April 15 – May 12, 2023
Opening: Saturday, April 15, 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Our footprints are larger than our feet. Artplex Gallery presents Natural Impressions, a group exhibition where organic shapes and forms take center stage, inviting viewers to consider the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Through an enduring relationship across time and locale, humans and nature constantly negotiate the power and impact we have on one another ranging from interdependence to dominance, and beauty to destruction. Natural Impressions explores the impression nature leaves on humanity as well as the impact of humanity on nature through the creation of art (and its audience).
Alessandro Casetti was born in Bagno di Romagna in Italy in 1981. His paintings metaphorically represent all the emotional processes that happen inside and outside of our own bodies. Casetti uses industrial paints, water, and white spirit enamels applied solely by gravity on wood or canvas. The result is something infinitely large or infinitely small; a satellite vision of the planet, the cracks of the parched earth, fossils of ancient lakes; or maybe, on the opposite side of the spectrum, the slow progress of mold seen through a microscope.
Born in 1974 in Mexico, Hugo G. Urrutia is a multidisciplinary artist-designer who is interested in the cross-pollination between art and architecture. His artwork challenges the notion of what constitutes a piece of art. A graduate and active member of the Architectural Association in the United Kingdom, Urrutia’s work creates a distinct spatiality located at the interstice of art and architecture. His work explores and uses technology for design and fabrication, with a sensitive and conscious reminder of the creativity of human endeavor.
Victoria Kovalenchikova is inspired by the connection between all humans, and in her series, “Earth,” where she explores the planet as a work of art. Using google images to explore the Earth in its entirety, she plays with angles and textures. Originally from Mogliev, Belarus, Kovalenchikova says the following about her practice: “Although we humans may feel like disconnected, independent fragments, Earth reminds us that we are all united on this place: notes within a larger symphony of life. No different from the massive whale in the ocean or the tiniest needle of a pine tree. There is no way out; to save ourselves we must save our home.”
As a child, Jacob Burmood spent his free hours walking along a creek that had carved its way through a wooded area. All the forces that determine the path of the stream also govern the rocks, vegetation, and creatures that surround it. Though their reactions to these forces differ, they remain related. The forms he creates are an abstraction of the fluid nature of the universe. The purpose of each work is to find an underlying order that converges elements into a unified whole that moves as one, like a school of fish or a flock of birds.
Sally West’s international journeys influenced her style, but the sailboats, brush, and other subjects of her paintings remain very close to home. Ethereal palettes are accented by brighter earthy colors for a bright day, or maybe the wash of fog on the ocean, haze of sun on the terra. Overall, West’s color palette is very uniquely her own and conveys the very specific feeling of comfort associated with vague familiarity.
Since the opening of Artplex Gallery in 2018, the gallery continues to be one of the world’s leading art galleries specializing in high-quality, original contemporary art representing a broad spectrum of major international artists. Right at home in West Hollywood and within immediate proximity to its sister gallery Artspace Warehouse, Artplex Gallery is an expansive modern space that specializes in international urban, pop, graffiti, figurative, and abstract art catering to the visual impact.
