Loop Melody | Rachel Kaye and Alexander Kori Girard

With foreground and background largely erased, each artist leaves it to the viewer to choose the topsy-turvy direction. Here's one storyline. Here's another. Here's an endless number of storylines vibrating on the surface. Kaye's granular drawings are seasonal, even hourly, depictions of light and intimacy. They blanch in the yellow California summer. They fold in, purple and blue, at twilight. The borders disappear as her shapes meander across one another, building conversational layer upon layer.

While this close-ness is front and center in Kaye's waxy colored pencil drawings, Girard's series of 'groundless' paintings and collage work retain an anthropologic distance. They look in on a make-believe landscape of make-believe palm fronds and make-believe humans. They push the limits of restraint in color, focusing on the stark contrast between black and white. Precise as woodblocks, Girard's paintings nod to the design work of his legendary grandfather, Alexander Girard, but they refuse to be still, vibrating in a jubilant song and dance.

Johansson Projects is a contemporary art gallery based in Oakland, CA

2300 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland CA 94612

This release was published on openPR.