Ever Gold [Projects] presents The Rose Garden, a solo exhibition by Ariane Vielmetter. In new paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Vielmetter explores representations of the female body in relation to fruits and flowers, and the ways these visual metaphors relate to lived experience. The female body, as a vessel for new life, is a natural structure for this kind of projection, and Vielmetter is particularly interested in the way this kind of imagery relates to the experiences of pregnant women. In a culture overloaded with information about best health practices, and a political climate that is very unpredictable with regards to women’s rights, the pregnant body has become an increasingly political site.
The visual conflation of the botanical and the anatomical has both a long history and a strong contemporary presence. In an artist book Vielmetter will release in conjunction with her exhibition, she notes an example of this: an iPhone app that informs pregnant women of the approximate size of their developing babies in relation to fruits and vegetables. A baby, according to the app, might grow from the size of a mango at week 19, to a banana at week 20, to a cantaloupe at week 26. In her exhibition, as in her book, the artist weaves the personal, historical, and political together in a manner that is both organic and associative. She moves seamlessly from images and anecdotes from her garden, to paintings by Paula Modersohn Becker and writings by Joan Didion, and back again. At the heart of it all, however, is a contemplation about the potential for things to be at their prime the moment before they begin to fall apart.¬ Whether it is considered through the meticulous rendering of a persimmon, a fruit that is practically inedible until it is on the cusp of rotting, or in the context of having a child in the face of irreversible climate change, this potential is The Rose Garden’s central meditation.
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PDF copy of press release available here
Ariane Vielmetter (b. 1987, Tübingen, Germany) lives and works in Los Angeles. Vielmetter’s work uses the conventions of still life and trompe l’oeil painting as a way to explore the image-making process and realism’s ability to convey both plausible fictions and uncanny truths. She draws from a variety of source materials, ranging from re-purposed studio scraps and unfinished drawings, to specimens collected from her compost pile and garden, anthropological illustrations, and works by artists and writers who have been historically overlooked or underestimated. She often creates limited edition artist books to accompany each body of work. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles (BA, 2008) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA, 2012). Her work has been featured by Fabrik Magazine, Artnet, LA Weekly, and The Art Book Review, and has been shown in recent solo exhibitions at Commonwealth and Council (Los Angeles) and Hey There Projects (Joshua Tree). Recent group exhibitions include Arrangements in Undertone at Pomona College (Claremont, 2017); The Furies at Visitor Welcome Center (Los Angeles, 2016); Modern Arts and Crafts at Eastside International (Los Angeles, 2016); and Demolition Woman at Chapman University (Orange, 2013).
