Pulsing with energy and light, exuding a sense of dynamic motion, Sarah Miska uses the world of horse racing as her subject and the compelling need for control, risk-taking and forward motion as her themes. Her current exhibition “High Stakes” features large-scale, acrylic on canvas works, all of which were created this year, as if painted with the spirit of immediacy and action they evoke.

Through cropped close-ups of jockey attire, braided horse manes, the sleek rump and straining legs of a horse, the raised torsos of riders, Miska looks at the muscular beauty of racing and the dangers inherent in it for both these magnificent animals and the riders they carry. She shows us riders and horses poised for action at a starting gate, the anxious eyes of the horses, the bright colors and wrinkles in the fabrics worn by the riders. Miska creates both the sensibility and environment of the racetrack and the dedicated passion of horse and rider—the stakes being both monetary and, in some cases, life itself.

Sarah Miska, Trifecta, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery.

In The Starting Gate, Miska captures the nervous energy and grace of this horse, his face in profile, partially masked in the colors of his jockey, his eye luminous, wary, and tense. Held back by the jail-like green bars of the gate, his beauty is contained, controlled and aching to break free. In Wager the horses are off and running; their muscles taut and pulsing forward as their hooves fly along clods of dirt. The jockeys are the focal point of Trifecta—their buttocks raised above their saddles as if aching to make themselves lighter than air as their horses’ surge forward.

The color-coded silks worn by the jockeys and used to represent horse ownership and bloodline are shown against black backgrounds. Miska’s paintings are alive with color and texture in both the black and white Polkadot Jockey Silk, and the red and white fabric of Red Checkered Jockey Silk. The viewer can almost feel the touch of the silk on the jockey’s skin as the artist reveals the wrinkles and shifts of the garments on a body in motion.

Graceful, exciting and exemplary of the anxiety and “High Stakes” of any race, this is an exhibition to be experienced as its energy can be felt pulsing through each painting and into the viewer’s heart.

Night Gallery
2276 E. 16th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90021
On view through September 9th, 2023