MINDFIELD
Curated by Lawrence Rinder

Opening Reception: Saturday April 29, 6 – 9pm

Exhibition Dates: April 29 – June 3

Guerrero Gallery is proud to present Mindfield, the fifth exhibition featuring 15 artists, Ashwini Bhat, Kyle Ranson, Liz Walsh, Benji Whalen, Tom Ward, Anne McGuire, JPW3, Rosie Lee Tompkins, Cross & Lypka, DL Alvarez, Zach Harris, JD Green, Elana Cooper, Doug Sheran, and My Tong, curated by Lawrence Rinder.

Ashwini Bhat, My Body is Dirt, My Spirit is Space, Glazed Ceramic, Redwood Column and Thread , 46” x 12” x 10”, 2021 inquiries

Elana Cooper, Untitled, Ink on Paper, 44” x 33”, 2019

My Tong, Penguin 1, 2, and 3, Glazed Ceramic, 7.5” x 3.5” x3.5”

Tom Ward, Untitled, Gouche, Watercolor on Paper, 12” x 9”, 2022

JPW3, Super 4 Leaf, Oil on Panel, 48” x 36”, 2023 inquiries

DL Alvarez, The Human Mind, Colored Pencil & Graphite on Paper, 16.5” x 13”, 2023

Rosie Lee Tompkins, Untitled, Cotton, Polyester, 63” x 38”, 1980 inquiries

Liz Walsh, Friend?, Acrylic Paint, Silkscreen Ink, Acrylic & Wool Yarn, 20” x 18”, 2023 inquiries

Tyler Cross & Kyle Lypka, Tustin Thistle, Glazed Ceramic, 20.5” x 12” x 12.5”, 2023 inquiries

JD Green, Untitled, Ink, Watercolor on Paper, 20” x 16”, 2020 inquiries

Doug Sheran, Untitled, Acrylic Paint on Magazine Paper, 14” x 10”

Anne McGuire, Overactiveimaginationism II, Graphite & Watercolor on Paper, 33” x 33”, 2018 inquiries

Kyle Ranson, Ice Cream Cone, Acrylic on Cardstock, 24” x 18.5”, 2016 inquiries

Benji Whalen, Darkblind, Acrylic on Panel, 10” x 8”, 2022 inquiries

Zach Harris, Serpent, Oil on Linen over Panel, 26 x 33, 2022 inquiries

  Mindfield
Curated by Lawrence Rinder

Guerrero Gallery is proud to present Mindfield, a group exhibition curated by Lawrence Rinder. The exhibition considers how basic formal elements such as shape, line and color can evoke a vast array of psychological and mental states. From clay to textile, black and white drawings to brilliantly colored carved relief painting, the works within Mindfield veer between the bodily and cerebral, and from darkness to effervescence, portraying simultaneously the beauty and darkness of the human mind.

A quilt by the late Richmond CA based artist Rosie Lee Tompkins grounds the exhibition, somehow encompassing the wide ranging themes running through Mindfield into a single work. The untitled work finished in 1980 features a swath of softly hued fabric swatches, plaids butt up against florals, bits of pink, yellow, light blue, grass green and various shades of white are all sewn together in a densely patterned array that feels both expertly composed yet vibrating with an improvisational immediacy. Delving deeper into the backstory of the work, each strip of fabric was taken from the baby clothing of one of Tompkins’ children, the quilt in essence becoming a portrait of that child, bathed in the afterglow of youth and innocence, yet seen through the eyes of a loving mother, seven crosses rotate throughout the composition as an enduring symbol of blessing and protection.

Sharing an affinity for symbolism and expansive modes of abstraction that provide a kind of mental map of their maker are the works of Tom Ward, JPW3, Anne McGuire and Zach Harris. From his remote home studio in the upper reaches of California’s Surprise Valley, Tom Ward creates densely composed small watercolors that act as portals to another world. Combining landscape and figure with a stark palette, Ward’s works with staccato dashed brushwork resemble an explosion, both chaotic and cathartic simultaneously. Materially similar yet worlds apart in result are the works of San Francisco-based Anne McGuire, who creates intricately detailed graphite and watercolor works on paper. Painstakingly pre-determined, McGuire creates spiraling grid compositions in graphite that are then filled in with a spectral array of colors, creating a vibrating moire pattern that contrasts the tight organization of the grid. With a similar feel for optical play, yet pushing much deeper into psychedelic realms and varied surfaces are the sculptural paintings of Zach Harris. Using a mixture of low relief carving, illusionistic painting and varied subject matter, Harris’ paintings push into uncharted mental territories, belying the humble materiality of paint and wood. JPW3’s work “Super 4 Leaf” takes the symbol of luck in the four leaf clover, turning the emblem of providence and positivity in a much darker direction. Vertical streaks of color clash with black lines and a repeated line drawing of the clover in white layered over and over, the energetic sense of mark-making verging on desperation.

Whether through ceramic forms or drawings on paper, artists Tyler Cross and Kyle Lypka, Ashwini Bhat, My Tong and Elana Cooper create work that suggests bodily forms, leaving space for ambiguity and the mind of the viewer to fill in what’s not shown. Bay Area-based ceramicist Ashwini Bhat creates gestural ceramic forms imbued with movement and poetry. The artist’s work for the exhibition features a slumping, wrinkled ceramic form reaching for the heavens, its gentle folds glazed in iridescent blue and purple. The form sits atop a perfectly tapered redwood column itself once part of a larger body. Tyler Cross and Kyle Lypka’s ceramic works share similar concerns with those of Bhat, yet the results couldn’t be more different. The collaborative duo create hard-edged abstract forms whose swooping profiles resemble the human figure or a bizarre altarpiece. The work in the exhibition features a drippy flesh-like glaze punctuated by a suspended glaze drip that feels like a blood offering. Much like Cross and Lypka, San Francisco-based artist Elana Cooper creates high contrast ink drawings of flowers in profile, the floral outline completely filled in in black. The result is a ghostly image of a flower, the lone form both speaking to the body while resonating in a deeply creepy way. In a similar fashion, ceramicist My Tong creates vessels that are able to call forth different types of animals through subtle undulations in the clay and expert treatment of experimental glazing.

Moving further towards more realized types of figuration and portraiture, the works of Kyle Ranson, Liz Walsh, Benji Whalen, DL Alvarez, Doug Sheran and JD Green all collectively speak to and question the psychological and emotional connections between the artist and subject. Within Benji Whalen’s painting, flowing locks of emerald, gold, pink and blue hair are set against a deep black background. Fully encompassed in strands of multi-colored hair, serving as both a veil of protection and a means for self-expression, Whalen’s portrait of the artist’s adolescent child is created with an obvious sense of tenderness and admiration. Connecting to Whalen’s dreamlike likeness, is the work of Los Angeles-based artist Liz Walsh, who literally builds a visage from yarn pulled through a painting on canvas. The blocky and playful face looks back plainly at the viewer, sitting atop an abstract collection of brushstrokes, fields of mustard yellow and celestial purples lying behind. With a similar penchant for juxtaposition, DL Alvarez composes beautifully rendered drawings with imagery layered and collaged from high school yearbooks. Within the artist’s work for the show, psychedelic patterning and cartoon imagery all break ground as they fight for space, overlapping a seated figure. The late Doug Sheran treated source material in a similar manner, creating paintings in which he painted over the figures in fashion ads, both neutralizing the figure while heightening the mystery of who remains. With swooping lines and pared down materiality JD Green’s take on the figure yields a raw portraiture that vibrates with emotional resonance, connecting with the work of Tom Ward. And finally, Kyle Ranson creates dayglow paintings of melting faces and hallucinatory deterioration. The artist’s raw painting of a melting face laying horizontal–various iterations emerging and taking shape on staggered horizontal planes–speaks perfectly to the beauty and danger encapsulated within the Mindfield.