ART PICK: JOY RAY AND SAMUELLE RICHARDSON: BEYOND/WITHIN

Falling James, LA WEEKLY, September 19, 2019
“I imagine my work as artifacts discovered by a future archaeologist, clues to an unknown civilization,” Joy Ray offers in her bio. The Hawaiian artist plants enigmatic clues in her mixed-media artifacts, coiling flowery, sinuous strands of twine against an abstract but evocative and haunting collision of black and white paint and burying hints of letters, words and other attempts and vestiges of communication under a seemingly random splatter of entropic plaster.

 

Joy Ray, “Talisman: Dream Siege” (Launch LA)

Curated by Lancaster MOAH’s Andi Campognone, the two-person Beyond/Within exhibition also features Samuelle Richardson’s rough-hewn cloth sculptures of disembodied heads and wire-legged, squawking birds spliced up with scar-like stitches. “Influences are numerous and come from sources that strike me as vulnerable and off-guard,” the local artist writes, imagining a world of Nature’s revenge.

Launch LA, 170 S. La Brea Ave., Miracle Mile; Opening Reception: Sat., Sept. 7, 6-9 p.m.; Exhibition continues through Sat., Sept. 28; free. (323) 899-1363, launchla.org.

Samuelle Richardson (Launch LA)