Gavlak is pleased to present Chapel of the Moon, a solo exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Marnie Weber. The artist’s practice, which encompasses painting, collage, photography, video, sculpture, and performance art, often centers around a mythical cast of human, animal, and hybrid characters, who live in a world that exists somewhere between fantasy and reality. Her vivid and surreal theatrical works invite a deep and oftentimes dark exploration of the subconscious, giving voice to one’s inner turmoil and creating a place in which a person can act on their basic human instincts. Interested in the balance between light and darkness, good and evil, Weber creates characters that are constantly inhabited by and pulled between opposing forces.
The exhibition takes as its starting point the artist’s first feature length film, The Day of Forevermore. The film is a modern-day fairy tale about a young witch, Luna Crimson, who fights to find freedom from her overbearing and demented mother, whose role is played by Weber herself. Continuing where the film leaves off, Chapel of the Moon poses the question of what would happen to Luna Crimson if she finally escaped from Forevermore Acres.
The world that Luna Crimson wanders into is the set of a Pagan chapel, and Weber has transformed the gallery into the narrative, creating an ethereal mise-en-scène composed of gilded trees dripping with stained glass fragments, sculptural rocks that one may sit upon, an otherworldly soundscape and video projection, and the costumes of characters from her film. Hung as a triptych, three large-scale collages feature morphed Pagan icons: an angel, an owl with a human’s face, and a satyr connoting the devil. With a nod to the traditional imagery associated with a church, these collages are composed of scanned images of stained glass, and each work is displayed in a gilded frame. The carefully constructed room construes the chapel itself, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the narrative and engage all of their senses in their surrounding environment.
In the adjacent galleries, a series of smaller collaged works on paper expand upon imagery found in Forevermore. Grounded in the natural world, figures emerge from baskets of fruit, moody clouds and autumnal leaves, alluding to the exquisite yet foreboding motifs from the film. In addition, The Day of Forevermore will be screened in its entirety, enabling visitors to experience the full narrative breadth of the exhibition.
Marnie Weber was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Weber has had solo shows, video screenings, and performances throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe. A Retrospective of Weber’s work was most recently on view at the Musée d'art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCO) in Geneva, Switzerland (2016). She has had solo exhibitions at notable institutions, including the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA (2015); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2011); and the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI (1997). Her work is included in the permanent collection of numerous institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.
A reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, September 17 from 6-8pm.
For more information concerning the exhibition, please contact Lauren Wood at lauren@gavlakgallery.com, or (323) 467-5700.
