In Beverly Hills…M+B presents two exhibitions at two of its gallery spaces. “an introduction to s/heness society“ is an exhibition of new works by Shanna Waddell opening at the 612 N. Almont Drive location. While “The Quads,” an exhibition of new works by Elmer Guevara will debut at M+B Doheny (470 N. Doheny Drive). These shows opened on April 9, 2022 and will run through May 14, 2022.
“an introduction to s/heness society“ is the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. Welcome to s/heness society. Shanna Waddell invites you into the initial exhibition of her flourishing world, brimming with lush color, sumptuous gardens, awe-inspiring coastal scenes, and ethereal feminine figures.
This solo exhibition debuts Waddell’s new project in world-building through a series of works that depicts a self-sustaining flower farm artist commune. Waddell’s paintings demonstrate a fantastical otherworld, one that is both whimsical and utterly alluring, thrusting us into an imagined utopian artist commune. Across the canvases, Waddell chronicles the day-to-day enterprises of her artist collective: flower-farming, plein-air moonset painting, gathering supplies, utilizing the community wagons, and generally existing in a state of tranquility.
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At its Doheny Drive location…“The Quads” is Guevara’s first solo show with the gallery. The artist’s paintings explore the relationships between urban space and familial history, individual memory and collective narrative. Vibrant scenes simmer with a sense of intimate detail, glimmers of affection and pain condensing in the crevices of doorways and blacktop playgrounds. Guevara takes ‘90s family photographs as his source material, collaging snapshots of private history into dense webs of dialogue. Disparate familial signifiers collide within the frame of a single canvas, creating an air of sampled layering, individual motifs and impressions reworking each other into a single, unified hum. Each canvas is a container. Clear backpacks, bottles, and living rooms become repeated empty vessels, populated by ever flowing streams of personal iconography. Guevara often employs tattoo transfer paper during the arrangement of his scenes, further extending the metaphor of containment and repeat transfer to the production of each work itself. Large-scale narrative structures are given shape through the inclusion of idiosyncratic detail, and vice versa – macro history and micro experience riff off each other, their tension producing a fertile ground of identity formation.
Both shows on view: April 9 – May 14, 2022
What: Two Exhibitions, Two Galleries
Where: M+B, 612 N Almont Drive, LA; M+B, 470 N Doheny Drive, LA
Website: https://www.mbart.com
