SOFT, SILK, AND MELTING … MEMORIES | Press Release | December 2020
VC Projects presents
A group exhibition pop up show, on view at Western Avenue Collective, Hollywood
1028 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, Ca. 90029.
From December 5th – 22nd, 2020
By appointment only. | Contact: victoria@vcprojects.art
A selection of photography, mixed media, and objects on display in a live/work art studio. Each artwork explores a narrative that engages a sense of memory or longing. Participating artists, Yuri Boyko, Erica Shires, Greg Smith, and L. Mikelle Standbridge
Los Angeles based curator Victoria Chapman proudly presents Soft, Silky and Melting … Memories, group exhibition in Los Angeles this December, at Western Avenue Collective (where it can be viewed as a pop up exclusively from December 5 – 18th, 2020 – by appointment).
“The artwork presented explores a narrative familiar to the creator but new to the viewer. These memories not only live in the spaces we inhabit but they grow shelter within our bodies too. Few of us break free of them. Without us realizing it, they live in mysterious ways, uncompromised and unforgiving. These memories follow us throughout our lives,” explains Chapman. The photography, mixed media and objects on display was selected from each artist’s portfolio. I felt these works related to the documentation of time and all its dimensional elements.
For the curator, the events of 2020, a year of constant change and much contemplation provided the genesis of the project. “Like most of us living in lockdown, and situated in Los Angeles, I realized, in order, to take a step forward, I needed to take a step back, with this, I began a self-inventory. I started to question my memories as well as my fantasies. It’s very interesting how selective remembrance can be … I was reminded by Morihei Ueshiba’s book, The Art of Peace, that all things material and spiritual originate from one source and that, the past, present, and future are all contained in one life force. Reading portions of this passage daily, gave me confidence the world would not end,” explains Chapman.
The exhibition will be staged on the walls of a 1920s era, live/work studio, located in Hollywood, a place where the curator once lived. Chapman believes displaying the exhibition in this space is suitable, as it is like peeling back an onion, seeing the work in this room engages the viewer on another level steeped in the process of living and creating.
The artworks on display are small to medium-sized, colors vary and embark on the mood of remembrance; black/white, and color photography, mixed media works in sepia tones, blue/white, black/brown porcelain-objects with gold inlay. All together co-existing in a salon-style environment.
About the artists:
Yuri Boyko is a multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. His artistic practice focuses on the deconstruction of identity. He transforms individual experiences, observations, and emotions into visual representations. A little while back, the artist revisited his grandmother’s home in Ukraine. The visit has prompted an examination of the relationship between memories and identity. Through the combination of an allegory and visual material in Departure and Arrival, he questions how barely changed customary way of life, well imprinted in childhood memories, relate to the current self.
Erica Shires, whose studio is in Brooklyn, New York, has been working on Collodion Wet Plate process for 15 years. The nature of the technique warrants much praise as it requires advanced chemical prep and skillful working of her compositions. Shires’ writes, “I am never interested in portraying anything in a literal sense. I am looking for some deeper resonance, that liminal space that touches on our vulnerability and mortality. This wet-plate series examines our fleeting time in this world and the way sorrow changes us.”
Greg Smith shares objects collected by his great-grandmother, Leanora Prouse, who was born in 1887 in Cornwall, England. The artist is currently working on a book about Prouse’s life where she spent time in a small fishing village called Mousehole. At the age of nine due to financial hardship, she left England for America with her mother’s siblings. Later in life, Prouse wrote a diary sharing many personal items. This recording of events and objects collected would help describe the essence of her being. Because some of the objects were broken years before, in areas of fracture, the artist carefully adds gold and silver to enhance the imperfection, borrowing from the Japanese technique of Kintsugi or “golden joinery” which highlights the cracks addressing the parallels in life that nothing is perfect. Smith’s current studio is in Los Angeles, but the artist has previously lived and worked in New York and London.
L. Mikelle Standbridge’s, Doing Time; a love story follows the story of Signorina F, sharing some twists of fate and how images preceded/predicted her future. Four out 30 images related to Signorina F and her partner’s incarceration are on exhibit in this show and are part of Standbridge’s larger, on-going series, Photo-Bodies. Standbridge is an American artist who has lived and worked for the past 20 years in Milan and is a photography-based mixed media artist, exhibiting one-of-a-kind “photo-sculptures”. Her work addresses the relationship between bodies, their stories, and photographs.
About Western Avenue Collective: (art studios): 1028 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, Ca. 90029
Located in a 1920s era historic courtyard, the studios are a charming and authentic enclave nestled in East Hollywood. Further, there is space for appropriate distancing, conducive to Los Angeles County guidelines.
The exhibition opens Saturday, December 5th, 2020
To be viewed by appointment only, contact: victoria@vcprojects.art to schedule your visit.
We are strict to follow Los Angeles County Guidelines, masks are required and limited to 2 people to enter the space at a time. Regarding viewing hours: dates and times may vary. To view the exhibition online visit: https://www.vcprojects.art/soft-silky-and-melting-memories
Thank you for your understanding to keep everyone safe.