Mary Kate and Ashley
March 20, 2023
Praise the High Grass at No Place Gallery
The work exhibited in Praise the High Grass by Amber Codiñera Locke at No Place Gallery transports the viewer into a zone of timelessness through archaic subjects that remind us of this parallel world called nature that works at a slower pace. The modest paintings of large resting beasts balance out the grand rendition of a spider and its web, holding a sense of calm that is shared as well with a dream-like portrait of a seal, a surrealist scene of valley logs and a hieroglyph-like rendering of clay vessels in a kiln. Somehow the heavy figures central to a majority of these compositions possess a weightless quality that only further promotes a feeling similar to floating gently in a contemplative daydream. And it is in this daydream that image and object are intertwined into a relationship that feels as delicate as any concept of permanence.
Brown Widow
Cow 3
Cow 4
The effort to break the traditional marriage between painting and the wall manifests through an exploration of assemblage. Ancient building materials support Valley Logs and Electric Kiln, teetering on the border of meta without falling in while the paintings gain an objecthood. There is a conceptual relevance to using concrete blocks to build a cube to house the kiln. There is an obvious mirroring to the painting of logs precariously dangling from actual logs. These decisions introduce a slight twist to the read of the work, animate the paintings and meditate on the malleable relationship between painting, sculpture and architecture. Interestingly, the two paintings that participate in this meditation are also the only two that contain a hint that humans ever existed.
Valley Logs
Electric Kiln
Webs and Webs by Lisa John Rogers
Amber Codiñera Locke’s first solo exhibition since moving from Detroit to Los Angeles evokes the conversation about place as an essential part of an artist’s practice. The forms, colors, subjects and brushwork varies to meld these two worlds as her views transition primarily to the west coast and its own distinct relationship with the natural world.
The concern with longevity seems to be a theme amongst the body of work as a whole. Visitors are greeted with what feels like a scene from a fantasy story and anthropomorphism is mentioned in the exhibition text by Chloe Seibert, referring to the wispy rendering of fabric-donned lumber positioned as if posing. The role of time in fantasy is vast. Infinity is accessible only through our imagination, which is also totally required to comprehend real world things like deep time and our meager human impact on it. Webs and Webs, the poem by Lisa John Rogers, proposes untracked time amongst the meandering lines that observe nature and question the endlessness of our quest for meaning. Some of our early days that are now presented in history book images are mimicked here by Locke’s homage to the abiding practices of ceramics. It is also revealed through the exhibition text that Salt and Seal is actually a painting of a plush toy that looks like a seal. Our synthetics will surely secure our ongoing presence even after we are gone and the world is again left to the cows and widows.
Salt and Seal
Amber Codiñera Locke (b. 1989, Port Huron, MI) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Locke holds a BFA in Industrial Design and Ceramics from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Her work draws heavily from Filipino American Diaspora, collaborative process, and the Ceramic Arts to transcend the utilitarian object. She is a co-founder of Hamtramck Ceramck. Locke has exhibited work at the Bahamas Biennale (Detroit, MI), The Pit (Los Angeles, CA), No Place Gallery (Columbus, OH), Interstate Projects (Brooklyn, NY), College for Creative Studies Center Galleries (Detroit, MI), as well as participating in art fairs such as NADA with Essex Flowers (New York, NY).
Praise the High Grass opened on February 11, 2023 and is on display until March 25 by appointment
No Place Gallery
1 E Gay St, Columbus, OH 432
All images courtesy of No Place Gallery