SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS is pleased to present XX, a group exhibition featuring work by eight Los Angeles based artists: Christina Hendershaw, Melissa Huddleston, Natalia Margulis, Erin Morrison, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Angeline Rivas, Christine Wang, and Suzanne Wright.

A variety of media, subject matter, and inspirations are presented, exploring the range of young talent active in the burgeoning LA art scene. Each artist retains a unique aesthetic, establishing a strong, individual presence in the gallery while still contributing to the collective aspect of a group show. This, in essence, is a reflection of the current art climate that has taken Los Angeles by storm and that is fueling a welcome and varied influx of talent, business, and growth.

Opening Reception:
Thursday, August 27 • 7 – 10 pm

Subliminal Projects
1331 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Hendershaw uses powdered graphite and stencils to shape her abstracted representations of urban landscapes and architectural renderings. After creating the base image with a fabricated stencil, she wipes away particular areas, draws freehand over sections, and finally layers powdered graphite and baby powder to add more pigment, some transparency, and depth to the final image. In doing so, she stresses the materiality of the medium as well as the vulnerability of constructed forms (physical and mental) to the forces of time, decay, and human presence.

Christina Hendershaw, Window 12, 2015

Huddleston’s paintings and drawings explore notions of personal and group identity across real and imagined communities. For XX, she created a salon wall addressing the California summer and the passage of time. Watercolor self-portraits and paintings of leaping anthropomorphic frog-like figures hang beside sketches of Los Angeles landmarks and playful charcoal drawings of dinosaurs. A sculpture of a decaying wooden board, draped with a bikini made of painter’s canvas and patterned with oil paint sits below her wall works. The ensemble juxtaposes her personal experiences with the historic (and the pre-historic), creating a rich yet ambiguous narrative that captures moments in her surroundings.

Melissa Huddleston, Graven Spring, 2015

Margulis’s paintings provide a dynamic ‘play on narrative’ with their biomorphic, geometric, and partially recognizable imagery. She combines a soft ‘feminine’ color palette with confident ‘masculine’ brushstrokes common in the large-scale compositions of abstract expressionism. She utilizes elements of the decorative arts⎯such as stenciled damask shapes and faux finishes⎯in her backgrounds, layering over them so they recede from the surface. This ultimately functions as a visual and metaphorical narrative where the feminine and decorative disappear behind the bold and masculine abstraction dominating the canvas, and perhaps the art world at large.

Natalia Margulis, Untitled, 2015

Morrison’s recent ink and wax reliefs on hydrocal are an experiment in and a testament to texture, material, color, and form. Her images depict interior scenes and still life settings with a tangible and balanced color palette that stems from a trained eye and a matured familiarity with the medium. Her reliefs are made by first arranging found objects to create a composition. She pours plaster on the arrangement and the objects are then removed. What remains is a relief, which serves as the background for the oil, ink, and graphite scene she paints on the surface.

Erin Morrison, MP 1001, 2014

Through both realism and trompe l’oeil, Papademetropoulos explores the use of illusion in the history of painting. She starts with a picture of an interior setting or of a patterned material, alters it using physical filters such as water, a body, or chiffon, and paints the result. The original image is still visible but the veil or distortion that has been applied exposes physical, and sometimes psychological, undercurrents relating to domesticity.

Ariana Papademetropolous, A Boy In A Room, 2015

Rivas’ large scale ball point drawings on airbrushed backgrounds are reminiscent of an M.C. Escher drawing with no beginning or end, set against the backdrop of a colorful no man’s land. The excessiveness of the fine pen markings result in a marbled, textured surface that visually translates as both flat and dimensional. Occasionally a word cuts through the surface, leading the viewer down a more narrated path, but often her images sit in space, floating within the colored backdrop, arrested in motion.

Angeline Rivas, Mad Dog, 2013

Wang’s series of paintings depicting the phrase Oil Painters Don’t Need Water humorously critique a hot topic that is close to home: the California drought. Her work often touches on the complacency of modern society and the innocence that many of us claim. We are participating parties in the issues that Wang touches on, pandering to the lack of responsibility that is sold to us and accustomed to the idea that indirect contribution to the state of things is excusable.

Christine Wang, Oil Painters Don’t Need Water, 2015

Wright has always been captivated by giant, physical structures and their immense, complex presence. In her early drawings, buildings represented symbols of male power and she depicted them in opposition to the female body, ultimately forcing their way through, around and on top of those bodies. In more recent work, such as Particle Accelerator, she stepped away from using relatable structures as metaphors and now focuses on man’s understanding (or lack thereof) of abstract, subatomic architecture. For Wright, humanity’s persistent presence in shaping and mapping our environment, on both small and large scales, is reflective of mankind’s duality. On one hand is an innate, playful curiosity and innocent desire to learn and create. On the other is mankind’s darker desire to control, manipulate, conquer, and at times destroy.

Suzanne Wright, Particle Accelerator (detail), 2013

The opening reception at SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS will take place on Thursday, August 27 from 7 to 10 pm. All artists will be in attendance and an RSVP is required to [email protected]. The show will be on view through September 26.