Tag: nature

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio in The New Bend at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio’s ‘Holbein En Crenshaw,’ a rubber cast of a tree on a LA street dominates ‘The New Bend,’ a standout show of textile-related work curated by Legacy Russell at Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery.  Layered imagery including a highway exit sign, distorted wheel-like shapes, and advertisements crowd together on one side of this hanging piece, recreating the bombardment of information pedestrians and motorists experience on city streets.  On the other side, the rough texture of the cast tree with its burls and imperfections suggests the difficulties of urban life, even for plants.  Aparicio explains that his intention is to connect beleaguered, non-native trees to the reception of migrant workers in California while also recognizing the rootedness of both in LA life.  (On view through April 2nd.)

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Holbein En Crenshaw (Washington Blvd and Crenshaw Blvd., LA, CA), rubber, sulfur, tree and plant residue, wood glue, latex paint, acrylic paint, strings and found cloth quilt, 138 x 150 x 5 inches, 2018.

Celia Vasquez Yui at Salon94

Artist and activist Celia Vasquez Yui’s ceramic sculptures of animals in the Peruvian Amazon are arranged at Salon94 in a mini amphitheater, forming a gathering she calls the ‘Council of the Mother Spirits of the Animals.’ Speakers in the gallery play invocations sung by healers whose intention is to heal the assembled deer, monkeys, jaguars and other animals, encouraging them to hold their own against endangerment.  Here, two playful deer are ornamented with kene, elaborate abstract designs that speak to harmony in nature.  (On view on the Upper East Side through March 5th).

Celia Vasquez Yui, (right) Venado Blanco, coil-built pre-fire slip-painted clay and vegetal resins, 24 ¼ x 26 x 10 inches, 2020 and (left) Venado, coil-built pre-fire slip-painted clay and vegetal resins, 14 x 13 x 21 inches, 2021.

Rachel Rose at Gladstone Gallery

Rachel Rose’s recent sculptures at Gladstone Gallery juxtapose blown glass and large rocks or, in this case, a wood burl shaped like an egg, to contrast two vastly different natural materials and represent a ‘moment of radical shift.’ The show’s centerpiece, a film titled ‘Enclosure,’ also considers a rupture that continues to impact relations between humanity and nature today. Via the fictional story of a band of thieves who set out to defraud English rural communities of their land, Rose examines how, from the 17th century onward, the Enclosure Acts in England allowed consolidation of large tracts of land, taking them out of collective ownership and putting them into the hands of powerful interests. (On view on 21st Street in Chelsea through Feb 26th).

Rachel Rose, Burl Egg, burl egg and blown glass, 2021.

Maria Nepomuceno at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Titled ‘Roda das encantadas,’ or ‘Enchanted Wheel,’ Maria Nepomuceno’s new solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co delights the eye with the Brazilian artist’s signature spiraling forms crafted from straw, beads and resin.  Intended to represent a movement into our own inner depths as well as an expansion into the infinite, this assemblage of circular forms also makes more concrete allusions to the body in breast-like ceramic elements and a recurring umbilical cord reference.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 12th.  Masks and proof of vaccination are required.)

Maria Nepomuceno, Untitled, beads, ceramic, resin, 39 3/8 x 23 5/8 x 11 ¾ inches, 2021.

Tomas Sanchez at Marlborough Gallery

It’s no surprise that #meditation is one of the first tags Cuban painter Tomas Sanchez uses when posting images of new paintings to Instagram.  His intensely detailed, imagined landscapes are inspired by his daily meditative practice and celebrate the sublime on both a vast and tiny scale, eliciting wonder at nature’s complexity.  Sanchez’s first show at Marlborough New York in over 15 years offers a decade of work – new and loaned from collections.  It features not only verdant scenes but a selection of paintings featuring vast fields of discarded consumer items and trash, a disturbing contrast to the boundlessness of nature in the paintings. (On view through Jan 22nd. Note holiday hours and closures.)

Tomas Sanchez, Inner Lagoon…Thought-Cloud, acrylic on canvas, 78 ¾ x 78 ½ inches, 2016.