Morbidly Optimistic – Muzi Li Rowe
Muzi Li Rowe’s debut solo show at Axis Gallery looks at the intersection of technology, personal history, pseudo science and consumerism.
New Works: New Photographs from Doug Dertinger, Nicole Jean Hill, and David Woody
Axis Gallery is proud to present “New Works,”3 bodies of recent photographic work by California artists Doug Dertinger, Nicole Jean Hill, and David Woody. “New Works” is focused on our relationships with environments.
Fragments – Gabriel Isaiah Gonzales
The concept of this exhibit is to explore the conversation of what remains after the passage of time, the exposure to the elements, and the nature of man.
Learning From Life Cycles – Dan Tran
Increasingly, transdisciplinary artists like Dan Tran are re-assessing their roles in the relationships between buildings, built environments, and the non-built ecosystems that provide the raw materials and energy that sustain them. Individually adopting greener studio practices and making material transitions are common responses to the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, pollution and many other interwoven social and environmental injustices. Yet, artists are also innately poised to cultivate unorthodox research relationships that weave disciplines, data, experiences and cultures in projects which then weave broader audiences and deeper mutual understanding. In doing so, they fill the ever-increasing need for the diverse, complex collaborations required to confront the complexities of the climate crisis as well as the ever-increasing need for more effective science communication.
Axis Through the Gift Shop
Axis Through The Gift Shop is a holiday exhibition offering work from Axis members for immediate sale. It’s a moment for our non commercial gallery to briefly engage in COMMERCE–as a form and in earnest. Come sample our wares, enjoy a who’s-who of the current membership, and celebrate the holidays by bringing home some art for yourself, your family and your friends.
Dad Life
Tavarus Blackmon
New Paintings
“Being a Dad is hard work. I want to show all that work. Mostly the violent and tender moments because those are the ones that remain with me. As a father my role is both complicated and beautiful and I use the cowl and tartan as a method to express this American Father. I never grew up in the ‘hood but I have seen people wear them. The antagonist wears a cowl because I want to connect the religiosity to the violence in a sincere way. The violence of the Father can be explicit, oblique or complicit. And the tartan connects the Father to both European roots of the Scottish Klan and those of the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, where the Check originated.”
Summer Ventis – Held Breaths
The last year and a half has been one long held breath; a time of caution, of waiting, of restraint, of restriction and withdrawal. It has brought new hardships and magnified existing ones, but it has also forced us to find new ways to connect. The works in this exhibition are a meditation on the times in which we find ourselves. They are a way of externalizing and processing the tension and fear with which we live, and also a celebration of new forms of connection and communication that have emerged as a result of our separation from each other. I offer my held breath to you; I offer to hold your breath for a moment so that you might find a better way to breathe.
![Eliza Gregory – [Placeholder]](https://axisgallery.org/cmswebsite/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/show-imageAndTitle-365x365.jpg)
Eliza Gregory – [Placeholder]
A lot of amazing people are working on the theme of humans’ relationships to the places they live—the planet as a whole, and the micro-ecosystems of each home, thinking about how we relate to our neighborhoods and local environments. My work on this topic has begun with an investigation of the work of others, from looking over my colleague and co-teacher Doug Dertinger’s shoulder at his decades-long research into visualizing landscape, to reading the new book by Suzanne Simard about her research into forest intelligence, to speaking with my friends and neighbors about the plants they nurture and the creatures they observe on their farms and in their gardens. This exhibition is an invitation to you to enter this research alongside me, and it’s a question to you as well—what else should I look at? What else should I think about? How do you think about and engage with land, with your physical home? I’ll be in the gallery to hear your answers, paper and pens will be provided, or you can send me a message at info@elizagregory.com
Axis 16th National Juried Exhibition
Juror: Faith J McKinnie
Axis Gallery is pleased to feature Faith J McKinnie, independent curator based in Sacramento, as juror for our 16th National Juried Exhibition.
Kenna Doeringer – Anthem
At first we fear change but once we learn to accept it, we can welcome and embrace it. Sometimes an evolution needs to be forced, causing a crack to form in the facade we create to protect ourselves, and see the light to start to break through. The light promoted the growth, it fed it, nurtured it, and cultivated it allowing expansion and continued development never imagined possible. “Anthem” is a visual representation of breaking through the illusion, allowing oneself to grow freely, and sharing the light with others. Anthropomorphizing these emotions as a freely formed amorphous structure it allowed for the cracks and imperfections to be embraced and enhanced. The light increases as the composition grows, and verges on dominating the entire canvas.