LOS ANGELES, CA.- Walter Maciel Gallery is presenting a solo show entitled Shine by Cynthia Ona Innis. The new work continues Innis’s interest in nature and interpreting the cyclical manifestations of landscape into well articulated abstractions. The exhibition marks Innis’s fourth solo show with the gallery.
This past fall Innis became an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts in the Golden Gate National Park just north of San Francisco. Set within an old military building on a hill and adjacent to a restored missile site, her studio overlooks the ocean and sublime environment of rolling hills and majestic valleys. The new work continues to be a study of forms under transformation, exploring exchanges that are seen and unseen to the eye and exposing moments when one thing becomes another. The subject specifically relates to the changing notions of light in the course of a 24 hour period. Time, movement and observations of the effects of light on the eye are explored within the range of weather patterns ranging from extremely bright coastal days to dense fog and pitch-black nights. The interference of light seen on objects and through the camera lens becomes the focus and is visually recreated using a variety of collaged information such as satin, silk and reflective metallic fabrics layered with ink and acrylic paint on canvas, wood panel and paper. In contrast to the layering of materials, there are tightly drawn areas of patterns, overlapping honey comb-like networks made from observations of light and the dust and pollution left in its path between the eye/camera and the natural/artificial light source. The work takes on a landscape format with a narrative created by a combination of drawing, painting and overall relationship of fabrics.
In addition to the paintings and drawings, a new video will be shown produced in collaboration with East Coast based video artist Adam Frelin. The video explores the experience of traversing a pedestrian tunnel that leads to the Point Bonita lighthouse, near the artist's studio, and the light effects inside of the tunnel and the area. The project was created with information and footage collected by Innis and Frelin and exchanged, highlighting each artist’s vision and interpretation.
Last year Innis was part of summer residency at La Porte Peinte Centre for the Arts in Noyers Sur Serein, France. The work made during the residency began the initial exploration of light effects and patterns found in nature and some of the inventory is included in the current group exhibition Bee at their onsite gallery. Last year Innis featured a group of small paintings in the show Contemplations and Conjectures: 12 Artists at the Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY and she was included in the shows Materials + Process at Traywick Contemporary and On View at the Kala Art Institute both in Berkeley. Innis’s work is in the collection of the Art in Embassies Program, US Department of State in Riga, Latvia; de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco; Berkeley Art Museum; San Jose Museum of Art; County of Alameda, CA; City of Lafayette, CA; Madewell, New York; Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA and the Capital Group Corporation, Los Angeles. She has been an adjunct instructor at UC Berkeley, San Francisco Art Institute, Maine College of Art, Boise State University among other institutions.
The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm.
