Recent Los Angeles Retreat alumni Carol Es is currently showing her first solo exhibition, Rock and Refuge, which is being shown currently at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. The show was named Artillery Magazine’s pick of the week, which you can read more about here. She will be giving a talk at the gallery on January 9th, and in the meantime you can view the show until January 16.
Joshua Tree is an artists’ refuge, a place of freedom as well as meditation. Carol Es refers to it as “a kind of Deadwood town where unique exteriors are built seemingly without codes or restrictions,” and where precarious rock formations balance one’s soul. Recently, Es made a journey of artistic and spiritual exploration into Joshua Tree, hoping to leave behind her baggage of fear, depression and childhood abuse. She said “I found myself making art about what surrounded me in the present, instead of what consumed my insides regarding the past.” Es’ brightly colored paintings of simple cutout shapes and patterned cloth on birch panel possess a playfulness and raw simplicity, echoing fanciful architecture amidst boundless piles of colossal rounded stones.
Rock and Refuge, Carol Es’ first exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, will include her Joshua Tree paintings as well as a drawing installation from her ongoing Journal Project. Hand-cut manila garment patterns inscribed with daily diary writings and drawings will be pinned to the wall in an organic cluster with sewing pins. Carol Es is a self-taught artist, native Angeleno, Pollock-Krasner Fellowship recipient, and her artist books have been collected by the Getty Research Institute as well as The Pompidou.
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Building B-3
Santa Monica, California 90404
Tel: (310) 828-6410
