Artillery Magazine

Tag: Small Green Door

  • Small Green Door: New Rituals

    Small Green Door:

    New Rituals

    Small Green Door located in East LA is a full-service creative studio by day and has for the last couple of months opened up as a space for local artists to interact, create and exhibit their work. This month, Manwell Quiza and Leo Estevez put together a show that is an exercise in physicalizing rituals and habits; symbols becoming shapes and virtual matter becoming real.

    Leo Estevez, Barbarian (2016), courtesy of Leo Estevez and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.
    Leo Estevez, Barbarian (2016), courtesy of Leo Estevez and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.

    Quiza’s golden origami pyramids invoke the legend of El Dorado. Sleek and featureless, they explore geometric space with ancient, primordial forms. The angular, golden pyramids stand side by side with the round, elliptical patterns of his paintings. Shapes placed slightly off in the composition and slashes in the canvas purposely add chaos to what would otherwise be perfectly meditative mandalas.

    Manwell Quiza; (from left to right) Serinidad (2016), Pyramid de Quiza (2016), courtesy of the artist and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.
    Manwell Quiza; (from left to right) Serinidad, Pyramid de Quiza (both 2016); courtesy of the artist and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.

    Tarot de Quiza, a series of 22 small paintings also available as a Tarot deck, is a hybrid of the Marseille and Rider-Waite traditions, and is infused with South American mythical figures. A five-year project, it engages rituals centered on supernatural guidance and the divine. As part of the installation, the artist is offering readings every Sunday, by appointment, for the duration of the show.

    Leo Estevez, Pendulum Projector and Pendulum Projector Series of 140, courtesy of the artist and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.
    Leo Estevez, Pendulum Projector and Pendulum Projector Series of 140, courtesy of the artist and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.

    In the front gallery, Estevez’s Pendulum Projector swings back and forth in near darkness, throwing what looks like telescopic footage of some distant planet onto the floor. In actuality, it’s an abstracted record of routines, jotted down over the course of 144 days and turned into a flipbook video. The other projection in the gallery is text taken from the very end of a 13-year-old email chain, now cast onto the ceiling through layers and layers of bird netting as another abstraction of the mundane.

    Leo Estevez, Chrome and Mirror (2016), courtesy of the artist and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.
    Leo Estevez, Chrome and Mirror (2016), courtesy of the artist and Small Green Door. Photograph by Dunja Dumanski.

    Esteves also works with 3D printing. A pair of hands, printed with reflective red filament, sits on a mirror, casting a morphed projection of itself onto the wall. Closer up, it looks like the hand stems out of its own reflection. Another piece includes a bleach-white, 3D printed animal skull, its golden fangs biting through a lounge chair. Looking at it through its glass casing, one swears it was made not by a machine, but by a rather meticulous hand.

    Manwell Quiza and Leo Estevez, “New Rituals,” July 14 – August 18 at Small Green Door, 2075 S. Atlantic Blvd. Commerce, CA 90040, (510) 381-2420.