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Installation view

 
 
 
 

Morgan Mandalay
Bad Sin Frutas
March 30 - May 4
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 30th 6-8pm

 

Klowden Mann is proud to present Chicago-based artist Morgan Mandalay’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Bad Sin Frutas. The show will be on view from March 30th to May 4th, 2019, with an opening reception on Saturday, March 30th from 6 to 8pm.

 

In Bad Sin Frutas, Mandalay takes the mythology of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden as the starting point for a series of expressive narrative oil paintings that detail close-up moments in the story of exile. While Adam and Eve are an archetype of this story within Judeo-Christian religion, Mandalay layers his interpretation with art historical and personal archetypes as well—looking at the figure of exile as seen in Gustave Courbet as well as Mandalay’s own family story of exile from Cuba and the myth making that follows a generation later. Working through painting, Mandalay consciously attempts to figure out his “place”; a combination of real and imagined spaces, identities, stories, homes that are constantly being built and rebuilt; remembering past struggles and privileges.

 

For Mandalay, interweaving these distinct narrative perspectives is a way of unmasking the often-monolithic cultural understanding of ‘exile’ and ‘the exiled’. As he says, “I’m interested in what happens when the lens shifts.  All of these paintings capture fractions of the story.  They invent what is happening in the garden post-expulsion.  They are imaginary ghosts of what might or might have been in a place that both is, and isn’t—a place defined more by a moment than a landscape.”  These ghosts of memory and mythology appear in Mandalay’s still lifes and landscapes as trees whose branches are aflame while still carrying lush fruit or colored leaves, crows with wings spread on the verge of landing or alighting, lemons glowing to the point of combustion, disembodied hands reaching for tree trunks, and often gestures of teeth and lips or tongue around the edge of the painting—as if we are perceiving the scene through the open mouth of a beast.

 

Morgan Mandalay (b.1985 Long Beach, CA, USA) received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from the University of California San Diego in 2017. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at BWSMX (Mexico City), City Limits (Oakland), Helmuth Projects (San Diego), and LVL3 (Chicago). As well, in group exhibitions with Bahamas Biennale (Detroit), Flag Foundation (New York City), Et. Al (San Francisco), the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, David B. Smith Gallery (Denver), Kimberly Klark (Queens), Deslave (Tijuana), among others. Mandalay is also the founder and director of SPF15, a beach-based curatorial project that was based in San Diego, CA.

 

Download Press Release

  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15148
  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15147
  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15149
  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15150
  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15151
  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15152
  • Bad Sin Frutas Installation view
    15153
  • Bad Sin Frutas Snapped Fall

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    48.5 by 36.75 by 1.75 inches

    15135
  • Bad Sin Frutas Uriel

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    60.5 by 40.5 by 1.75 inches

    15136
  • Bad Sin Frutas Tree of a Thousand Fruit (unfulfilled)

    2019
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    36.5 by 28.75 by 1.75 inches

    15142
  • Bad Sin Frutas And forgive us our trespasses

    2019
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    72.75 by 48.5 by 1.75 inches

    15141
  • Bad Sin Frutas Still Life with Pomegranate, Lemon, Pear, Apple, Orange and Fly (After Courbet)

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    20.75 by 16.75 by 1.5 inches

    15140
  • Bad Sin Frutas Trapped in Paradise

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    54.5 by 42.875 by 1.75 inches

    15139
  • Bad Sin Frutas Still Life with Peaches, Hawk and Field Mouse (After Audubon and Courbet)

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    20.75 by 16.75 by 1.5 inches

    15138
  • Bad Sin Frutas Still Life with Rainbow Trout and Black Berries (After Courbet)

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    16.75 by 21 by 1.5 inches

    15144
  • Bad Sin Frutas Still Life with Jawbone of an Ass, Strawberries, and Figs (After Abel)

    2018
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    16.75 by 21 by 1.5 inches

    15145
  • Bad Sin Frutas Rotten Core

    2019
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    62.5 by 84.5 by 1.75 inches

    15143
  • Bad Sin Frutas Double Delight

    2019
    Oil on canvas in artist frame
    48.5 by 32.5 by 1.75 inches

    15137
 
 

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