Few grasp the power of language to be visually enthralling while expanding our consciousnesses as well as Lindsay August-Salazar, whose solo show at Lowell Ryan Projects, “There’s No Place Like No Place” brings these questions to the forefront. Employing vibrant color schemes punctuated by a symbolic lexicon of the artist’s own invention, August-Salazar challenges us to recall a poetic past and make our own meaning in the face of our ever-changing mediascape.

The exhibition opens with six large-scale, burlap-grounded paintings that showcase August-Salazar’s fearless command of color and energetic brushwork. In her animated compositions that appear to levitate off the canvas, every rhythmic swath, gesture, and shape are as cohesive and captivating as recorded choreography — vestiges of her background as a hip-hop dancer.

The paintings also feel distinctly collage-like in their amalgamation of symbols and use of cutouts that tease fragments of coarse burlap beneath the glib acrylic. In referencing collage, August-Salazar reiterates the sheer multitude of histories, meanings, and interpretations that characterize her exploration.

Up in the sun-soaked loft, August-Salazar displays a suite of 47 unframed works on paper that echo the vibrancy and linguistic themes of her paintings, furthering them through repetition. I felt like I was entering a secret playroom or ancillary studio space brimming with insights to her creative process or possibly long-awaited clues for translation. Hanging gracefully off the wall, these delicate works introduce an element of levity and evoke a sense of childish whimsy and wonder to complement the palpable intensity of the paintings below.

At every turn, certain symbols of August-Salazar’s visual vocabulary (which she fittingly titles Abstract Character Copy) jump out — a smattering of English letters, a trio of hieroglyphics, a half-crown, an arc of yellow reminiscent of a Warhol banana. Each individual element of her wide array of visual signs felt vaguely familiar yet entirely unprecedented, like faces I’d seen in a dream that I yearned to recognize.

Through the eccentricity and indefinability of her visual vocabulary, August-Salazar conceals more than she reveals and offers little more than a sparing understanding of a hidden message only she knows. She thereby creates the uncanny feeling of walking through her own personal utopia — one that I was overjoyed to have been invited into even though I didn’t speak the language.

Lowell Ryan Projects
4619 W. Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90016
Thru Dec. 11th, 2021