Jeana Sohn has three new paintings in a group exhibition at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton, NY on view through September 6.

Galerie Carlos Cardenas is currently exhibiting new ink and watercolor pieces by Kyle Field as part of Stereo Notes: Kyle Field and David Ivar Herman Dune. On view through July 17.

Charlene Liu’s solo exhibition Fugue recently opened at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon. The series of new works on paper will be on view through July 31. From the Press Release:

The title of the exhibition, Fugue, refers to Liu’s constant repetition of certain forms, motifs, and patterns. Particular visual ideas from past works are woven together, altered and re-sampled, until awareness and a sense of place are lost, provoking a feeling of disorientation. The works hold the viewer in transitory moments; they often refer to abstracted natural landscapes, and the transitional state between growth and decay.

I’m a sucker for a storyline involving a protagonist’s search for identity across generations and distant lands. More often than not this fascination is satisfied by reading a novel or watching a film, maybe listening to a three-verse country song. It’s not often that such a sprawling narrative emerges from within a work of art, but such is the case with the series of photographs by San Francisco-based artist Danielle Nelson Mourning in her debut solo exhibition at Taylor De Cordoba Gallery in Culver City.

Homecoming presents large-scale ink jet prints of the artist’s pilgrimage across the country and the Atlantic to understand herself and her ancestry. This is no documentary, though; Mourning has visited old family homes in Marks, Mississippi and Niagara Falls, New York to make self-portraits in which the self is more fictional than real. She assumes the dress and style of domestic women from decades past, recalling in part Cindy Sherman’s Complete Untitled Film Stills, though in a decidedly less aggressive way. Mourning goes to Ireland as well to recreate haunting scenes of life during the potato famine of 1845. The work is endearing in its earnest investigation of family history and self, and in its multidimensional presentation of women of certain eras and of domestic life. It seems to be an intensely personal practice, as if the project would mean as much to the artist regardless of whether it had an audience. Sometimes work comes across as so prepared for an audience that there is a paucity of the artist’s own identity, but there’s none of that here.

Click HERE to see the full article.

Gallery owner Heather Taylor is featured as a “Tastemaker” in 944 Magazine’s annual May Picks issue. Read her interview below:

Danielle Nelson Mourning: Homecoming

May 22 – June 26, 2010

Taylor De Cordoba is proud to present Homecoming, photographs and film by San Francisco-based artist Danielle Nelson Mourning. The exhibition will run from May 22 – June 26, 2010, with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, May 22 from 6 – 8PM.

For the artist’s solo debut at Taylor De Cordoba, Mourning will exhibit films and strikingly vivid ink jet photographs taken in areas laden with her family history. Traveling between Niagara Falls, New York and Marks, Mississippi the artist staged a series of primarily self-portraits wherein she slips in and out of the homes, attire and settings of her relatives. A desire to surround herself with family lore, which she had only seen in snapshots and heard in oft-repeated stories, motivated her desire to recreate/create this history. The resulting photographs inhabit an eerie space between real and fake. She plays many characters: a 1950s housewife; a1960s wife on the eve of the sexual revolution; and a 1970s liberated woman, with the mood moving from Alfred Hitchcock to John Cassavetes and back again. While at first glance it appears as though the photographs were taken during those past eras, there is something knowing in the artist’s eye, or perhaps her stance, that reminds viewers of the current historical moment.

The work goes deeper in the series of images Mourning staged in Ireland, an interpretation of her Irish ancestry during the potato famine of 1845. Here, she dresses in attire from the day and situates herself in the landscape of her ancestors. This became a psychological experience for the artist, who felt the boundaries between past and personal history eroding.

Alongside the photographs, the gallery will be exhibiting the artist’s intimate 8mm film, made on location in New York and Mississippi. The photographs come to life here, as the viewer recognizes Mourning’s characters moving about perfectly manicured rooms and landscapes. She complements the moving images with a soundtrack of taped conversations with her grandmother. The resulting effect is strange, haunting and timeless.

Chris Natrop: myopic spring tangle

April 10 – May 15, 2010

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present myopic spring tangle, a multi-media installation by Los Angeles-based artist Chris Natrop. The exhibition will open on Saturday April 10 and will remain on view through May 15, 2010. This is the artist’s solo debut at the gallery.

As opposed to Natrop’s previous and more immersive installations, myopic spring tangle is comprised of discrete works of art interrelating as a whole.  While utilizing the existing gallery architecture, the artist employs myriad techniques and uses varied materials to transform the space into a unique environment. In one area, hand-cut pieces of paper painted with watercolor hang from the ceiling in a cluster. Illuminated by small fluorescent tube fixtures with colored gel overlays. This work is “tangled” with colored thread, which travels through the gallery rafters. There are also several framed cut paper pieces, which are the most detailed and precise the artist has completed to date, due in part to powerful reading glasses worn while working. The glasses kept him in a “myopic state,” which allowed him to obsessively subdivide forms to the point at which the physicality of the paper was pushed to it’s structural limit. The exhibit’s final facet is a series of mirrored wall panels, both hyper-detailed and resembling a kaleidoscopic ink blot test. Natrop incorporates other atmospheric details – mirrored Mylar sheet window coverings and a multi-faceted lighting scheme – which highlight the exhibit’s three main components, all connecting to form a free flowing narrative.

For this body of work, Natrop found inspiration in Los Angeles, and specifically it’s river. As it traverses the city, the river is funneled into a narrow concrete channel built for the sole purpose of controlling seasonal flooding. It is a space both forgotten and unseen, filled with elements both natural and manmade. For the artist, it is a place where the essential character of man’s relationship with nature is concentrated and distilled: “Swaths of urban detritus carried by the runoff become ensnared in the tangle of wildlife. Frayed shopping bags, tangled nylon string, shredded clothing, strips of printed-matter festoon the leaf-stripped branches, jetsam flapping in the breeze like Tibetan prayer flags.”

While deliberately ambiguous in it’s narrative, the work aims to reveal a sense of “natural meddling gone awry” while also engaging with the viewer on a psychological level. In the mirrored wall relief, the viewer is faced with their own reflection in a “Rorschach” pattern that their mind seeks to understand, decode and decipher. The use of lighting commonly found in clandestine indoor growing operations adds to the sense of a space that is both natural and artificial, beautiful and unsettling.