Was It A Car Or A Cat I Saw?

Group Exhibition

Featured Artists: Higinio Martinez, DL Alvarez, Daniel Albrigo, Joe Roberts, JPW3, Willbert Olivar & Lalo Avila, Grant Gutierrez, Laura Figa, Aaron Douglas Estrada, Steve Powers, Orion Shepherd, Ariel Parrow, Kayla Mattes, Cate White, Nick Makanna

February 21st - March 28th

Was It A Car Or A Cat I Saw | Installation View

ds to the dissonance, unease and instability of the present moment. Featuring artists DL Alvarez, Daniel Albrigo, Aaron Douglas Estrada, Laura Figa, Grant Gutierrez, Nick Makanna, Higinio Martinez, Kayla Mattes, Willbert Olivar & Lalo Avila, Ariel Parrow, Steve Powers, Joe Roberts, Orion Shepherd, JPW3 and Cate White, the collected works excavate meaning, legibility, obfuscation and contemporary anxiety through a rich mixture of materials, techniques and conceptual approaches.

The tone for the exhibition is set through a 2018 work by Kayla Mattes, a seemingly innocuous fire alarm box that sits on the gallery’s left wall as a viewer enters the space. Spilling forth from this readymade emergency contraption is a ribbon of digitally printed velvet that trails all the way to the ground with the repeating words “indelible in the Hippocampus is the laughter”, a quote from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s groundbreaking 2018 testimony of sexual assault perpetrated by then Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The fact that this gigantic moment, which of course acted as no impediment to the eventual appointment of the Justice, was a mere 8 years ago is striking given all that has transpired since, and devoid of its original context, the anxiety in this repeating mantra echoes the dread and fear that so many are feeling right now.

Bringing this sentiment into the present is Aaron Douglas Estrada’s, “Designer Water, No Ice”. The mixed media sculpture is composed of a transparent 5 gallon agua fresca container holding a bootleg Hermes Birkin bag made by the artist and emblazoned with the words “Fuck ICE”, all suspended in a water-like resin. The layered work is both an urgent call to action and a slower meditation on the unhinged brutality of this moment against immigrant communities and longer lineages of colonial and settler violence upon indigenous people at large. Using language in a similar yet more playful sentiment are the graphic works by signpainter, muralist and artist Steve Powers, with one showing the earth careening down a freeway towards a dumpster fire with an alternate path veering to the right and the words “THIS IS OUR EXIT” emblazoned in enamel on metal. A similarly playful yet dread filled smaller painting by the duo known as “Terror Supply” aka Willbert Olivar & Lalo Avila, hangs high up on the wall depicting a witch barricaded by a green window frame. Next to it is the largest work in the exhibition, a sprawling painting depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse amongst a barren and volcano riddled desert landscape. The richly textured surface which includes acrylic, latex, glitter, pumice and collage on canvas is reminiscent of some of the hellscapes of Hieronymus Bosch with all their detail and various characters roaming around, yet the humor and pathos that the artist embeds in her brushy works is a quality all her own. Placed on either side of White’s works are ceramic sculptures by Nick Makanna, which evoke architectural ruins, covered in a black underglaze and a flaking white glaze that resembles barnacles or lichen, set atop bony stools that feel on the brink of collapse.

Was It A Car Or A Cat I Saw | Installation View

And while many of the works in the show speak directly or indirectly to a pressing sense of unease spurred by our reality verging on nightmare, others revel in varying degrees of legibility, exploring the ways in which information or misinformation are transmitted. Laura Figa’s paper works which are comprised of graphite on erased pigment prints are exercises in our inherent desire and capacity to interpret imagery. Titled simply “Brawler I” and “Brawler IV” the 8 x 8 inch works on paper depict bodies intertwined, yet the airiness and fragmented information yields a variety of possibilities from violent altercations to intimate acts. A large painting by JPW3 within the back room of the gallery plays with a similar kind of wispy layering, but through the fog and gestural marks, there emerges a reaper figure and the words “Shall We Play A Game”, an eerie quote referencing the prescient 1983 film involving a hacker, military AI and a simulated thermonuclear war that nearly starts the real thing. Playing off of this geopolitical bend are bold Flashe vinyl paint and acrylic on panel works by Orion Shepherd, which resemble two bright red stop signs each emblazoned with a geographical rendering of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, with the equally punchy corresponding titles “Stop the West” and “Stop the East”, exploring the power of symbols and how their combinations both compound and compress meaning. Works by Ariel Parrow and DL Alvarez both take a similar approach to layering imagery creating unforeseen narratives through the collision of disparate sources. Paintings by Higinio Martinez and a photo by Grant Gutierrez both explore more atmospheric spaces–with Gutierrez creating a moody scene set on a highway, and Martinez calling forth a landscape with a mysterious monolith set within a barren landscape or Pre-Columbian jade carvings.

And despite the heaviness and uncertainty that presides through much of the exhibition, works by Daniel Albrigo and Joe Roberts also point to some light through the fog and darkness. Albrigo’s sumptuous and painstakingly accurate rendering of a rose painted in tones of pink black and grey, harkens back to the classical trope of floral still life, which then and still now act as a reminder to appreciate life and fleeting beauty before its inevitable decay. Two smaller works by Joe Roberts carry a similarly dark yet uplifting message. A panel on the left features row upon row of crosses in a graveyard as seen upon a starry night, while the panel on the left is shown in brilliant daylight, and features quite possibly the same field absolutely covered in brilliantly colored wildflowers–another reminder that much after our marks upon the world have faded, the earth will remain and each spring shall sprout anew.

Laura Figa, Brawlers I, 2025, Graphite on erased pigment print on paper, 8 x 8 in.

Laura Figa, Brawlers IV, 2026, Graphite on erased pigment print on paper, 8 x 8 in.

Grant Gutierrez, Skull Highway, 2026, 35mm Film Negative - Archival Inkjet Print, 24 x 16 in., 1 out of 5

DL Alvarez, Piss Elegant, 2026, Graphite on paper, 36 x 23 in.

Daniel Albrigo, Untitled, 2025, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in.

Aaron Douglas Estrada, Designer Water, No Ice, 2026, DIY Hermes Birkin, reusable plastic, string, resin, metal hardware, and 5 gallon agua fresca container, 21 x 10 x 10 in.