of the world
Sydney Acosta & Luz Carabaño

When I look at Luz’s paintings I get drawn into contradictions. A space so intimate yet distant. A place of this world yet fabricated. An unsettled image settling, nestling purposefully into its objectness, edges and all. The imagery - en vuelo - entre mares - pastura - horizonte - like a tanka poem, relays a memory I would carry along with me after walking through a familiar place, lifting a pattern, a plant and a symbol from the neighborhood. These little works are dense like clay, wet and cool. They look back at me with rippling eyes. I’m fascinated by their rigorous and clear identity to exist as a made thing. They carry an internal pressure towards harmony and towards precision wherein what is depicted, a conscious atmosphere, gets subsumed by the material process and vice versa, again and again and again. It creates a looping dialog internal to the work - a noisy argument actually - masked by softness.    Sydney Acosta

THE THINGS OF THE WORLD

Wherever the eye lingers

it finds a hunger.

The things of the world

want us for dinner.

Inside each pebble or leaf

or puddle is a hook.

The appetites of the world

compete to catch a look.

What does this mean

and how does it work?

Why aren't rocks complete?

Why isn't green adequate

to green? We aren't gods

whose gaze could save,

but that's how the things

of the world behave.

Kay Ryan 

There is an inner force within each of Sydney’s images, a force that consumes, transforms, and shifts the ground. Sydney’s drawings and paintings trace a history that has been digested and released, a personal history that has been veiled. It can be sensed but not quite seen. The works orchestrate a retelling that is earnest, careful, thoughtful, and free. Moments of rupture and growth pierce and distort the images. There’s a quickness to the hand, direct and gestural, when the image tears. A stillness contains the storm. These are not images for casual viewing. They are charged, boiling, accompanied by anchoring moments - the resting hand, the folding body. Each image collapses time and emotion, the building pressure finds release. We are left to wonder what remains when the stirring has occurred. What resides within and spurts out?    Luz Carabaño

Sydney Acosta (b. 1987, Yanaguana, aka San Antonio, Texas) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Sydney received her BA from California State Univesity, Sacramento ('15), and her MFA from University of California, Los Angeles ('21). She was the the recipient of the Helen Frankethaler Painting Award. Forthcoming exhibitions include Onsen Confidential with Kristina Kite Gallery, hosted by Aoyama, Meguro, Tokyo ('22); The Death of Beauty, Sargent's Daughter, Los Angeles, CA ('22).

Luz Carabaño (b.1995, Maracay, Venezuela) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Luz received her BA from New York University ('16), and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles ('22). She was the the recipient of the Helen Frankethaler Painting Award. Recent group exhibitions include A Minor Constellation at Chris Sharp, Los Angeles, CA ('22); Those Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer at Make Room, Los Angeles, CA ('22); and a solo exhibition at april april, Brooklyn, New York ('22).