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and spiral tines . December 7, 2024 – January 18, 2025. Nyke Shen, Talya Petrillo, Chinning Liu, Emory Hall. Group exhibition.

4478 W Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016.

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If only a heart has its reasons. Instead, only signs: spires and flutters, sparks and shouts. Sighs and Good Timing. (And bad dreams.) Still more than the motion of bellies and brains. And with all the anti-gravitational æffects of a marionette’s celestial movements. It’s (pre-history) happening right now. Linen bells ringing in the opposite direction of an open mouth. So still high-strung, with all that pulling teeth and plucking hair. Pinched, threaded, and wound. Snared like the mēkhanḗ, the deviced pulley and rope, that makes Iphigenia into a deer, or hangs Antigone in a cave—the suspended animation of taking flight (in order to survive). “Deus ex machina,” some machinations of a feather, floating stiff as a board. With the gizzard to match the gut feeling of grinding my bones to make your bread. Where fingers, nails; and spiral tines.

That’s why the birds are fed but you never see them eat. Because all the spikes sustain their hovering, the shells stave-off their silver lining. A loving antidote for pins and needles, for something drained coming-back to life. Or at least a little something to look at while staring at the photo you took. Watching the waters of an image. A nostalgia for the Last night. For morning in melancholia—That’s it? In what way names,

, if only the Heart had its reasons,

and spiral tines

Pale, when the Jello holds the motion of animals

where bad habits are borrowed memories.

When a loose tooth, less teeth,,

—or a lump (sum: 7yearsuntil. a breath)

and à cage to grow-up in, for flying still

, those pearly whites

more ribs, lungs

Never share my teeth

never think my thoughts

, whoever does this

Feeding birds with the sound of water sobbing,

after All,

when it’s always just drainage for angels

when blood waters,

Thicker than air. but,

what birds plunge through is not the intimate space

. or a paradise lost, or paradise next time ?

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Emory Hall is an artist exploring the relationships between myth, health and toxicity. Through bioplastic material studies and welding, process shapes a language of decay. Architectural fragments pertaining to the visualization of time give way towards a vision of escapism amidst a synthetic reality. Stainless steel's ubiquity in cities, kitchens and the home transforms itself into gates, scaffolding and frames to hold slippery forms. The past and present appear gilded, ornamental, decayed and full of contradictions.

Lives and works in Los Angeles (b. 1993 in Kansas City). A recent graduate of CalArts Art and Technology MFA (Valencia, CA.) she has exhibited as a resident of Espace Triphasè (Brussels, BE), a two-person show at rip space (Los Angeles, CA). A former chef at Oxbow School of Art and Artist’s Residency (Saugatuck, MI) her work often incorporates performative dinners and draws from a background of food styling and cooking.

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Chinning Liu is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles and Taiwan. She received her Bachelors in Clinical Psychology at Fu Jen Catholic University. She is currently an Art MFA candidate at California Institute of the Arts. Liu has exhibited her works in the Santa Clarita City “Body Presence” exhibition and the Interdisciplinary Grant program. She has participated and shown in residencies at Makotaay Eco Art Village (Hualien, Taiwan). Her artwork was featured in Voyage LA Magazine and Bold Journey Magazine.

Liu’s art focuses on the dynamic medium status between life and death. By layering fabric, gypsum, and daily necessities, creating the intimate and vulnerable sediments of individual history and collective unconsciousness. With a background in science, her work and research are often based on the hybrid impression of the human anatomy, biotic creatures, inorganic forms, and geographic scenes. Through regenerating these wrecked and organic forms, Liu’s work ambiguates the borderlines, evoking the unconscious traces left behind by time.

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Talya Petrillo grew up outside of Detroit, in a multilingual household outside embroidered with combined practices of Islamic spiritualism and Catholic traditionalism. Her early navigation of a confluence of superstitions and storylines has deeply informed her foundational interests in the way archetypal signals and emotional narratives can be implicated in material, form and process. With frequent evocation of the body through scale, tactile material residues and organic structural nuance, her work unsettles the deeply personal with the surreal.

Working experimentally across disciplines, Petrillo received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2020, and is a recipient of the Lea Simonds Fellowship, the William S. Dietrich II Presidential Fellowship, and the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art at the frontier. She is currently based in Los Angeles, California.

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The sculptures presented arise from an evolving body of work that draws surreal and ambiguous inspiration from the industrial landscapes of concrete batching plants, oil refineries, pipelines, and their discrete structural elements. At their core, my sculptures explore forms that initially suggest functionality but, upon closer inspection, reveal themselves as inert and illusory—objects that merely mimic utility.

I like to work in a way that imposes my imprint on the object in question. Using my body as a measuring tool, nothing is level. I tend to use materials incorrectly, put things where they don’t go, and frequently spend days on a particular segment, just to sever, scratch, drill, squeeze and stomp into it. Emotional embodiment and the consequential error of (my)self becomes central to understanding the work, and also a guiding force in my personal discovery of a final form.

Eventually, through choosing to shape a blend of industrial influence and personal intervention, my sculptures bridge a boundary between perceived utility and raw emotional expression.

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Nyke Shen is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Shanghai, China, and is now based in Los Angeles, California. Her artistic practice combines avant-garde and artisanal fashion elements with Chinese traditions, exploring themes such as the female body as a site of exploration and the complex dynamics between intimacy and materialism.

Shen’s work has been exhibited in several galleries, including Bolsky Gallery, Resin Laboratory, and Intersect Gallery. Her commitment to her craft is reflected in her academic accomplishments; she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Otis College of Art and Design in 2024. During her time there, she received the highest institutional scholarship awarded to international students and was named to the Dean’s List from 2022 to 2023.

In 2023, Shen represented the United States as a candidate at the international Copenhagen Design Charade. Additionally, her expertise and perspectives have been highlighted at prestigious conferences, where she served as a keynote speaker at the 2023 AICAD Conference and the 2024 Western States Folklore Conference.

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Shen is a fine artist who expertly navigates the realms of sculpture, performance art, and immersive installation. Her artistic trajectory is a dedicated exploration driven by a profound mission to untangle the intricate layers of Chinese generational dynamics and their influence on her womanhood. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity about the female form and its rich historical tapestry, Shen’s lens zeroes in on the notion of obsession, contemplating the rhythmic interplay between repetitive actions and the unrelenting echoes of internal dialogue within the minds.

A signature element of Shen’s practice is her use of silver, a material steeped in Chinese cultural tradition. By embracing traditional silversmithing techniques, she transforms this medium into intricate narratives that bridge the past and present. Shen’s palette extends beyond the boundaries of traditional media, intertwining her passion for culinary arts with her creative expression. She infuses her installations with culturally significant ingredients and remnants of shared dishes, orchestrating a symphony with silver, sustenance, and traces of human presence. Through her works, Shen invites viewers to enter a realm where the past and present intertwine, fostering introspection and dialogue around themes of identity, heritage, and the eternal search for meaning in the human experience.

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0 Bios courtesy of the artists.

i The Greek term mēkhanḗ refers to a mechanical theatrical device used since the ancient tragedians to hoist an actor into the air, as if they were achieving flight. This is the root of the Latin phrase “deus ex machina” (‘god from machine’).

i Myung Mi Kim. "[Exordium: ‘In what way names’]" Commons (University of California Press, 2002). [Link.]

ii Alejandra Pizarnik. “[All night I hear the noise of water sobbing.].” Translaated by Patricio Ferrari and Forrest Gander. See, from The Galloping Hour: French Poems. Copyright © 2018 by Myriam Pizarnik de Nesis. [Link.]

iii Antonin Artaud. Artaud le Mômo (1946-8). “Et ce fut toujours vidange pour ange,” (“And it was always drainage for angels,”).

iiii Rainer Maria Rilke. Untitled. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. (See, Paris Review: Issue 32, Winter 1981). [Link.]

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