attribute is as limiting as the process of naming itself. Color can be a trigger, a release, a journey into the unknown. Definitions exist as medial understandings we can share in good intelligence. By agreeing to assign set characterizations and specifications to what surrounds us, we build communal understanding. And yet, as much as we, humans, love to qualify, name, box, categorize, we remain absolutely fascinated by the allure of what eludes us.
Too often we’ve reduced art to ‘what does it mean?’ and negated the power an unbridled imagination can behold when left to its own devices and confronted to uncharted territories.
Born in Mexico City in 1982, artist Christian Ruiz Berman has lived in 11 U.S. states and four countries. He has a masters degrees in architecture and painting from Rhode Island School of Design, and a BA in international relations from Duke University. Christian has worked in urban forestry, environmental conservation, public art, and education. He has been a professor of painting at several US Universities and colleges. Spanning various mediums, including painting, poetry, film, and sculpture, Berman’s practice revolves around ideas of tentacularity, mysticism, migration, adaptation, archeology, and finding joy and magic in complex times. Christian is engaged in the pursuit of bridging scientific and spiritual insights, as well as finding greater communion and compassion through play. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in both solo and group exhibitions, with a museum show at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in 2022. He has upcoming solo shows at Nicodim Los Angeles in January of 2024 and Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami in September of 2024.
Jenny Hata Blumenfield is a Los Angeles based ceramic artist, designer, and curator with a rigorous commitment to the field of Ceramics. Her work subverts existing tropes of the feminine identity, Japanese craft, and the duality of meaning through the lens of playful symbolism. Blumenfield graduated with Honors from The Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Ceramics. In Fall 2022, she launched Studio JBLU- inspired by memories of holidays and summers spent with family in Japan- she reinterprets fleeting moments of play and turns them into moments to hold. Previously seen at venues including The Hole in New York City; Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey; The Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA; and American Museum of Ceramic Art in Los Angeles, CA. She has been invited to speak as a panelist for the Asia Society in Tokyo, Japan, Roski School of Art and Design at USC and was a recipient of the Anderson Ranch Artist in Residence Ceramic program as well as an Artist-in-Residence at the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC) in the Netherlands.
CARO (b. 1992) is a multidisciplinary craft artist based in London, UK. They received their BA in Metalsmithing from Earlham College and continued onto Embroidery School at École Lesage in Paris, France. CARO then learned bobbin lacemaking at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY. They are currently pursuing their Masters in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at the Royal College of Art. They blend hand embroidered tapestries with hand fabricated metal framework to recall a sense of the sacred and to preserve the cultural identity of craft. CARO has exhibited their work internationally.
Recent group shows include Aurora Borealis at Abigail Ogilvy, LA, CA, Whisper In The Roots, My Pet Ram, NYC, NY, Eternal Flame, Fredericks & Mae, NYC, NY, Red Thread, Latitude Gallery, NYC, NY, Summer Crush, Arden Asbaek, Copenhagen, DK, Act II, Yellow Cube Gallery, Paris, FR, & Craft in Contemporary Art, Site: Brooklyn, NY. Their solo show Lap of the Gods opens at Sarah Brook Gallery on October 26 in Los Angeles, CA.
Cathy Della Lucia (b. 1989 South Korea) is a sculptor engaging in themes of (im)permanence, (un)belonging, and the construction of identity, drawing on her experience as a transracial adoptee. She employs furniture joinery to create multi-part sculptures that are built to come apart. Her work reflects on modularity and the contradictions of identity by repositioning the relationships between body, tool, and toy. The hand carved and digital fabricated forms borrow from misaligned and misplaced fragments of everyday life that relate to, without being a body. These elements are signifiers of distraction, but are created through obsessive attention and touch.
She has exhibited her work in the US, Denmark, and South Korea. Recent exhibitions include Radial Gallery, University of Dayton (OH), Kniznick Gallery, Brandeis University (MA), Abigail Ogilvy Gallery ( Boston, MA), and Piano Craft Gallery (MA). She has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Center and The Blue House (Dayton, OH). Cathy holds a BA in Studio Art from Xavier University and an MFA in sculpture from Boston University. She currently teaches sculpture as an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Boston College.
Sarah Favreau is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, California. They received their BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015. Following graduation they were hospitalized, requiring an immediate break from painting that spanned 5 years. In this period of time they began work as a set designer and prop stylist in the fashion editorial space, collaborating with artist Tyler Mitchell on his film “Chasing Pink, Found Red”, where their signature shaped canvases were featured as supports for the models head and neck.
In 2020 they were able to resume their fine art practice, building a body of work that continues to engage with and draw reference to the body, trauma, and the complicated relationship between spirit and self.
Jessica Goehring (b. 1983, New York) lives and works in Los Angeles. Goehring’s practice explores her connection to personal technology by using digital tools and AI to formulate her pieces that are kinetic in nature. Drawing from the Light & Space Movement, Goehring merges digital with analog creating holographic works that activate the space they are in. The work is created by layering screenshots acquired from her iPhone photos, text messages, memes, Tik-Tok videos and AI assisted text to image generators. Inspired by James Turrell’s holograms, Goehring uses a layer of loose organza to mimic the lenticular quality of holograms as well as the pulsating movement of a computer screen. Recent exhibitions include Looking West The Santa Monica Art Museum, suspended, unsited at Foyer-LA, Stranger Things at Here Gallery, Pittsburgh, and End Demo at Epoch Gallery. Her work has been reviewed in the German publication GalleryTalk for her 2020 NFT Project and for End demo at Epoch Gallery.
Goehring is a recent recipient of Art on the Outside Public Sculpture for The City of West Hollywood and her piece titled LightWave, a 60” x 72” kinetic work inspired by the California Light and Space Movement is now on view at the Hollywood ARC until June 2025.
A New York native born in 1983, Kerin Rose Gold’s work has been celebrated globally and embraced by leading pop icons. Her a-morir creations have been a disruptive force in luxury eyewear, distinguished by their audacious designs and flawless craftsmanship. Kerin’s eclectic resume also includes notable achievements such as designing SUPRA’s first women’s sneaker, serving as Visionary Brand Ambassador for Sebastian Professional, writing a bi-monthly column for Nylon, and being featured as a New Talent and Emerging Designer by Vogue Italia. Her innovative approach has also been acknowledged through her role as an
official Pinterest Creative and a credited designer on Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. "Aurora Borealis" marks a new creative chapter for Kerin Rose Gold, as she shares her fine art and sculptural work for the first time in a gallery setting. As she enters this exciting new artistic domain, Kerin doubles down on her one-of-a-kind vision and continued ability to transcend the boundaries of an established career.
Julie Henson (b. 1983 in Charleston, SC) lives and works in Los Angeles. Henson received her MFA in from California College of the Arts in 2011. Henson has had solo exhibitions at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, the Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, Yes Ma’am Projects, Denver, and SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York with the Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art. She has also participated in group shows at numerous museums and spaces including the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art, Los Angeles, the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance; and the Visual Art Center at the University of Texas, Austin. Henson’s work has been reviewed in the pages of Elephant Magazine, Artforum, and Hyperallergic and she was a 2017 nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award.
Lizette Hernández (b. 1992, Los Angeles, California) is a first-generation Mexican-American artist primarily working in sculpture. Through a collaboration with clay, her practice is led by listening to the landscape and investigates expressions of inheritance and regeneration. Hernández questions the concept of “the sacred,” and explores the ideology of deep ecology by highlighting the intersections of floral anatomies, religious iconography and ritual practices of remembrance. Her process welcomes experimentation by use of plant matter with Raku firing and fusing elements such as recycled glass. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. Her work has been exhibited at Harkawik, Los Angeles, CA (2022); april april, Brooklyn, NY (2024); Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Guerrero Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2023); PTT Space, Taipei City, Taiwan (2023); Charles Moffett, New York, NY (2023); Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA (2023); Night Club, Minneapolis, MN (2022); Blumenfield Projects, Kyoto, Japan (2022).
Alex McAdoo is a painter from Bellingham, Washington and is currently living and working in Los Angeles. He received his BFA in graphic design from University of Utah in 2013 and his MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design in 2019.
Matthew Morrocco is a NYFA-winning and Columbia University MFA trained photographer. His work has been featured in The New Yorker Magazine, Cultured, W, Paper, The British Journal of Photography, Time, and Vogue Italia. His work can be found in the collections of the RISD Museum and the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover. He lives and works in Vermont.
Louisa Owen is a New York City based artist who works primarily in drawing and sculpture. Born in Los Angeles, Owen received her BA from Bennington College in Vermont and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. She has exhibited in group shows at Storage Gallery, 81 Leonard Gallery, and most recently with Fredericks & Freiser Gallery at The 2024 Armory Show.
Jacqueline Qiu (b. 1999, New Jersey) lives and works in Manhattan, New York. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. With an emphasis in fiber and painting, she explores traditional craft breaking down and combining with personal expression alongside her investigation of Eastern and Western painting philosophies. The artist forgoes underdrawings and detailed sketches. Her process flits between assured stream of consciousness and fraught vision of how internal energy will translate to tangible form.
Most recently, Qiu’s work was exhibited at the Icelandic Textile Center in Blönduós, upon her completion of the Ós Textile Residency. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Latitude Gallery (NY), Harper’s Chelsea (NY), Underdonk Gallery (NY), Dustin Yellin’s Studio Show (NY), Woods-Gerry Gallery (RI), Dye House (RI), Rhode Island Hall (RI), Prov-Wash Gallery (RI), Gallery 263 (MA), and the Gelman Gallery (RI). She has completed workshops at Tianzifang, Anderson Ranch, and the New York Academy of Art.
Jackie Slanley, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist based in Brooklyn NY, crafts narratives using laser-cut plexiglass as her medium. By intricately cutting and assembling plexiglass with nuts and bolts, she constructs a cinematic gradient composed of layered, tinted transparencies. Using images of plant life, animals, and landscapes sourced from public archives, Slanley delves into the intersections of fiction, botany, biology, and technology.
Employing vector software, she translates these inspirations into digital renderings that draw from images rooted in myth and scientific history. She often engages in work that explores where sculpture and materials meet historical symbolism.
Having been an artist in residence at the Ox-Bow School of Art and a sculpture fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, Slanley has shown her work nationally and internationally, with exhibitions in NYC, Kansas City, Washington D.C., and Austria. She’s been in international print publications including ArtMazeMag and WOW Magazine. She holds a BFA in Painting and Visual Art from Hunter College and an MFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute.
Krista Louise Smith (b.1986, Ontario, Canada) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent exhibitions include those with CARVALHO PARK, New York (2023, 2022, 2020); Nicodim Gallery, New York and Bucharest (2023, 2022); Swivel Gallery, New York (2023); Deanna Evans Projects, New York (2021); Half Gallery, New York (2021); Andrea Festa Fine Art, Rome (2021); curated by Domenico de Chirico; and the Southampton Art Center, New York (2020), curated by Stephanie Roach. Her work has also been presented with CARVALHO PARK at the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), New York, art fair (2023) and Kiaf SEOUL (2022, and with Swivel Gallery in 2023). Smith received her BFA from OCAD University (formerly the Ontario College of Art and Design) in Toronto in 2010, and in 2014 an MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art, where she was a NYAA Merit Scholarship recipient. She has been awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) grant, the Ruth Katzman Prize, and is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation for the Arts Grant. In August 2023, her practice was highlighted in Artnet News’s Up Next, by arts writer Katie White.
Astra Huimeng Wang (b. Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China) creates events and circumstances to study the manufacture of truth and identities, collaborating extensively with orchestras, poets, actors, and sometimes strangers. In her diverse practice across media, 21 people tattooed different words onto their bodies and collectively formed a short poem of hers; a choir sang and chanted variations of Ode to Joy in security cages; a piano was shot 400 times in the California desert; and a three-day chocolate fountain party attended by hundreds went terribly wrong as intended. Wang’s work draws inspiration from literature, cinema, and her own biomedical background, with recurrent elements of desire and conflict, and a lingering sense of crisis.
Wang received her M.F.A. in Studio Art from San Francisco Art Institute and B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. A MacDowell Fellow, she has also received fellowships and held residencies at Millay Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Wilhardt & Naud, among others. Solo exhibitions include those at Make Room (Los Angeles) and the Pennsylvania State University. Selected exhibitions and performances include those at Simon Lee Gallery (London), Christie's (New York), CFHILL (Stockholm), Woaw Gallery (Hong Kong), Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (San Francisco), and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Anne-Laure Lemaitre is a New York based curator, writer and creative strategist who specializes in site specific in-situ art.
With +20 years of experience designing global art infused activations, large scale installations and complex site specific programs around the world, she believes in the importance of anchoring art in its context as a means to further its impact, trigger new perspectives and explore new conceptual territories.
Anne-Laure Lemaitre separates her time between consulting for a variety of corporations and institutions, writing about practices she believes in and executing curatorial programs focused on emerging art. She serves on the advisory committee of Civil Arts and Beverly’s.
Current exhibitions include Full Disclosure: Selections from the Thomas-Suwall Collection at the Plains Museum in Fargo, North Dakota.
Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with locations in Boston and Los Angeles. We exhibit contemporary art with a heavy emphasis on concept-driven artwork by emerging to mid-career artists located across the country and internationally. The gallery primarily focuses on paintings but also exhibits a range of other media including photography, sculpture, mixed media, digital prints, drawings, and much more. Owner Abigail Ogilvy Ryan founded the Boston gallery in 2015, and in Fall 2023 the gallery program expanded to a second location in Los Angeles. The gallery is committed to exhibiting the strongest work from both local and international artists.
Abigail Ogilvy Gallery's new Los Angeles gallery will provide a platform for new perspectives and education through independent curation and artist partnerships. The collaborative approach upends the traditional gallery model and aims to enhance the careers of artists, curators, collectors, and other art world professionals, both emerging and established. The gallery program primarily features guest curators in order to share diverse perspectives and voices with the Los Angeles area and the greater art market.
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