LOS ANGELES, CA.- Night Gallery is presenting Euphoric Recall, an exhibition of new works by Marisa Takal–the artist’s third exhibition– at the gallery.

Takal’s paintings and sculptures concern our idiosyncratic yet routine systems of organization, exploring how each of us make sense of our chaotic worlds, both internal and external. Using vivid colors overlaid with graphic flourishes and bold handmade stenciled texts, her paintings assemble varied motifs into collapsing patterns that brightly echo the repetition, exhaustion, and small triumphs of everyday life. “Euphoric recall” is a psychological term that describes our tendency to remember past experiences in a purely positive light, while omitting all negative associations. Takal’s Euphoric Recall is an investigation of the way we connect to ourselves, each other, and the systems we live in.

Throughout the paintings, vignettes of Takal’s inner world appear: a corner of a bedroom in one painting, a cluster of trees from a birch forest in another, both rendered with curious optimism. Each painting becomes a mirror into the self, both of Takal’s and the viewer. These images serve as portals into dissociative fantasies, illustrations of the artist’s own coping mechanisms and the often fragmented and nonlinear nature of our own mental spaces. The intimate memories reflected in these exuberant compositions provide a deeply empathic experience for the viewer, the visual equivalent of a reassuring squeeze, an open-hearted ear.

While themes of domesticity have always been present in Takal’s work, here they take on new significance in the wake of “Stay at Home” orders. Her Psychological Rolodex is an automated sculpture created to help the artist and viewer reconnect in a moment of extreme historic isolation. Takal’s work transforms the former staple of the office into a container for a multitude of emotional descriptors—all in alphabetical order. Takal sourced these emotive words through an online questionnaire circulated at the start of the pandemic. The form requested “three words for each letter of the alphabet to describe your emotional state.” By utilizing a mundane and antiquated piece of office equipment, Takal has manifested a literal index of the psychological spectrum we are now collectively experiencing. Her spinning table-top contraption stands as a site of communal catharsis and a monument to our collective perseverance.

Night Gallery, located at 2276 E 16th Street, is open by appointment Tuesday-Saturday, 11:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. The exhibition runs until May 1st. For more information, visit www.nightgallery.ca

Marisa Takal (b. 1991) has shown in numerous solo, duo, and group shows at such venues as Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Jeffrey Stark, New York; Marinaro Gallery, New York; Company Gallery, New York; Loyal Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden; Otis College of Art and Design Bolsky Gallery, Los Angeles; Del Vaz Projects, Los Angeles; and Alter Space, San Francisco. In 2016, she was named the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award and the Stanley Hollander Award. She lives and works in Los Angeles.