Night Gallery is pleased to announce the group show Shrubs, on view January 8 through February 5, 2022.
Featuring works by Michael Assiff, Hayley Barker, Lianne Barnes, Michael Berryhill, Ross Caliendo, Alex Chaves, Carrie Cook, Beatriz Cortez, Jason Roberts Dobrin, Lois Dodd, Sara Gernsbacher, Daniel Gibson, Bambou Gili, Khari Johnson-Ricks, JPW3, Mirena Kim, Yoshua Klos, Erica Mahinay, Jenine Marsh, Sam Moyer, Kemi Onabule, Eleanor Ray, Anna Rosen, Melanie Schiff, Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, John Seal, Emilie Stark-Menneg, Lily Stockman, Claire Tabouret, Ben Tong, Sterling Wells, Nicole Wittenberg, Clare Woods, and Rachel Youn
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Michael Assiff, Volunteers with Yellowjackets and Cabbage White Butterfly (11-0617 Transparent Yellow, 13-0916 Chamomile, 15-1046 Mineral Yellow, 14-1212 Frappé), 2021
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Hayley Barker, Side Yard with Kali, 2022
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Hayley Barker, Side Yard with Kali, 2022
Mirena Kim, Valentin, 2021
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Taking up the storied lineage of the natural as one of the foundational subjects of art history, Shrubs conducts dovetailing surveys of contemporary landscape and still life painting, as well as sculpture and photography. The exhibition brings together artists across geographies, generations, and mediums to gesture toward a contemplation of the land in tension and harmony with our current realities. Art and nature are unified by a spirit of persistence; the title Shrubs connotes not only a particular kind of plant, but a certain attitude, with a quotidian yet resilient quality. Shrubs coalesces a breadth of formal and conceptual engagements, speaking to contemporary anxieties while celebrating the enduring human impulse to cultivate through depiction.
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, Lois Slideshow, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Jenine Marsh, Enclosure (2), 2021
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Jenine Marsh, Enclosure (2), 2021
Sterling Wells, Agaves of AutoZone, 2021
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JPW3, Snake Head Wanderer, 2021
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Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Sara Gernsbacher, Four Story Flower, 2021
Sara Gernsbacher, Four Story Flower, 2021
Khari Johnson-Ricks, Untitled (buffet/bouquet), 2021
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Khari Johnson-Ricks, Untitled (buffet/bouquet), 2021
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
In a new monotype, Claire Tabouret achieves delicate yet striking variations of color within the classic motif of a bouquet of flowers, poetically evincing the fluidity of the form and the ever-shifting plane of experience. Elsewhere, Khari Johnson-Ricks creates an intricate assemblage from paper constructions painted in watercolor and shellac ink, bespeaking landscapes both real and imagined. In an oil painting by Michael Berryhill, the choice to depict a quacking duck echoes the show’s emphasis on the common features of nature that often go unappreciated. Meanwhile, Clare Woods’ painterly renderings of flowers suggest precarity and vulnerability, defamiliarizing the subject matter from its more lighthearted connotations. A plein air watercolor by Sterling Wells captures the terrain vague of Los Angeles, and provides an unexpectedly beautiful scene of tranquility within the encroaching urban detritus. JPW3’s works in oil pastel present organic, abstract compositions inspired by the unwavering resolve of life forms to survive—despite seemingly apocalyptic circumstances.
Yashua Klos, Celebrate Today, 2021
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Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Claire Tabouret, Offrande (green and red), 2021
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Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Nicole Wittenberg, Glen Cove, 2021
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Nicole Wittenberg, Glen Cove, 2021
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Michael Berryhill, you never can tell, 2021
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Erica Mahinay, Tempest, 2021
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Clare Woods, Crisis Fatigue, 2021
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Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, From Root to Lip (pollen), 2018
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Bambou Gili, Entangled Life, 2021
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Bambou Gili, Entangled Life, 2021
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Alex Chaves, Red Flowers, 2021
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Alex Chaves, Red Flowers, 2021
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Rachel Youn, Schemer, 2021
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Rachel Youn, Schemer, 2021
Daniel Gibson, Small world, 2021
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John Seal, Study for a monument to man’s triumph over nature (two), 2021
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John Seal, Study for a monument to man’s triumph over nature (two), 2021
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Eleanor Ray, Ucross, September, 2020
Eleanor Ray, Ucross, September, 2020
Eleanor Ray, Mt. Washington Ridge, 2021
Eleanor Ray, Mt. Washington Ridge, 2021
Jason Roberts Dobrin, Untitled (wildfire sunlight light, red roses and smoking cigarette in black ashtray), 2021
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Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Sam Moyer, While I'm in Paradise, 2021
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Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Each artist finds the dualities of the present day distilled within the earthly environment—order and chaos, quietude and cacophony, destruction and care, weightiness and levity—while allowing for undeniable beauty to come to the fore. Encompassing abstraction and representation, the works reveal visual and affective traces of the world the artist inhabits within the one they conjure. No singular approach or category of portrayal is privileged, instead presenting a vibrant and diverse array of responses to a world in flux. Altogether, Shrubs conceives of nature as a generous spectrum, embraced for its sublime wonders and precious banalities.
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
Carrie Cook, Night Roses (I can fall asleep), 2021
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Carrie Cook, Night Roses (I can fall asleep), 2021
Shrubs, installation view, 2022
