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The Landing is pleased to present Evenfall, a solo exhibition of new drawings by Aili Schmeltz.

Evenfall is comprised of six graphite-on-paper drawings from Schmeltz’s ongoing project Object/Window/Both/Neither, which developed as Schmeltz was renovating a homesteader cabin near Joshua Tree into a live-in gallery and exhibition space. As Schmeltz was painting the walls stark white, she noticed an optical effect: the surrounding landscape seemed to shift forward spatially through the windows, while the walls receded into the background. This discovery prompted an experiment that has resulted in a group of works that reduce architectural framings to the flatness obtained by looking through them. The resulting works are intended to be seen as both objects and windows.

The exhibition takes its name from the moment of day that marks the onset of evening — when, in the words of the artist, “the light is smooth and forms shift, back and forth, with the pink California haze.”

In Schmeltz’s drawings, negative space is defined as solid form through the lens of a constructed perspective. The atmospheric light and space of the California desert is solidified in graphite on paper with careful, minimalistic precision.

Schmeltz, who resides part-time in Joshua Tree, has extensively researched the Utopian ideologies that propelled the development of the American West.These ideas are integrated into this series of works, which use a sense of endless possibility to challenge the Modernist’s notion of a single, perfect future. Her fascination with the landscape itself has fueled a critical approach that questions the political philosophies of the American West and how they’ve created the artificial environments we live in now.

The structures depicted in this series of drawings give us an architecture out-of-time — ancient or futuristic, imagined or remembered, at moments monolithic and ideal, and at others, visibly deconstructing.

Each work in the series is numbered. “Object/Window/Both/Neither 53” features a central architectural form — its squared angles, step-like base, and rectangular tower topped with a perfect dome brings to mind structures from the ancient world, but not as ruins; instead, as perfect-edged, fresh constructions in a kind of alternate reality. The effect is that of an imagined architecture overlaid on an extant landscape — a building suggested, or dreamed of, or wanted, or perhaps perceived — one that might live not on this plane of existence, but on another, or one that might still be an idea: sketched out, but not yet realized in form.

The use of patterns like herringbone, which creates visual depth, and the precision of the drawing’s shading creates a trompe-l’oeil effect that gives the alternate reality on offer an almost physicalized quality. In drawings 53 and 54, this alternate option feels substantial in its design and its materials (an implied stone, rock, and brick), which makes this version of reality feel powerful and considerable — and perhaps even possible.

But also within this grouping of works, we see that possibility begin to break down. In “Object/Window/Both/Neither 52,” the monumental architecture in 53 and 54 is now deconstructed; there is the suggestion of a wall, a gable roof and stairs, but the form they create reminds one of a paper house in the process of being unfolded.

The drawings always foreground the act of perception, and remind us that the viewer has options within their own means of seeing. The fuller dome at the top of the structure in drawing 54 brings to mind an observatory, which deepens this theme.

Perhaps the black-gray-white scale used is meant to highlight what happens when Utopian ideologies, with their precise worldviews and their not-yet-tried perfection, are instated; perhaps it is a way to remind the viewer of the less precise (and less intended) results when such ideas transition into our full-color reality.

Evenfall is being exhibited concurrently with another exhibition by Schmeltz, Sewn Constructions, which is made up of wall works that combine painting, collage, and sewing. Sewn Constructions is on view at Edward Cella Art & Architecture’s Thomas Lavin Showroom at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles through August 20th.

Artist's Statement

My work is architecturally inspired and is based off of forms and materials that were historically utilized to herald utopic or political philosophies of the American West. I manipulate these forms sculpturally and two-dimensionally to examine spatial shifts that play with the form as both an object and a window, echoing the original intention of the forms as both representation of an idea and a physical object.

The materials within these works are modern and mundane: graphite, cinderblock, canvas, concrete, clay etcetera, and are implemented to serve as a vehicle to overlay a modern philosophy on top of modern materials. I'm interested in using these very elemental tools to create monuments of presence and absence.

Bio

Aili Schmeltz lives and works in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, CA. She received a MFA from the University of Arizona and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Solo exhibitions include those at Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Los Angeles (2021/2019), Espronceda Center for Art and Culture, Barcelona, Spain (2017), Grand Central Art Center, California State University Fullerton (2013), Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson (2011), and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha (2008). Group exhibitions include those at Sarasota Museum of Art (2019), Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (2019), Pasadena Museum of California Art (2017), Friedman Benda Gallery, New York (2014), The Hoxton Gallery, London (2014), Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, California (2014), Galeria La Miscelanea, Puebla, Mexico (2013), Zatoka Sztuki, Sopot, Poland (2012), Asihlquaiss Offspace, Zurich, Switzerland (2011), and Golden Parachutes Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2009). She is the recipient of awards such as the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia residency in 2015, the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Arts in 2013, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, New York, the Creative Capacity Fund Grant of San Francisco in 2011 and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2009.