Exhibition: November 6-28, 2021
La Luz de Jesus Gallery is pleased to present MANIFEST, a group exhibition featuring works by artists BIJIJOO, Calvin Wong, Emily Rose Casares, and Skyler Simpson on view from November 6 to 28.
The Manifest exhibition takes the viewer on a journey through the execution of a thought pattern. Wide-eyed amoebas, facial features on man-made objects, appropriation of the human form, and rich color environments offer archetypes for esoteric feelings. This exhibition encourages nonverbal cues and questions the importance of a comfort level.
- BIJIJOO – (given name: Michael Todd Horne; nickname/preferred name: B) was born in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) in 1975 and has lived in New York City; Seattle, Washington; and Eugene, Oregon. B currently resides in Portland, Oregon with his wife and daughter. B has been painting and drawing since childhood. He has experimented with figurative, abstract and conceptual work in a variety of media, including writing, music and video. B diverged from art practice to pursue technical studies in mathematics, physics, computer science and chemistry, culminating in a Ph.D. in biophysics in 2008. BIJIJOO’s paintings result from process-driven experimentation with painting media and automatic drawing, using traditional and digital techniques. He builds mixed media layers to amplify interplays of light, color, and texture. Images are conjured from chaos, in a process akin to divination. The forms that take shape trend toward human and animal: grotesque exaggerations of life, monstrous cartoons, vanitas. Narratives emerge through these interactions, reflecting struggle, celebration, and introspection. The results depict experiences, interactions, and movements frozen in a personal space and time.
- Skyler Simpson – Simpson works with graphite, gouache, and oil paint to create portraits of the women in her life. Situated between memory and mythology, her work pulls from personal and imagined experiences to celebrate women. Her work references the archetypal Witch, praising her for the same reason she has been feared throughout history: her curiosity, agency, and willingness to undermine social constraints. Skyler is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is expected to graduate in 2024. She obtained her BFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2018 has exhibited in group shows in Florence, Italy, and throughout the Midwest and the Western United States.
- Calvin Wong – Wong is a San Francisco-based ceramicist, painter, and curator. He makes and sells signature cups and bowls on his website in addition to making intricate sculptures that he shows in galleries from San Francisco to Italy and beyond. His work contrasts juvenile innocence with emotional expressions of joy, sadness, and anxiety, making something delicate that requires care but retains a crude roughness. As a former gallerist, he now makes art nearly full-time and has hit his stride in crafting art that can be both decorative and expressive, simultaneously (Juxtapoz Magazine).
- Emily Rose Casares – Casares is a contemporary painter and ceramic artist living in Orange County, California. Nature, spirituality, and the human figure are often at the center her work. Casares is usually unintentionally but repeatedly driven by her own self-reflection– it draws on the parallels of the wild and chaotic elements of nature and the zaniness of the human mind.
Contact Gallery Director Matthew Gardocki for purchase info: info@laluzdejesus.com (323)666-7667