Jessica Silverman is delighted to present "Here We Go," a solo show by Clare Rojas, the California artist best known for her magic realist and otherworldly abstract paintings.
"Here We Go" is the gallery's first in-real-life exhibition in over a year; it marks the soft opening of an almost completely renovated, new gallery space at 621 Grant Avenue (between Sacramento and California Street).
Here We Go also happens to be the title of the painting above, an emblematic manifesto that depicts the dance of four corvids, highly intelligent birds capable of using tools and recognizing human faces. The acrylic-on-panel work bears witness to Rojas's superstitious Peruvian heritage, her interest in animal neuroscience, and her deep concern for the environment. This complex choreography of black birds around a yawning red void and blue moon suggests coupling and copulation, sickness and health, snares and freedom, death and re-birth.
Below are two recently completed, small canvases that reveal Rojas as a dazzling colorist, who is not afraid of narrative, even in the ancient classical form of a journey. My Dream Home winks warmly at the California landscapes of Wayne Thiebaud and David Hockney, while Rainbow Path reflects the fact that the the yellow brick road of San Francisco is queerly multi-color.
"Here We Go," the show, is a virtuoso display of Rojas's formal and spiritual evolution in oil on linen and acrylic on panel. Her distinct style of high-folk, figurative-abstract art enlivens art history and elevates popular culture.