LUCIA HIERRO – TAL CUAL OCTOBER 2 - NOVEMBER 22, 2021 ARTIST'S RECEPTION: OCTOBER 2, 2021, 6-9PM Charlie James Gallery is pleased to present the first Los Angeles solo show of NY-based artist Lucia Hierro titled Tal Cual, opening October 2nd at the gallery from 6-9pm. This show coincides with Lucia’s site-specific outdoor installation Gates, opening at Various Small Fires in Hollywood, CA on September 25th, 2021. Tal Cual or “As It Is” builds on themes established in Lucia’s solo museum exhibition Marginal Costs, on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT thru January of 2022. The show will present an ambitious new mural piece occupying roughly a third of the main floor gallery space, accompanied by six new works from Lucia’s Bodegon series of dimensional fabric still life pieces, and seven new soft sculpture Bag pieces from her ongoing Mercado series. Lucia Hierro’s work parses identity and economics through the language of consumer products, foodstuffs, items from the neighborhood bodega and from the streets of her neighborhood of Washington Heights / Inwood, NYC. The work speaks at once to the diversity extant within the designation “Latinx”, and the tendency for economic forces in the macroculture to compress Latinx cultures into “one food aisle.” Substantively, the Bodegon (still life) pieces in Tal Cual speak largely to specific Dominican dishes, drinks, culture, and national history, while being compositionally reminiscent of the work of Tom Wesselmann. Uniting photography, textile and European still life painting, the Bodegones are compositions of digital prints on brushed suede and nylon sewn onto square felt constructions. Within the series of Mercado Bag sculptures made for the show, Lucia splits the dialogue between pieces that amplify her exploration of Latinx and Dominican identities and a new series of more opaque fabric bags bearing various corporate emblems, containing soft sculptures related to more general subject territory such as school supplies and personal health. The Bags are composed of digital prints on brushed suede and nylon sewn around hard-celled foam interiors situated inside of Poly Organdi fabric shopping bags. The movement of the work into opacity, a first for Lucia, reflects the desensitization of consumer culture under late stage capitalism and its invasive nature. Anchoring the show is a new chapter in Lucia’s evolving series of paint and vinyl mural pieces titled Diligencia (“Errands”) which, through an uptown Manhattan street scene, reveals both physical manifestations of economic identity common to Latinx culture(s) and the numerous microeconomies resident in Lucia’s neighborhood in New York City. Lucia Hierro (b. 1987) is a Dominican American conceptual artist born and raised in New York City, Washington Heights/Inwood, and currently based in the South Bronx. Lucia’s practice, which includes sculpture, digital media and installation, confronts twenty-first century capitalism through an intersectional lens. She received a BFA from SUNY Purchase (2010) and an MFA from Yale School of Art (2013). Hierro’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (Los Angeles), Elizabeth Dee Gallery (New York), Latchkey Projects (New York), Primary Projects (Miami), Sean Horton Presents (Dallas), and Casa Quien in the Dominican Republic. Her works reside in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, El Museo del Barrio in New York City, the Perez Art Museum Miami, the JP Morgan & Chase Collection, the Progressive Art Collection and the Rennie collection in Vancouver, among others. In 2021, Lucia’s work has been exhibited in ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21, El Museo del Barrio’s (NY) first national large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art featuring more than 40 artists from the US and Puerto Rico, and she is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT titled Marginal Costs. Lucia is represented by Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. Artist Instagram: @lucia_hierro_ Gallery Instagram: @charliejamesgallery Image: Lucia Hierro, Pan Con Aguacate y Refresco Rojo, Felt, foam, digital print on brushed suede, 36 x 36 x 2 inches, 2021