Pairing Lempert’s tender black-and-white photographs with Saeed’s large, carved and painted slabs of styrofoam, this two-person exhibition is a poem about nature, scale and texture. A few of the unframed photos show a spider balancing on a human’s knuckle, its extended legs echoing the shape of the fist; the tiny black hand of a Brazilian porcupine grasping a lucky someone’s pinky; and a human hand clenching an insect the size of its thumbnail, the fingertips and nails ridged like the insect’s wing. The styrofoam reliefs, which depict scenes of animals within nature and its geometric patterns, provide a new understanding of the material, its granular pores mimicking the skin of both the animals and plants in the photographs. Whether comparing the differences or commonalities of the two artist’s works, seeing them together in the same space inspires emotional awe of nature’s smallest details.

 

Chris Sharp
4650 W. Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90016
On view through May 6, 2023