Forgetting the Words (Exhibition), 2018
Contact-scan photographs, a list poem, a yellow.
Sitting behind a Spanish style duplex in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, a black A-frame gallery's interior has been painted in Cathedral City Grapefruit. This yellow has been painstakingly color matched to my late grandfathers' citrus, the best tasting in the world.
Life-size reproductions of some Southern Californian rambling botanicals have been photographed in the landscape with a portable document scanner. These Bougainvillea at Magic Hour are made during the last hours of daylight and they result from a deskilled, cameraless photography, which results directly from touch, improvisation, and a lack of control.
A list poem titled Forgetting the Words runs from floor to ceiling and consists of words of pressure and proximity that allude to the processes with which the contact-scans have been made, as well as more generally referencing a language of the body. It's set in ITC Eras, the typeface found on the scanner used to make the photographs.
"Forgetting the Words" ran from 18 June to 29 July and was the inaugural exhibition at River (formerly CES Gallery). Realized as a result of the 2018 River Fellowship, which annually supports the production of a solo commercial exhibition for an emerging artist. Seating donated and designed by Norma.
PDF (Takeaway).