The Box presents Interior Castle, an exhibition of new films as well as stills from Los Angeles-based artist, Sarah Conaway. This is the artist’s third solo show with the gallery. An opening art party was held on December 2, 2023, from 5 – 8pm. The exhibition runs through February 3, 2024.

The Box Sarah Conaway

The exhibition lays out a progression of 10 single-reel Super 8 mm films projected on the walls of the gallery structured as stages of strangely observed meditations, with a series of 20 film stills installed in the interior room of the gallery.

Teresa of Avila, wrote The Interior Castle to attempt to share her path towards enlightenment. The book reveals a journey that must be taken inside ourselves, allowing access to what the mystic calls the “mansions of the mind.” Conaway invokes this structure to present ten film projections to allow entry into the mind. These filmic pilgrimages seek a glimpse of the sublime while other moments suggest a torpor or depression. Thus the artist inhabits a religious or esoteric disposition to interrogate the essence or structure of time, stillness, movement, revelation, and repetition.

Artwork by Sarah Conaway

Obliquely incorporating references to Maya Deren, Meshes of an Afternoon; Kenneth Anger, Puce Moment; Man Ray, Emak Bakia—the artist inhabits her own subtle surrealism and cosmology. A piece of coral and a ceramic vessel have been present in the artist’s works for some time, addressing a certain kind of symbolism present in the artist’s practice. The artist has sometimes described the coral as “the heart” or “the mind,” and the sliver-shaped vessel as “the eye.”

On view: December 2, 2023  –  February 3, 2024

What:  Interior Castle, Sarah Conaway
Where: The Box, 805 Traction Ave., LA, 90013
When: Running through February 3, 2024
Website: https://theboxla.com/

CLICK HERE for additional upcoming art exhibitions, as well as performances and foodie events.