Alt Projects presents “Yi Gao & Pilar Wiley: Spring and All,” opening on Sunday, April 19, 2026. Curated by Sean Arenas and hosted by emerging neighborhood platform Alt Projects in Arcadia, Calif., this exhibition pairs paintings by Yi Gao with ceramic sculptures and vessels by Pilar Wiley.
The opening reception is Sunday, April 19, from 2–5 p.m. Email info@altprojects.art for the address and to schedule a visit.
Named after a poem by William Carlos Williams in which life slowly reemerges after a harsh winter, the exhibition reflects the artists’ shared interest in exploring states of transformation and becoming.
Gao primarily paints on rice paper, whose delicate, absorbent nature allows for the slow accumulation of color. Her large-scale, dreamlike landscapes and grids function as interior perceptual spaces in which structure and dissolution remain in active negotiation. Boundaries soften and reconfigure as the image develops. Her brushstrokes vary in opacity and pressure, creating a sense that shapes gradually surface rather than being imposed upon the paper.
Wiley’s ceramic sculptures similarly embrace instability and metamorphosis. Evolving from nearly two decades of work as a potter, her bulbous and biomorphic forms precariously balance on spider-like legs or erupt into tendrils. Her textured and glaze-spattered vessels are handbuilt through coiling and enriched with materials such as raw quartz, decomposed granite, and, most recently, paper pulp.
Together, the two Los Angeles-based artists evoke a natural world in flux: structures dissolve, forms mutate, and new configurations gradually emerge.
