The Armory Show

Booth F24

Javits Center, New York, NY

September 9 – 12, 2021

Installation View of Carla Jay Harris at The Armory Show (Javits Center, Booth F24)

Press Release

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce our participation in The Armory Show 2021 with a presentation of new works by Carla Jay Harris in the Focus section, Booth F24. The fair will be held at the Javitz Center in New York City from September 9 – 12, 2021.

This year's Focus section features solo- and dual-artist presentations that address today’s most pressing issues. For 2021, curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi (Chief Curator, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis) will investigate the artist’s role in shaping the future and imagining realities beyond our current condition. future as spectrum examines how artists have used the challenges and monumental changes experienced in 2020 as a catalyst to explore future imaginations, communities, governments, economies, and environments.

In this new series of large-scale works on paper, Carla Jay Harris crafts an allegory of archetypal characters on an emotional journey through a surreal landscape. Narrative plays a fundamental role in these poetic works which explores human nature – specifically, themes of power, loss, death, and rebirth. Elements of classic storytelling, including monomyth, conflict, and resolution, are imbued throughout the sequence. By transporting the viewer into her unique perception, Harris aims to inspire them to ask their own questions about life, time, and mortality.

Trained as a photographer and cinematographer, Harris' works are inspired by a desire to bring together her interests in image-making, space, and storytelling. Her work combines photography with diverse media and techniques. She photographs models in the studio according to the narrative that she is developing and builds images in layers through a digital collage process, incorporating her own original patterns, scenery, and textures, along with hand-painted embellishments.

THE ARMORY SHOW 2021

LOCATION
Javits Center
429 11th Avenue
New York, NY 10001

2021 VIP PREVIEW
Invitation Only
Thursday, September 9

2021 PUBLIC DAYS
Friday, September 10
Saturday, September 11
Sunday, September 12

Carla Jay Harris received her MFA from UCLA in 2015, a Bachelor’s degree with distinction from the University of Virginia, and completed post-Baccalaureate studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Harris’ works have been exhibited nationally and internationally at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV; the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, CA; Museum of Fine Arts Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada; Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Denver, CO; the Southern, Charleston, SC; Moorpark Gallery, Moorpark College, Ventura, CA; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; and Paris Photo, Grand Palais Ephemere, Paris, France, among other venues.

Her works are included in the collections of USC Fischer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at Chapman University, Orange, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Sherbrook, Quebec, Canada; Los Angeles County Public Art Collection, Los Angeles, CA; and numerous private collections.

For further information, including images and previews, please call 213-395-0762, or email: gallery@luisdejesus.com.

Press

THE ART NEWSPAPER

WHEN THE PRESENT DOES NOT ADD UP, ARTISTS LOOK TO THE FUTURE September 9, 2021

“I hope what the section does is show the complex nature of how each of us might envision the future,” says Wassan Al-Khudhairi, the curator of the Focus section at this year’s Armory Show. “The works are informed more by the idea of looking into the future as a place to start rather than making work ‘about the future’.” Works are often interdisciplinary, the curator says, and engage in notions of cross-cultural collaboration, environmental stewardship, mutualism, care and the power of communities coming together. Al-Khudhairi says she wants to “create a space that captures the ideas of a group of artists that consider the future in the context of our current conditions”. Carla Jay Harris’s series Celestial Bodies (2018-ongoing) at the Los Angeles gallery Luis De Jesus depicts ancient gods inhabiting the spaces where heaven meets earth, in the guise of peaceful and empowered Black characters.

View TheArtNewspaper.com

ARTSY

22 ARTISTS TO DISCOVER AT NEW YORK'S SEPTEMBER FAIRS September 8, 2021

Carla Jay Harris has long used mythology in her work as a tool to make sense of reality. Her series “Celestial Bodies” (2018–20) reflects her personal experiences as an American kid growing up outside the United States, picturing Black and Brown protagonists navigating mystical landscapes. Her newest pieces, featured at The Armory Show and in her current solo show with Luis de Jesus Los Angeles, “A Season in the Wilderness,” build upon her earlier body of work, responding to the circumstances of the pandemic and the social and political unrest that ensued.

View Artsy.net

ARTSY

WHY CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS ARE EMBRACING SPIRITUALITY IN THEIR WORK August 2, 2021

Multidisciplinary American artist Carla Jay Harris also began to incorporate mystical ideas into her work due to her personal experience. “In my larger art practice, I always start with something going on in my personal life,” Harris explained. “And after graduate school, I felt a bit sort of adrift. Looking at mythology and spirituality was my own way to ground myself. And that’s what really got me into it.”

View Artsy.net