Nina Johnson is proud to present Darién Gap, an exhibition of new paintings by Eamon Ore-Giron, opening on December 2nd with a public reception (7-9pm), and remaining on view through January 4th, 2015. Named after the thin strip of land that runs between Panama and Colombia, the exhibition situates the viewer within a history that stretches from European abstraction to the visual culture of pre-Columbian Peru. Much as the Darién Gap links North and South America while acting as a cultural bottleneck between the two continents, this exhibition finds Ore-Giron examining the art historical legacies of the Global South and those of the Western canon side by side. The paintings in this exhibition are the result of a transnational and transcultural approach to seeing and making. Ore Giron’s practice has been one of exploration and excavation, of bending time in such a way that the past floats to the present and the historical and contemporary find themselves in direct dialogue.
The works in Darién Gap are part of the continuing series Infinite Regress. Using flashe paint on raw linen, Ore-Giron fuses the visual traits of Peruvian goldwork with the refined geometry of Constructivism and hard-edged abstraction. The compositions seem to float above the substrate’s natural weave, offering a meditative, hallucinatory convergence of different eras and cultures. In the gallery, eight paintings surround the viewer to form a vista. With their forced two-point perspective vanishing along a horizon line, they draw the viewer into a retreating pictorial field. The resulting out-of-body feeling extends into feeling outside of ones’ time or place of origin, creating a transmigratory connection between the physicality of architectural forms and the celestial worlds referenced in the paintings.
The works in Darién Gap, along with a series of larger-scale paintings produced for a recent exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, introduce new colors to the artist’s existing and tightly-considered palette. The pastel hues are inspired by the gradient skies of a hazy sunset—a liminal moment that exists between day and night and a celestial marker signifying the passage of time. Additionally, as he has developed the Infinite Regress series, Ore-Giron has continually experimented with scale, realizing small works on canvas as well as publically commissioned murals. The shifts, from the intimate to the immersive, emphasize the fixed nature of the horizon; it is a constant point of orientation but also a reminder of a cosmic scale—and our own, small place within it.
About Eamon Ore-Giron
Eamon Ore-Giron (b. 1973, Tucson, Arizona) lives and works in Los Angeles. Ore-Giron received his BFAat San Francisco Art Institute, in 1996, and MFA from University of California, Los Angeles, in 2006. Hewas a member of the collective OJO, which was active from 2004 to 2013, with artists BrennaYoungblood, Joshua Aster, Justin Cole, and several others. He has exhibited and performed at theHammer’s Made in L.A. Biennial (2018); the Whitney Biennial, New York (2017); Ballroom Marfa, Texas(2017); LAXART, Los Angeles (2015); Prospect 3, New Orleans (2014); Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2013);Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2009); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); and LosAngeles County Museum of Art (2008), among others.
About Nina Johnson
Nina Johnson is a contemporary art space in Miami, Florida. Opened as Gallery Diet in 2007, the gallery has produced exhibitions by emerging and established artists from around the world, including Anna Betbeze, Judy Chicago, Ann Craven, Jim Drain, Awol Erizku, Derek Fordjour, Nicola L., Nicolas Lobo, Jonas Mekas, Cassi Namoda, Peter Shire, Katie Stout, and Betty Woodman. The gallery is located at 6315 NW 2nd Avenue Miami in the Little Haiti district.
