Alac
Odessa Straub ALAC
January 25, 2018-January 28, 2018
ART LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY THE BARKER HANGER BOOTH B5
September is pleased to present Migrating Contents, new works by Brooklyn-based artist Odessa Straub at ALAC, 2018. Odessa’s solo presentation will include mixed media paintings, freestanding sculptures, and an installation of works on paper. Bold materials including leather, velvet, fur, rope, and vinyl, play significant roles in her practice.
At first take, Odessa’s works look wildly different. Each has a distinctive palette, specific textures, and particular arrangements. Yet as her body of work is viewed as a whole, similar shape-shifting forms traverse compositions, relational exchanges shadow one another, and their mysteriousness is matched.
Odessa’s dexterity is evident in the versatility of her decisions, the sum of which coalesces into a singular, recognizable style that grows familiar. Her works are governed by deliberate self-instruction, yet act as subconscious iterations of her psyche.
These are dreamscapes where density and levity coincide, where opacity and transparency overlap, where sharpness and haziness transect. Amorphous forms hover within groundless environments. Glowing orbs pulse through foggy atmospheres. Jostling figures are cloaked in distinctive textures, self-possessed.
The set of circumstances within each work are left unscripted for the viewer. Odessa invites us to play with dangling parts, to improvise with fleshy moods. She leads us between split passages, into dark rooms, past devilish creatures, through raised windows, and out with meandering megaliths. To guide us, Odessa extracts mash-up titles that read like a dangerous interactive theatre. Do we dare?
Corner devils Ear devils Crumb devils Scrunched devils There’s a bucket filled with its flesh. There’s a window high up by the ceiling, a view of a wall and a narrow air shaft to the sky.
Your contents want out the window
ODESSA STRAUB (b. 1989, Brooklyn, NY) graduated with a BFA from The Cooper Union (2013). Odessa’s solo exhibitions include, Tennis Elbow, The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2017); Real Puss Technologies, SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY (2017); Tears in Housebreaking Letting the Gold, Acappella, Napoli, Italy (2016); Necrotizing Woos, Jeffrey Stark, New York, NY (2016); Seasonings on Precipice Perception, Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2015); Odessa Straub, NADA, NY (2017). Two-person exhibitions include, Viewing Room: Agathe Snow and Odessa Straub, Marlborough Contemporary, Chelsea, NY (2017). Recent group exhibitions include, That’s The Neighbor, Always Dressing These Boulders In The Yard, The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York, NY (2014); Present Conditional, Mier, Los Angeles, CA (2015); Perfect Present: Three Generations of Painting, Jeffrey Stark, New York, NY (2015); Fresh Cuts, Eric Firestone, Hamptons, NY (2016); Blue Jean Baby, SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY (2016); Summerfest, Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany (2017). Odessa Straub lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Image: ODESSA STRAUB, Devil Shade Back, 2017, acrylic on panel, 48 x 36 inches (122 x 91.5 cm)
January 25, 2018-January 28, 2018
ART LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY THE BARKER HANGER BOOTH B5
September is pleased to present Migrating Contents, new works by Brooklyn-based artist Odessa Straub at ALAC, 2018. Odessa’s solo presentation will include mixed media paintings, freestanding sculptures, and an installation of works on paper. Bold materials including leather, velvet, fur, rope, and vinyl, play significant roles in her practice.
At first take, Odessa’s works look wildly different. Each has a distinctive palette, specific textures, and particular arrangements. Yet as her body of work is viewed as a whole, similar shape-shifting forms traverse compositions, relational exchanges shadow one another, and their mysteriousness is matched.
Odessa’s dexterity is evident in the versatility of her decisions, the sum of which coalesces into a singular, recognizable style that grows familiar. Her works are governed by deliberate self-instruction, yet act as subconscious iterations of her psyche.
These are dreamscapes where density and levity coincide, where opacity and transparency overlap, where sharpness and haziness transect. Amorphous forms hover within groundless environments. Glowing orbs pulse through foggy atmospheres. Jostling figures are cloaked in distinctive textures, self-possessed.
The set of circumstances within each work are left unscripted for the viewer. Odessa invites us to play with dangling parts, to improvise with fleshy moods. She leads us between split passages, into dark rooms, past devilish creatures, through raised windows, and out with meandering megaliths. To guide us, Odessa extracts mash-up titles that read like a dangerous interactive theatre. Do we dare?
Corner devils Ear devils Crumb devils Scrunched devils There’s a bucket filled with its flesh. There’s a window high up by the ceiling, a view of a wall and a narrow air shaft to the sky.
Your contents want out the window
ODESSA STRAUB (b. 1989, Brooklyn, NY) graduated with a BFA from The Cooper Union (2013). Odessa’s solo exhibitions include, Tennis Elbow, The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2017); Real Puss Technologies, SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY (2017); Tears in Housebreaking Letting the Gold, Acappella, Napoli, Italy (2016); Necrotizing Woos, Jeffrey Stark, New York, NY (2016); Seasonings on Precipice Perception, Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2015); Odessa Straub, NADA, NY (2017). Two-person exhibitions include, Viewing Room: Agathe Snow and Odessa Straub, Marlborough Contemporary, Chelsea, NY (2017). Recent group exhibitions include, That’s The Neighbor, Always Dressing These Boulders In The Yard, The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York, NY (2014); Present Conditional, Mier, Los Angeles, CA (2015); Perfect Present: Three Generations of Painting, Jeffrey Stark, New York, NY (2015); Fresh Cuts, Eric Firestone, Hamptons, NY (2016); Blue Jean Baby, SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY (2016); Summerfest, Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany (2017). Odessa Straub lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Image: ODESSA STRAUB, Devil Shade Back, 2017, acrylic on panel, 48 x 36 inches (122 x 91.5 cm)
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