For the month of October, Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, CA, presents four artist solo exhibitions honoring the Autumn season. October marks the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time often associated with human death.
Over 2,500 years ago, the Celts believed that during this month, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. They celebrated the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain (a precursor to Halloween), a holiday that once involved human sacrifice. In these four exhibitions, the themes of Life, Death, Dreams, and Divine Decay are explored through the works of four prominent contemporary artists: Chet Zar, Stephanie Inagaki, Emma Black, and Dos Diablos.
“In Life & Death”, the new collection of oil paintings, Chet Zar has taken inspiration from the theme of ‘Life & Death’ which is an inevitable part of our existence. “Through these paintings, I tried to explore our emotions surrounding life under the influence of the fear of death and the phantoms created by it.
While we often avoid thinking about it to get through the day, this avoidance can give death a haunting power over us. Unacknowledged mortality becomes a burden on humanity. Yet, without death, life would lack meaning. It is as natural as birth, and shouldn’t be feared”.
The exhibition of Stephanie Inagaki “Icons of death & dreams” is in honour of life and death, and the resilience, grit, and perseverance that comes out of it, which does not exist without hope, which in turn creates dreams. Many cultures throughout history used to and still carry forth days or months of remembrance for the dead.
The gods and goddesses of death simultaneously represented healing, life, regeneration, and fertility. This cycle of samsara is a continual theme within my body of work.
“Divine Decay”, by Emma Black is a series about remembrance, fragility, mortality and the transient nature of earthly existence. The work is a comment on how contradictory elements such as beauty and decay can co-exist in our world of ambiguities and dualities. Present in the works is a contemplation of death and mortality, and an exploration of the relationship between new understandings and perceived identity. Caught between life and death in an essential unreality, the figures in the paintings are in turmoil as they transform into new beings.
The visible anatomy acts as a representation of, and simultaneous contortion, of the idea of true beauty being on the inside; contrasting with the unassuming pleasantness of the flora and fauna blooming on the surface. The inaccuracies of their existence become intertwined into their identities, resulting in a hybrid of entities that aims to feels more akin to an object, in a process of self examination and objectification. Acting upon a sense of what could have been and the unlikely feelings of a new beginning, they serve as a tribute to the personal loss and grief in the world.
Hailing from Guadalajara, Mexico, Dos Diablos is an artist who taps into the fears that have haunted our society for thousands of years. Drawing on these irrational anxieties and fusing them with an aesthetic that draws inspiration from Christian iconography, Dos Diablos’ work is a chilling reminder of the power of demonic forces. Using his preferred technique of oil paints, his work is a throwback to the wonders of taking ones time to perfect a craft.
The texture of his brushstrokes evokes a physicality to his work that could only be achieved through this specific medium. The origins of his subjects, demonic creatures and mutated humanoids, lie in the psyche of this unique artist, exploring the deep subconscious mind and reflecting on ones own identity, a task that few of us wish to undergo. This self-introspective and novel approach has resulted in him working on projects that vary in style. From movie posters to magazines and newspaper features and the fine art world, Dos Diablos is ever forging new grounds.
2525 Michigan Ave, Unit T5, Santa Monica , CA 90404
www.CoproGallery.com
Until November 2, 2024
All images and artwork Copyright 2015 CoproGallery
