Sophie Treppendahl: Homebody
April 30 – June 18, 2022
Nimah Gobir: SPOOLS
April 30 – June 18, 2022
Opening Reception: Friday May 6, 5-8pm
Johansson Projects announces two concurrent solo exhibitions with New Orleans-based artist Sophie Treppendahl and Oakland-based artist Nimah Gobir. The exhibitions open April 30 and will run through June 18, 2022, with an opening reception on Friday, May 6 from 5 to 8PM.
The body of work in Sophie Treppendahl’s Homebody was inspired by her experience of the last two years. After having her life confined indoors, Treppendahl found she had fallen in love with being at home.
Treppendahl’s interior scenes are not aspirational clickbait. Instead, they are expressions of gratitude for the lived-in house: the clutter of a bathroom sink, the detritus of a dinner party, the surprise of light coming in through a window. These are homes that hold the weight of accumulated hours, bright colors of major and minor joys. A novelty mallard duck planter nests alongside family photos, a plant’s curious tendrils spread in front of a busy floral wallpaper.
Treppendhal pays homage to the painters who have influenced her by capturing the visual reality of how she encounters their work—through afternoons spent browsing art books, amid charging cables and cans of seltzer, takeout food and trinkets. Seen this way, a strange convergence takes place between the artists and the surrounding objects. Nested inside the larger canvas, they combine into a domestic plane, and create a snapshot of a painter at work.
The groove a couch shows after the five hundredth morning of continuous weight, a mug left on a table that one promises to pick up later. The distance between ourselves and our surroundings has collapsed. As a result, the works on display in Homebody can be understood as a collection of self-portraits. Treppendahl paints homes that function like a body, spaces that have become reflections–or extensions–of the self.
SPOOLS is an exhibition of work by Oakland-based artist Nimah Gobir. Drawing from personal memories and artifacts from loved ones, Gobir’s series of oil paintings explore how she is shaped by the known and unknown experiences of those she holds dear. It’s as if each painting is produced in collaboration with her loved ones’ memories.
As a Black, first generation American artist, Gobir’s work documents how she is constantly finding footing as she creates relationships and cultivates community. Whether it’s the way the light hits her partner in a sun-soaked room or her Nigerian mom holding her recently-born sister, Gobir creates portraits that draw on memories spanning decades. While the work in SPOOLS presents past moments, they find new life as Gobir unravels and recontextualizes their impact on who she is today. Several of the paintings in the series use embroidery thread and traditional craft techniques, drawing attention to the time spent handling each stitched work. The textured surfaces from the thread patterns convey tenderness and affection. This new series is inspired by the ephemeral feeling of home, safety, and belonging.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Sophie Treppendahl (b. 1991, St. Francisville, LA) is a painter based in New Orleans, LA. Sophie is from St. Francisville, a small town north of where she now lives. Sophie’s work explores the feeling of longing for something just out of reach. Many of her works are portraits of people she loves, her subjects often depicted by their homes and objects in lieu of their figure. She is interested in the conundrum of painting her world of people and things while working alone inside a studio. Recent solo shows include Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, NY (2020), Indianapolis Art Center in Indianapolis, IN (2019) and Quirk Gallery in Richmond, VA (2018), and forthcoming (2022) with Johansson Projects in Oakland, CA. She has attended residencies at Golden Foundation (2020), The Wassaic Project in Wassaic NY (2019), 100 W Corsicana in Corsicana, TX (2019), and Untitled 1983 in Geneva, Switzerland (2020). Sophie received her BA in painting and printmaking at College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.
Nimah Gobir (b. 1993 in Los Angeles, CA) is an artist and educator based in Oakland, California. Through paintings and installations, her work primarily explores the nuances and shared experiences of being Black. She draws on text and photo references collected from both family and personal archives. Gobir completed her undergraduate studies at Chapman University with a B.F.A. in Studio Art and B.A. in Peace Studies. She has an M.Ed from Harvard Graduate School of Education with a focus in Arts in Education. In 2020, she completed a fellowship with Emerging Artist Professionals SF-Bay Area. She has shown work at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, SOMArts, The Growlery (San Francisco), Johansson Projects (Oakland), and Root Division (San Francisco) where she was awarded the Blau-Gold Studio/Teaching fellowship.
Homebody and SPOOLS run from April 30 – June 18, 2022, with an artist reception on First Friday, May 6, 5-8pm. Johansson Projects is open Thu-Sat 1-5pm and by appointment.
For more information, please contact info@johanssonprojects.com / 510-999-9140
