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The Landing is pleased to present Thaw, a group exhibition of works by contemporary artists who are showing with the gallery for the first time.

The exhibition’s title refers to its late-winter appearance; as snows thaw, we begin to see what’s been gestating beneath. We begin to see the first hints of what is to come.

April Banks will show one encaustic wall work and a short film.

Bank’s film “Belonging” is a work of modern dance that incorporates the artist’s site specific architectural sculpture “A Resurrection in Four Stanzas,” which is permanently installed at historic Belmont Park in Santa Monica. Bank’s sculptural structure is an homage to the homes that were taken from Belmont’s residents in the 1950s by eminent domain; its shape references the style of architecture once prevalent in the neighborhood, the “shotgun house.” Banks describes the film as “a reclamation for Black families who built and lost their homes by the sea.” Two figures—a couple—appear on the Santa Monica beach; eventually we see them within Bank’s structure, and we hear a single voice say, “I like to see people develop—an individual, or a group, I like to see them begin to blossom.” The blossoming that this structure inspires in the couple can be felt in the increased speed of their dancer’s choreography, moments of deepened intimacy, and a sequence of shots in silhouette, with bright flashes of color alternating in the background. This culminates in the appearance of a third character—their apparent offspring, a young boy. At the boy’s appearance, we hear the phrase “wonderful world,” and soon, the child begins to explore his surroundings. As the film ends, the boy remains on the beach—not displaced, but instead, returned, permanently, to this seaside.

The shape of its shadows is central to the experience of Bank’s sculpture. Throughout the day, and the year, its shadows are in transit; in this way, the home becomes mobile. And perhaps the symbolism of that is most apparent in one of the four stanzas that’s included on the structure itself. It reads, “I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears, and the dragons of home under one’s skin.” 

Julia Bland builds her large geometric abstractions with weaving, embroidering, painting, sewing, and dyeing practices. The first of the two pieces she’ll be showing, “Cut by Rivers,” is a hanging work that’s over six feet across and nearly nine feet long, and is comprised of hand-loomed, hand-dyed fabric in a rectangular composition divided by diagonal zigzag lines. The work’s balanced composition is contrasted by the organic quality, and the visible handwork, apparent in its component materials. Sections of handmade and tie-dyed fabric, with their irregular circles, speak of the human hours that built them. So, too, do the natural spacing in the hand-done stitchwork, the soft fray in the fabric that appears alongside the work’s sides, and the flowing—and never razor-straight—edges of the piece. 

Bland draws inspiration from Islamic art and Sufism, and, observing her works, one is reminded of the dazzling human hours apparent in the handmade tiles in Islamic temples. In such places, careful labor is a record of devotion; so, too, can a devotion to process, to hand-construction, to balanced composition, and to beauty itself be felt in Bland’s meticulousness—and in its spirit-elevating result.

Jason David will show four sculptures, two of which are in the form of wall-mounted boxes.

David builds his boxed works by arranging remnants of his own past wood sculptures, cut-up paintings, driftwood and molded water putty into assemblage constructions that he presents in hand-built containers; the finished sculptures call to mind dioramas. His “Broken Landscape #3” is part painting—we see a luminous moon rise over a gray ground, made of paint on canvas, which has been affixed to the back wall of the box—and in the foreground, painted and unpainted outcroppings of wood create a textured landscape.

The wood is cut with a roughness, or naturalness, that creates lumps and ridges that seem as organic as the wood’s own rings, which in places are clearly visible. Paint and canvas seem to naturally integrate with the raw wood aspects present. The foregrounded sculptural elements bring to mind an outcropping of natural rock under a harvest moon.

It’s the interplay between the canvas aspect of the work—in which depth is created by way of painterly methods—and the stacked wood sculptural elements, which have actual depth, that creates the work’s richness of experience. The paint itself, present on both the sculptural and flat aspects of the piece, lends a feeling of unity, as does the evenly-cut box that defines its parameters.

Chris Fallon will show two paintings in acrylic on wood panel.

“The Sum of All Fears” portrays a woman in a lavish setting. The figure herself has a two-dimensional body—so flat that it calls to mind a cardboard cutout—whereas the dress she wears, an elegant possession, is rendered with deep specificity. We see its delicate lines and folds, its wrap belt and lush fabric—this indicator of its owner’s sophistication and wealth has been rendered with care. The face of that owner, however, is flat, cartoonish—almost absent.

The flowers arrayed in a nearby vase are an oversized and garish display of wealth that is also rendered with clarity. We see exotic blooms in an arrangement that stands nearly as high as the woman beside them; each petal of the hydrangea blossoms are defined, and we see the folds in each leaf.

There’s a lavishly framed artwork set prominently within the tableau; the artwork’s frame bears the words “Viribus” in Latin, which means strength. But here, the word strength implies its opposite; if one needs to inform their visitors of their strength with ostentatious display, it is implied, that is a clear indication of strength’s absence.

Daniel Gerwin will show three sculptural paintings with active, textured surfaces and incorporated wood.

Gerwin’s “Milk Moon Red Dawn” is contained in a hand-built box frame. A raised wooden oval lifts from the box, creating a central moon-like figure defined by sections of shaped wood over a rich ground of layered acrylic. Each inlaid bit of wood is set off by a tiny strip of luminous green paint that seems to glow; the several painted sections on the moon’s surface intersect and interplay, made active by their layered coats of different hues.

The soft pink ground that frames the moon is also highly textured, built with a combination of painted layers that continue to interact as the eye travels the piece. The work’s continual action and intersection feels accurate to its subject matter: the moon is always moving, and dawn doesn’t pause for a second.

Henry Glavin will show three paintings that portray buildings quietly observed and admired.

Glavin’s paintings of architectural spaces ring with a tone of appreciation; most of Glavin’s portrayed spaces are those he knows well—the homes of his family members, or his own home. The absence of figures in this work is notable. We are seeing indoor or outdoor architectural spaces without the people who built them or who use them, but the appreciative gaze we look through is all about human presence. 

“Brushland” shows a rural house interacting with its environment. The composition’s close crop highlights the quiet daily life of this home—the sludge that snow has become in its driveway, for example—but, when we get closer, we see a riot of activity reflected in the downstairs windows: the gorgeous light of a winter sunset is evident there, in enlivened gold. That’s why the house exists, in this rural area: so its residents, too, may reflect and observe the natural.

The careful and accurate architectural rendering shows us the functionality of the home; we see its basement windows, the extra posts required to prop up its balcony, and one could even count the bricks in its chimney, or the shingles on its roof. This precision—an exact recording—shows an appreciation for just this thing—not the idea of a rural home, but this one: the one lived in, loved and known.

All this precision is the result of a multi-step technique; these paintings begin as pencil drawings on panels; next, the artist employs underpainting, sanding, and color-transfer from the cut pages of magazines to render his images.

Jason Karolak will show three abstract paintings built from oil paint on linen. 

Karolak’s “Untitled (P-2012)” appears to have distinct layers that feel like stacked picture planes. In one layer, a series of shadowy geometric shapes intersect and overlap.  These semi-transparent gray and blue geometric forms darken in the places in which they appear to be stacked. Karolak’s masterful shading of these shapes interacting creates an implied depth so real that it’s nearly a trompe l’oeil effect.

In the painting’s top layer, lines and squared dots in powerful shades of hot pink, lavender and blue explore a relationship.  Here, the painting’s action takes place on a very flat plane; shading is completely absent as these squared lines stretch and crawl over the painting’s surface.

What results is a never-ending conversation between these two planes, a conversation in which depth and its absence is central to what is being explored. 

Karla Knight’s two included works show spaceship forms alongside displays of the artist’s own pictographic language. In “Spaceship Tapestry I,” we see a craft rendered from the side, surrounded by mysterious objects that might be devices of intergalactic communication, or otherworldly tools. Series of dots expanding or decreasing in size use a cartoon’s language to express something emanating—perhaps a signal, or a sound.

At both sides of the work, we see grids full of a pictographic symbol-language reminiscent of Egyptian pyramid markings, or the picto-languages of ancient Mesoamerica. We’re presented with this codex, but not with a translation. There’s a deep sense of the presence of mystery—a feeling of familiarity, without the settled experience of code-cracking.

The symbols in pictographic languages each contain a great amount of information; each glyph is the seed of a full informational bundle. And so these works are covered with such seeds—and, observing them, we have a humbled sense of being in the presence of great troves of wisdom—wisdom so advanced that we cannot yet comprehend it. And yet, there is a transmission occurring, even if what is passed cannot be explained. This is more than visual information—it hums with the depth of symbology, and a symbol’s history. That hum of history is echoed in this work’s materialization; “Spaceship Tapestry I” is built from flashe paint, acrylic marker, pencil and embroidery overlaid on cotton from reclaimed seed and grain bags that date to the 1950s. The cotton itself shows signs of wear—there are moments of staining, and places of mending—displaying its own history, but, like the symbols it bears, not explaining that history.

Meg Lipke builds her paintings on sets of canvas that have been sewn together and stuffed with a polyester fiber. Acrylic paint is then layered atop her filled constructions, creating an interplay between the layer of abstract painting and the raised-and-flat variousness of the surface it sits upon.

In “Body, Landscape”—one of three works Lipke will show in Thaw—delicate painterly gestures in blue that bring to mind Matisse’s vocabulary are layered on a ground of swirling pink, lavender and white. The pillowed form the paint layers upon includes raised bars that curve from top to bottom, making a kind of soft window-frame, or a series of melting columns. There is a feeling of soft memory—perhaps because, in early childhood, one is surrounded by soft things. Colorfields overlap and interact here, in a continuous slow swirl, and no line is perfectly straight. And, as with any truly comfortable experience, there is a pleasurable feeling—one can’t help but desire to linger longer.

Adam Miller will show a series of large ceramic vessels that portray moments in the life of the '60s Japanese superhero Ultraman.

Just as sculptors in the ancient world depicted the lives of gods and goddesses on ceramic jars and vases, Miller has made record of Ultraman’s life in these vessels. In contrast with ancient works, Miller’s larger-than-life ceramics are too unusually shaped to function as flower vases, or even as a way to store water—they reference functionality, without being functional themselves. And Ultraman isn’t a god, he’s a superhero—which might be Miller’s way of asking the viewer to consider whether television superheroes are the modern world’s version of deities.

The robotic nature of Ultraman himself is contrasted by the incredibly organic shape of Miller’s ceramic constructions. Each vessel is built with bulbous outcroppings and winding folds—a kind of naturalness that brings to mind the human body as it ages, gaining lumps, folds and creases. Even Miller’s portraits of Ultraman, with his metallic face, helmet-like head, and electrical eyes, are made less comprehensible by the lumps in each vessel’s shape. If Ultraman will never age, the viewer might be inspired to wonder, perhaps the aging will take place in the bodies that behold him; perhaps Ultraman’s super-ness makes us more aware of our own human body’s mortality, by contrast.

Elisa Ortega Montilla will show three sculptures that incorporate repurposed wood and reclaimed lingerie into bodily constructions that feel both surreal and infused with vulnerable honesty.

Montilla sands her wood into soft, flowing shapes that feel fleshy and alive, then incorporates lingerie to further indicate the bodily—but always in a unique formation that isn’t quite expected. In “Asimetria,” for example, one half of a reclaimed brassiere is filled with a soft protrusion of sanded wood—and the other half of the brassiere is unaccounted for. The reclaimed wood used has been sanded to a glowing luster that makes the tree’s natural rings—the rings that indicate the tree’s mature age—especially apparent. So, too, does the breast-like shape indicate a body in full maturity—in full feminine flower. In “Asimetria,” as in Montilla’s other sculptures shown, we see natural lumps and protuberances that surprise with their unexpected shapes; they reference the body, but not a body usually seen rendered—one that seems, even before our eyes, to be morphing, growing, maturing, becoming.

Erin O’Keefe’s photographs are both precise and confounding. We see what seems to be a painting or a drawing, but discover it is a photograph. We see what seems to be a shadow, but realize it’s a piece of cut paper. And other shadows—so delicate that they seem to be drawn—are real. Flattening the distance between drawing, painting, sculpture and photograph, these works invite deeper and deeper investigation into their construction.

“Sightseeing With a Small Abyss,” one of two works O’Keefe will show, with its lavender-colored flattened plane, royal-blue background, pyramidal structure, and freestanding posts, brings to mind deeply ancient, or perhaps future, architecture—which is appropriate, as O’Keefe herself is an architect.

While questions about depth, picture plane, and light source swirl, one continues to revel in the solidity and inherent appeal of each work’s composition.

Claire Oswalt will show one painting, “Floodplain II,” a work of considered minimalism. Its balanced composition made of varying rectangles, perfectly sharp edges, and a highly controlled palette—it features just two pigments, which interact with bare canvas—brings to mind the control and containment employed by artists like Joseph Albers. The work’s construction adds dimension to its presence; the painting is made of sections of canvas stitched together at their edges, and a raised area of affixed canvas sewn in a series of tight loops lifts from its picture plane.

The dark blue, taupe, and canvas reference a floodplain’s coloration, but not its shape; the raised loops bring to mind the way a flood rearranges matter as it moves.

Erika Ranee’s abstract paintings include collaged elements, like bits of natural matter (the memorialized leaves of one of Ranee’s own houseplants have been included), scraps of torn notes, and bits of posters from construction sites. These elements are combined with an energetic application of spray paint, poured acrylic, and shellac. “I Know What I’m Doing,” one of the three abstracts Ranee will show in Thaw, is a record of Ranee’s first trip to Long Point, the tip of Cape Cod; in it, Ranee has incorporated sand, branches and sea glass collected at the site, as well as scraps of torn notes Ranee made as a way to mark memory. These elements have been incorporated into an enlivened acrylic composition in red, yellow and blue.

“Big Binge” pulses with felt energy. Its built-up layers were made with action painting, and its surface incorporates bits of street fashion posters of Black models that Ranee ripped from the walls of construction sites, as well as discarded spray-painted and handwritten messages on paper. These layers were built to reflect and contain the frenetic energy of New York. Even the painting process—including the athleticism required to stretch and lift this large work—brought forth wells of energy in its maker, which can be felt in the work’s layered, intuitive, flowing gestures.

Caris Reid will show three paintings in acrylic.

 In “Wild Orchid,” a female figure is shown from the waist to just above the knees, and a single orchid blossom covers her genitalia—covers it, and stands for it. 

The flat, intentionally simplified rendering of the figure’s legs, and of the background, give the single orchid bloom particular power—as does its central placement within the picture plane. The viewer’s attention is unmistakably directed; one must push past any discomfort at the consideration of the figure’s “private parts,” or the implication of their concentrated power.

Symbology and spiritual meaning are central to Reid’s work. This orchid has three outer petals, four inner petals, three stamens, and a single point of yellow pollen. The pollen is the true center and focus of the work, with its reference to the female’s contained and concentrated potential as the birther of all life. In numerology, three represents creativity, four represents solid foundations, and one represents leadership. The orchid sits at the figure’s root chakra, which represents strength, vitality, and connection to earthly life. The flowering of feminine power is on full display here; one cannot look away from it—it is central, undeniable, and clearly declared.

 Jose Guadalupe Sanchez III will show three paintings that memorialize members of his family. “He Cried, We Cried” portrays Sanchez’s late father within environments that were significant to him. Sanchez depicts these environments in an outline-only rendering, so the pure shape of them can layer, and so those layers can interact. The layering of these environments—we see various beds, tables, curtains—brings to focus the simultaneity of time, or the way that all we’ve experienced is present in our present moment, leaving its imprint, or its shadow.

 In contrast to the outline-only rendering of these furnishings is the highly detailed presentation of the figure himself. The careful shading in his shirt is so masterful that it lends nearly a trompe l'oeil effect—we see the depth in every fold. The lines in his face, too, are carefully recorded—lines that also reference experienced time. The seated man leans forward, slightly slumped, and looks to be in a moment of deep consideration, or contemplation. The stooped back, too, records time—time, and exertion of effort. What we see in his face is perhaps the work’s most profound record; we witness a person in a vulnerable and private moment of reflection upon his own passed years: his own spent time.

Masamitsu Shigeta will show four midsized oil-on-canvas paintings that bring attention to the hardworking splendor of city trees.

“Circle Tree” focuses the viewer’s eye on one small corner of a public garden surrounded by tall buildings. Each treetop seems to radiate from its center in an emerald color that grows more dramatic as it travels. Similarly, the bed of flowers set before the tree, though tiny in comparison with the buildings that the picture plane cannot fully contain, are as appealing and as lovely as decorated cakes. The contrast between the buildings in the background, which are rendered in grayscale, and the gentle aliveness of the foregrounded garden, makes it clear what we are here to celebrate, and why. The rectangular composition is presented in a hand-rendered, painted resin frame in the shape of a cloud. This work, as well as “Knitting Tree” and “Twin Lamp,” resulted from Shigeta’s city-bound walks during the pandemic—a time when beauty had to be sought if it were to be found.

 Alex Stern’s three paintings incorporate collaged images printed by ink-jet, oil paint, overlays in gold and silver leaf, and the juice of blackberries. Throughout these works, we see collaged elements that feel private and intimate, like a close-cropped image of a man’s chin and chest covered with what appears to be cat hair—a record of a person’s intimacy with his pet. These elements remain mysterious, and are presented without context. One work includes a digital print of the packaging of Suboxone, a pharmaceutical used to treat narcotic addiction—a reference to the very private struggle to step from a cycle of addition. All these intimacies retain their mystery, even as they are made public here.

 The inclusion of gold and silver leaf contrasts the personal, vulnerable and private—one’s relationship with one’s cat, one’s struggle with addiction—with a classically elevating element used in historic churches to portray saints. Elsewhere, a blackberry is employed to color the canvas. These apparent contrasts—between public and private, between the elevated and the common—are strongly felt in these works.