royale projects : palm desert

 

KAREN LOFGREN : Blood Sister

OPENING: Saturday April 6 2013 (6-8pm)

Royale Projects launches an exhibition of new work by the Los Angeles based artist.  The front gallery of the El Paseo location will be overwhelmed by vibrant webs of collaged and branded leather, cast metal sculpture and works of art that refract and reflect light. Visually arresting and deeply layered with meaning, this exhibition will delight the senses and challenge the mind.

KAREN LOFGREN: Blood Sister takes its name from a blood oath a woman swears to another in one of the most ancient rites of loyalty. By performing a small sacrifice on their own bodies, unrelated people forge a lifelong allegiance. The artist explores rituals and ideas that bind our culture involved in a journey from survival to success and the sacrifices that are made along the way.

Skins of pigs, cows, snakes, deer, and lambs are stitched together to represent pyramid chart structures used in the marketing of both international business and religion. By conjoining bodies, commodities, and theories, Lofgren creates objects that are reminiscent of primitive shelters or garments while alluding to home-spun versions of designer handbags and luxury goods. Bronze and aluminum castings of animals continue to explore the ancient and the modern, referencing archaic ritual as readily as contemporary sculptural practice.  These works displayed alongside ethereal pieces that homage the Southern California Light & Space movement, offer cryptic reflections on systems of power, transformation, sacrifice, and mortality.

 Canadian born Karen Lofgren completed her MFA at CalArts. She has exhibited at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The High Desert Test Sites, The Pitzer Art Galleries in Claremont CA, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.  Her work has been written about and reviewed in The Los Angeles Times and ArtForum. She has an exhibition opening in July at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena CA. This is her first solo exhibition at royale projects : contemporary art.

  

KRISTIN McIVER | CHRIS OLIVERIA | PONTUS WILLFORS

OPENING: Saturday April 20 2013 (5-8pm)

Three artists who explore themes of urbanization in very different ways.  Neon works by Australian artist Kristin McIver, paintings by Los Angeles artist Chris Oliveria, and installations of recycled material by Swedish born Pontus Willfors. 

Kristin McIver borrows advertising’s tools of seduction – glamour, signage, emotive language, wit, and contemporary design - she brings to light the desires and aspirations prevalent in our hyper-consumer culture, exposing the false realities that are imposed.

Chris Oliveria's abstract paintings are founded in a deep history of painting and its contemporary forms while being intuitively related to the streets of Los Angeles. Covered graffiti, temporary wall and home repairs, crosswalks, segmented lane markers and fluorescent construction paint on cement, all come to mind; as do works by Joseph Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, John McLaughlin and Fredrick Hammersley

Pontus Willfors challenges the way the viewer perceives everyday objects. He examines aspects of nature that are viewed by our society as product, nuisance or waste. Re-claimed 2 x 4s and trees that have been cut down and discarded fulfill an ordained destiny of a decorative arrangement. Through sculptural exercises he addresses the power of our culture and its ability to manipulate nature and shape its surroundings.

royale projects : palm springs  

 

STEPHANIE BACHIERO

Stephanie Bachiero manipulates porcelain clay to form elegant, seemingly undulating, minimalist
sculptures. Twisting and turning, her graceful abstractions have the deceptive appearance of
weightlessness, grounding themselves through components of negative space and solid
architectural structure.  This is Bachiero's first solo exhibition with royale projects.


also showing...

LOOKING BACK AT TOMORROW 

the first five years of royale projects

This exhibition features a number of the artists that are represented by and have been exhibited at royale projects since the gallery opened in 2008. Works in his exhibition will rotate regularily and continue through the end of the season.

Featuring work by... Joshua Callaghan, Jane Callister, Alex Couwenberg, Alejandro Diaz, Karen Lofgren, Pascal Pierme, David Allan Peters, Phillip K Smith III, Chris Trueman, and Pontus Willfors