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Art in The Moment: The Temporal Investigations of “Relevance by Reflection”

Artsy Editorial
May 9, 2014 2:56PM

Time is of the essence in “Relevance by Reflection,” a new group show at Los Angeles gallery Sonce Alexander. The exhibition includes work by Akina Cox, Julian Rogers, Marie Thibeault, and Darren Goins, four artists each dealing with the present moment in their own timeless way.

Akina Cox uses her artwork as a way to connect with objects, images, and ideas from her past. She creates striking, mysterious compositions in materials both familiar, like gouache on paper, and unexpected, like hair and ink on burlap, as memorials to her personal attachments.   

Julian Rogers, on the other hand, is interested in a different type of memory: those ambiguous moments that call to mind vague memories shared by us all. With their muted color palette, his oil-on-linen paintings—like First Beer, which depicts a crude tent in the woods—seem instantly familiar, though impossible to place.

Marie Thibeault also paints environments, but her eye is cast toward the future. In her brightly colored canvases, she imagines urban environments encroached upon by the power of nature, offering the viewer a space to contemplate one possible fate of today’s cities.

There is also a touch of the futuristic nature of our current moment in the “Monitor”series of Darren Goins, who uses mechanical means to create his acrylic-on-acrylic works. Though two-dimensional, each piece is created by layer upon layer of manipulated paint, giving it a textured surface and imbuing the work with the sense that it should be viewed in the round—a familiar concept for Goins, who has also created interactive public works.  

Relevance by Reflection” is on view at Sonce Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles, May 1–June 24, 2014.

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Artsy Editorial