June Edmonds
Laura Krifka
Unreachable Spring, 2020
Oil on canvas
36 x 24 in.
André Hemer
These days (June 6, 1906 CST), 2020
Acrylic and pigment on canvas
47.2 x 33.5 in.
André Hemer
Sky Scans (Peonies/Vienna June 4, 18:25-18:35 CST), 2020
C-print on Fuji Flex with oak frame
27.3 x 19.5 in. (each panel of triptych)
Edra Soto
Let Love Win (Breonna Taylor), 2020
Ink on embossed metal
5 x 5 in. (approximately)
Edra Soto
Let Love Win, 2020
Ink on embossed metal
60 x 306 in. (dimensions variable)
Edra Soto
Let Love Win, 2020 (detail of installation)
Ink on embossed metal
60 x 306 in. (dimensions variable)
Edra Soto
Let Love Win, 2020 (detail of installation)
Ink on embossed metal
60 x 306 in. (dimensions variable)
Kambui Olujimi
The Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt in Three Acts, 2020
Ink and graphite on paper
27.75 x 23.5 in.
Kambui Olujimi
A Shadow of Your Former Self, 2020
Ink and graphite on paper
9 x 12 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Kiss Face, 2019
Ink and graphite on paper
22.5 x 21 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Colonial Snatch Box, 2020
Ink on graphite paper
12 x 9 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Kiss Face Twin, 2019
Ink and graphite on paper
29 x 24 in.
June Edmonds
Silence, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
48 x 60 in.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce Unreachable Spring, a group exhibition opening on Saturday, October 17, from 12:00 to 7:00 p.m., and on view through December 19, 2020. Participating artists include June Edmonds, André Hemer, Laura Krifka, Kambui Olujimi, Edra Soto, and Peter Williams.
Unreachable Spring takes its title from the eponymous painting by Laura Krifka. The painting was slated to be featured as the sole work in her first Viewing Room on the gallery website, accompanied by an essay by the writer and curator Andrew Berardini. Laura began the painting in late March—within days of the start of the Covid lockdown in the U.S., and shortly after learning that she and her husband were expecting their first child. By summer it had become clear to us that it was the lead for a deeper exploration of ideas and subject matter.
Over many months we watched as the Covid-19 pandemic transformed the world and like an earthquake of biblical proportions exposed the fragile fissures of our deteriorating human ecosystem, turning one crisis into many. As the author Daniel Susskind writes in Life Post-COVID-19, "This crisis is focusing our collective attention on the many injustices and weaknesses that already exist in how we live together. If people were blind to these faults before, it is hard not to see them now."
These crises have also inspired artists to respond in kind, prompted by a desire to take refuge in their work and address this transformational moment in their own personal way. By creating art that inspires contemplation and elicits discourse, these paintings, sculptures and photographs bear witness and provide a record of how these artists have experienced life over these past six months. Individual artist statements and Andrew Berardini's essay will be included in their entirety as wall text in the gallery, as well as on our website exhibition page and Laura Krifka’s forthcoming Viewing Room.
"I was thinking a lot about longing, feeling cut off from the world, and also the way everyone was watching each other from afar with a sort of insatiable desire to report wrongdoing…All of this started to make its way into the work and this painting in particular—the ways we were watching the outside world those first few weeks of lockdown, sometimes with longing, at other times rage and indignation, and then stretches of disorienting disbelief.”
Laura Krifka —
"Those late-night early mornings have become my favorite time of day. Birdsong fills the crisp air, echoing between my terrace and the apartment building opposite. And in that transition from night to day the light changes so quickly that it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment it shifts. Overhead is an infinitely deep blue—not sky exactly, but an actual window into the outer atmosphere. I can imagine floating up and piercing through to space."
André Hemer —
"Let Love Win borrows the format of a project I created 15 years ago titled A Year in Review. The process consisted of color coding and tracing selected newspaper photos onto a piece of soft metal resembling a contemporary version of a religious votive or milagro. Traditional milagros are small charms used as offerings or for healing purposes widely popular in Mexico and Latin America folklore tradition. The powerful significance attached to these modest, soft pieces of pushed metal with their enduring, sincere and sentimental value prompted me to respond in a contemporary context."
Edra Soto —
"When Monuments Fall is a series of paintings that examine the precarious position of Modernist monumentality and its atemporality. The work intersects with national conversations around the recontextualization, amendment, and removal of monuments. When Monuments Fall uses veiling as a launch point within the work."
Kambui Olujimi —
“Saying her name, their names, is a hashtag for a reason. What is not talked about doesn’t exist, right? Silence is another dirty and ugly side to White privilege. It has been a tactic exercised in the practice of racism by Americans since the institution of slavery began in 1619 to this very day. Silence—the telling of lies, conscious and unconscious ignorance, and the benefit of presumed innocence—is what I am addressing in this painting.”
June Edmonds —
"These days are special since my work has a political quotient and a responsibility. The root of my recent journey these last five years has been documenting black life and the repressive nature of the police and mass incarceration. The death of George Floyd hit me like a hammer; the view of him dying in front of my eyes meant I was not in isolation. I would need words and feelings and images to manifest my inner thoughts."
Peter Williams —
In conjunction with the final week of the Unreachable Spring, the gallery will host an artist talk on Zoom, December 19th, 1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST moderated by Luis De Jesus and Lindsay Preston Zappas. This conversation will serve as a summation of the exhibition and provide insight and dialogue towards the socio-political atmophere in which these works were created. From isolation and death, to social activism, to personal responses to systemic oppression, we speak with our artists about making art during a year unlike any other.
The gallery is pleased to announce that Kambui Olujimi has work part of a group show at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, SECCA. His piece, Under Tarped is part of a group exhibition, DRAWN: Concept & Craft. DRAWN brings together the diverse works of over 60 artists from around the world in an exhibition that provides a rare, revealing look into the creative process and artists' unique relationship with the art of drawing.
The gallery is pleased to announce that Kambui Olujimi has received a 2020 Colene Brown Art Prize, which awards $10,000 to New York-based artists via BRIC.
Now in its second year, the award is underwritten by artist and former BRIC Board Member Deborah Brown and her sister Ellen Brown in memory of their late mother, Colene Brown, and is funded through the Harold and Colene Brown Family Foundation.
Drawings from Kambui Olujimi's series When Monuments Fall is currently on view at the gallery as part of the group exhibition Unreachable Spring through December 19, 2020.
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant is an unrestricted award in which $25,000 is granted to 25 different artists from throughout the United States. Selected artists are first nominated by artist peers and arts professionals from throughout the United States and then chosen through a multi-phase jurying process, which this year was conducted virtually. The 2020 artist cohort represents a wide range of creative approaches and backgrounds as well as ethnicities, ages, and geographic locations—further enumerated below. In addition to the financial award, grantees also gain access to a network of arts professionals, who can provide consultations on career development and financial management.
Edra Soto is currently part of group show, Unreachable Spring, currently on view.
