Downtown Los Angeles-based contemporary art gallery Track 16 presents Atmospheric Pressures, a solo exhibition of works by Alicia Piller (Art MFA 19) running Jan. 29–March 12. An opening reception kicks off on Saturday, Jan. 29 from 5 to 9 pm PST.
Featuring 16 of Piller’s sculptural works, Atmospheric Pressures is categorized across three sections: “views from above ground,” “views looking out to the horizon,” and “views from above earth.” The textured multimedia pieces are constructed from materials like vinyl, latex, geode slices, plastic, and glass beads in order to investigate “uncertainty amid disintegrating ecological and political systems.” More about the exhibition from Track 16:
This material exploration is a poetic look at our obsessive need to check news, both the weather forecast and shifting political climates, in an attempt to establish some level of control over the future. Raw materials, curated objects, and news clippings fuse together to capture the unpredictable energy of the Western world. Sculptural works become a part of a fragmented mirror, capturing the convergence of environmental and societal disintegration, while simultaneously allowing this space created for uncertainty to become a catalyst forward, a glimpse into landscapes of growth, hope, new weather, new environments.
Among the works in the “views from above ground” section is Warming Earth Plagued. Party Systems—an amalgam of Manjaadi Kuru seeds, glass beads, plastic, and palm fronds to represent decay and the encroachment of clustered forms upon “old systems.” This and the other displayed sculptures evoke a sense of chaos and disruption reminiscent of climate disasters and deep-seated political divides, yet also offer an optimistic glance at possible futures and new growth.
“My enveloping sculptures and installations expand out, to actualize singular systems that feel equally familiar and foreign,” said Piller. “The construction of each work becoming a biological unfolding of time that examines the energy around wounds left by historical traumas.”
Piller is a Los Angeles-based artist whose microscopal exploration of past atrocities, suffering, and accomplishments manifest in biological forms “broken down to a cellular level.” Her works are included in the Hammer Permanent Collection, Glendale College Collection, Forrest Kirk Collection, and the Pam Royalle Collection.
Track 16 is open Wednesdays to Saturdays from 12-6 pm.
