Summoning

SUMMONING

November 23, 2024 - January 25, 2025 Artists Reception, December 7 | 5-7PM

SUMMONING

November 23, 2024 - January 25, 2025 Artists Reception, December 7 | 5-7PM Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition Summoning with work by Dawoud Bey, Sydney Cain, Jonathan Calm, Rodney Ewing, Rupert Garcia, Doug Hall, Oliver Lee Jackson, Hung Liu, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Robert Minervini, Tracey Moffatt, Viviana Paredes, Rose Piper, and Lava Thomas.

Spanning a variety of media – painting, photography, works on paper, and sculpture – this exhibition highlights how art can be used as a tool for evocation. The artists included commune with past and future, often summoning spirits to the present through their powerful work.

We introduce the large, newly published tapestry by Amalia Mesa-Bains Sleeping Nun, a portrayal of the monjas coronadas (“crowned nuns”) of 18th and 19th century colonial Mexico. The families of these nuns made donations to the church to protect and sequester their daughters, much like a marriage dowry, and Mesa-Bains alludes to the complexity of women’s roles by layering in a female medical doll. Also included are dancing Calaveras, perhaps alluding to the women achieving freedom in death.

Viviana Paredes’ sculptural work on view – a pair of glass hands holding a string of prayer beads – references a well-known, Mazatec healer Maria Sabina. Sabina used ritual of song, poetry, chanting, and incantation during sacred mushroom ceremonies. By invoking Sabina, Peredes posits there are invisible forces and the existence of things greater than ourselves.

Hung Liu’s dialog with the past is at the foundation of her oeuvre, reimagining historical photographs as paintings and memorializing the extraordinary stories of ordinary people. New works on paper from Sydney Cain continue an exploration of ancestral communing as shadowy, enigmatic figures gather in other-worldly realms. Dawoud Bey’s large scale, black and white photographic series In This Here Place uses images of southern plantations as a narrative starting point to consider how the land holds memory; his images become portraits without people, suggesting that the stories of those who existed in these places are ever-present.

Installation view, 2024, Rena Bransten Gallery. Photo credit: John Janca

Installation view, 2024, Rena Bransten Gallery. Photo credit: John Janca

Installation view, 2024, Rena Bransten Gallery. Photo credit: John Janca

Installation view, 2024, Rena Bransten Gallery. Photo credit: John Janca

Oliver Lee Jackson No. 10, 2015 (8.21.15), 2015 Oil-based paints, mixed media on panel 97 x 74 inches (framed) $120,000

Jonathan Calm Double Vision (Underground) 2020 Archival pigment print 46 3/4 x 56 1/2 inches (framed) Edition of 6 $11,000

Sydney Cain OTA (PROCESSION I), 2024 Acrylic, magnetite, steel, pigment, soft pastel on paper 74 x 72 inches SOLD

Lava Thomas I Walk in the Light of My Ancestors’ Prayers, 2024 Altered tambourines, pyrographic calligraphy on metallic leather, mirrored acrylic disks, grosgrain ribbon 59 1/2 x 115 1/4 x 2 inches $32,000

Lava Thomas I Walk in the Light of My Ancestors’ Prayers, 2024 (detail)

Dawoud Bey In This Here Place: Tall Grass, Fence and Cabin, 2019 Gelatin silver print 49 1/4 x 60 inches (framed) Edition of 6 $47,000

Dawoud Bey In This Here Place: Mississippi River and Trees, 2019 Gelatin silver print 49 1/4 x 60 inches (framed) Edition of 6 $47,000

Rodney Ewing Home, 2018 Recycled wood on panel (diptych) 25 x 111 x 3 1/2 inches $8,500

Hung Liu Alterpiece, 1992 Oil on canvas in wood frame, box with silk shoes, imitation jade flowers 25 x 15 x 8 inches $120,000

Rupert Garcia La Xochitl IV Tapestry, 2003 Hand painted tapestry 82 x 82 inches Edition of 5 $33,000

Robert Minervini Monumental, 2016 Acrylic on canvas 68 x 72 inches $18,000

Tracey Moffatt Invocations (7), 2000 Photo-silkscreen printed in ultra violet inks 45 1/4 x 40 1/4 inches (framed) $14,000

Tracey Moffatt Invocations (11), 2000 Photo-silkscreen printed in ultra violet inks 60 x 50 inches (framed) $17,500

Doug Hall Olompali Valley Oak I, 2023 Pigment print, wall text 48 1/2 x 78 1/2 inches (framed) *dimensions include wall text Edition of 6 $10,000

Amalia Mesa-Bains Sleeping Nun in Venus Envy Chapter III: Cihuatlampa, The Place of the Giant Women, 1997-2024 Jacquard tapestry 57 x 70 inches Edition of 3 $30,000

Oliver Lee Jackson Painting No. 8, 2022 (11.2.22), 2022 Oil-based paints, colored pencils on panel 25 1/2 x 25 1/2 inches (framed) $40,000

Viviana Paredes Everywhere / nowhere, 2018 Cast glass, ceramic beads, steel plate Sculpture: 6 x 13 x 10 inches Steel plate: 15 x 13 x 1/4 inches $20,000

Lava Thomas Looking Back IV, 2021 Graphite, conte pencil, watercolor on paper 37 3/4 x 40 3/4 inches (framed) $40,000

Lava Thomas Looking Back III, 2017 Graphite, conte pencil, watercolor on paper 37 3/4 x 40 3/4 inches (framed) $40,000

Rodney Ewing Within / Without, 2020 Hand colored silkscreen on vintage ledger paper 38 ¾ x 37 ¼ inches SOLD

Rodney Ewing Haints No. 3, 2020 Hand colored silkscreen on vintage ledger paper 34 3/4 x 24 3/4 inches $7,500

Rose Piper I want my sisters to go with me to feast on that heavenly manna Date unknown Painting 17 1/4 x 14 1/8 x 3/4 inches (framed) SOLD