Artist talk with gallerist Julian Bermudez on Saturday, March 23 beginning at 4:30 PM, followed by a reception. Bermudez Projects presents as its first show of 2024, Of Flames and Shadows Gone Astray, a group show serving as a multifaceted, cathartic confessional of love, loss, and perseverance. In what is perhaps the most personal exhibition of the gallerist’s career, Julian Bermudez departs from conventional curatorship, and instead brings together deeply-resonant artworks as a means of addressing the challenges of his own life. “In the last four years, I have experienced tremendous loss. Loss of love, family, friends, and home. Working through this has been a years-long process, resulting in my need for curating this show in order to fully grieve and heal,” says Bermudez. “This also allows me to push and expand the ways I approach the art of storytelling through curation.” Through a range of mixed-media work — each incorporating fire as a material — the exhibition touches on our shared experiences of overcoming some of the darkest moments of life; reaffirming our enkindled spirit to thrive in the face of adversity. Impermanence, resilience, loss, and rebirth are explored through each artists’ work, inciting a deeper inspection and introspection of our personal and shared existence. The exhibition aims to leave viewers with a greater appreciation for triumph over tragedy; strength through sorrow; and healing after heartbreak. Of Flames and Shadows Gone Astray features the works of contemporary artists Francesca Bifulco, Malado Francine, Bryan David Griffith, and Cody Norris. Bifulco’s striking sculpture, Their Wings Banging and Burning (2023) is a masterful centerpiece to the exhibition. At surprisingly five-feet tall, the burned wood, metal, and found palm cortex stands as a wounded monolith rising from its strewn ring of charcoal crowned at its base. “I look at this piece as the anatomical dissection of resilience. It’s this vertical body that tolerates the intersections of tough-flexible, external-internal, downward-upward, and below-aboveground,” says Bifulco. “As if you’re witnessing both the wound and the healing at the same time.”