CULVER CITY, CA.-D.E.N. Contemporary Art presents two solo exhibitions: Shift, the Los Angeles debut of new paintings and drawings by Massachusetts-based Shona Macdonald; and, allure gone buffalo, with paintings, sculpture, photo-collage/drawing, and installation by Heimir Björgúlfsson, based in Amsterdam and Los Angeles.

In “Shift,” Macdonald examines the constant motions and cyclical routines of our domestic life, and the human tendency to establish daily rituals of shifting and ordering our possessions to create a state of comfort and security. In her work, Macdonald depicts everyday objects, some passing through our lives, some held and cherished.

Macdonald’s subtle palette of gouache, graphite or silverpoint, echoes the comfort and familiarity of the belongings they represent. Papers are read and then recycled; clothes are soiled, laundered, and folded. Images of snow-capped landscapes also appear in her work, an element of the larger environment MacDonald inhabits, whether it be her native Scotland or her present home in the east coast.

Paper, clothes, and snow – all routinely put into piles to neatly move them out and make room for the time being, until the need to repeat the routine arises again. It’s our instinctual drive to make life more manageable and keep at bay discomfort and chaos, an attempt at once mundane yet, like in the myth of Sisyphus pushing a rock up the mountain, never-ending and slightly humorous.

Born in Aberdeen, Macdonald moved to the U.S. to attend the University of Illinois in Chicago, where she received her M.F.A. in 1996. In 2006, she moved east after accepting a teaching position at the University of Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited in several solo shows in California and Illinois, and in group exhibitions throughout the Midwest states as well as in the United Kingdom.

The gallery will also present “allure gone buffalo,” featuring Heimir Björgúlfsson in the Project Room. Born in Reykjavík, Iceland, the artist presently lives and works in Amsterdam as well as Los Angeles. Björgúlfsson integrates a vision from both his native and adopted countries in his work as he examines the challenges and threats experienced while adapting to conflicting natural situations.

Influencing Björgúlfsson’s artistic development is his upbringing in Iceland’s raw expanse of mountains, glaciers, and volcanoes, the flora and fauna existing therein, and the native birds that are a recurring element in the artist’s work. Also influential is his emigration to the antithetical surroundings of southern California’s densely populated, ethnically-diverse metropolis. This is represented in the work by the presence of palm trees and graffiti, omnipresent in Los Angeles, deliberate insertions by man into the city environment.

The exhibition will consist of a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photo-collage/drawing, and installation, where both illustrated and taxidermic animals and insects serve as opposing life forms situated to co-exist in a peculiar environment. Each creature is confronted with physical or behavioral adaptation or maybe extinction as a result of a “higher” creature or human settlement disturbing the ecosystem. In one sculpture, a bird is the dominant force to a more delicate species of butterflies. In another piece, a bird seems vulnerable in size next to the bold, physically intimidating presence of a large buffalo head, yet the bird appears to be whispering a message into the buffalo’s ear, perhaps one of warning.

As with animal evolution and with mankind’s quest to find a balance between conquering an environment and adapting to it, so too, is an artist’s quest to assimilate into another culture - each requiring psychological or behavioral adjustment or reaction to situational forces, each quest having successes and failures along the way.

Björgúlfsson’s work has been exhibited throughout Europe, in Iceland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and United Kingdom, as well as in Los Angeles, Houston, Texas, and Japan. (This exhibition is in part made possible with the support of The Netherlands Foundation of Art, Design and Architecture, Amsterdam).

The exhibitions will be on view through December 1. Gallery hours: Tue-Sat, 11-5:30.