Vielmetter Los Angeles is delighted to announce Thinking Out Loud, Genevieve Gaignard’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from September 21 to November 9, 2024. Genevieve Gaignard is haunted. We all are. Hauntings can take on many forms: memories from childhood; the trauma that manifests from centuries of systemic racism; or the echoes of friends and lovers, come-and-gone. In what might be Gaignard’s most intimate body of work to date, Thinking Out Loud overlaps her practice with her most recent lived experience, set against the backdrop of her newly situated life in New York. Thinking Out Loud signifies an evolution in Gaignard’s practice as she excavates concepts of identity and reflects on the intersections of life’s journey. Her symbol-laden, cryptic work speaks to larger truths: the building and breaking down of walls, the rupture of domesticity as wallpaper tears, and the detritus of everyday life that we must all work our way through. Gaignard explores the veil as armor, representing protection while moving through growth. Her art transcends the personal, becoming public through the artist’s intent, and challenges us to consider the significance of our own stories within the larger context of humanity. Thinking Out Loud invites viewers to closely consider open-ended questions that haunt the intricacies of personal relationships. Dreamscapes, depicted in the collages and the exhibition environment, become fertile ground for exploring the emotional landscapes of love and self-perception. Gaignard has described her working process as a “lived playlist, a diaristic processing of my life, a creative vibe set against the backdrop of mix tapes and personal soundtracks that transcends, romanticizes, and provides an escape from the everyday.” In Lucid Girl (I’m Letting You Go), Gaignard casts herself as a ghostly figure, levitating in front of a swath of vintage wallpaper. The title materialized during the creative process when she found unexpected visual-sonic synchronicity in the lyrics of Thee Sacred Souls. Another “song” in this playlist, the collage Players Only Love You When They're Playin', is from Fleetwood Mac’s song Dreams. A young Gaignard wields a wiffleball bat while navigating a sea of wallpapered baseball “players.” An arched text above her reads “ballbuster,” reclaiming and embracing the misogynistic insult as a badge of honor. She deconstructs her often methodical working process, revealing layers of wallpaper that show the disorienting multiplicity of spaces. In Angel and Muse, titled after a song by Radamiz, Gaignard ruminates on the passage of time and creates a narrative about perception, memory, and desire. The work is a window into the artist’s interior life represented as a surreal street scene from her newly adopted borough of The Bronx. Gaignard herself is an observer within the microcosm of activity that surrounds her. An unexpected, sexy selfie of the artist can be found looking out through a stained glass window, gazing at a disembodied arm orchestrating a flutter of butterflies. In Tits for Tats, the artist offers a defiantly unadorned self-portrait, leading viewers to wonder for whom the glistening image was originally intended. She emerges through two torn layers of wallpaper, conjuring herself into spiritual relief. The tattoos that cover her body denote signifiers such as the biblical, the occult, and symbols of power. Gaignard’s “third eye” suggests that enlightenment is possible through self-acceptance and awareness, while three anatomical hearts mystically orbit her crown. True to the essence of Gaignard’s signature style, this body of work engages viewers with a poetic and nuanced dialogue that challenges them to see beyond the obvious. Thinking Out Loud lifts the curtain on the complexities and struggles of everyday life, highlighting the uncomfortable spaces in between awareness and the mysteries of our existence. About the artist Genevieve Gaignard (b. 1981) lives and works in The Bronx, NY. Her work was recently included in the touring exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, which debuted at The Frist Museum in Nashville, TN and traveled to The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX and The Phillips Collection, DC. Recent solo exhibitions include To Whom it May Concern, Rowan University Art Gallery, Glassboro, NJ; Genevieve Gaignard, This is America: The Unsettling Contradictions in American Identity, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; Bloom Projects: Genevieve Gaignard, Outside Looking In, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA (2020); I'm Sorry I Never Told You That You’re Beautiful, Vielmetter Los Angeles, CA (2019); Counterfeit Currency, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2018); Smell the Roses, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2016). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at The ICA San Francisco, CA; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Riverside Museum, Riverside, CA; The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA; The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, AR; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA; Prospect.4, New Orleans. Genevieve Gaignard received her BFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA, and her MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, CT. The gallery is located at 1700 S Santa Fe Avenue, south of the 10 freeway. Parking is available on the south parking lot adjacent to the building. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm and by appointment. For further information and press inquiries, please contact Olivia Gauthier at Olivia@vielmetter.com. ____ Vielmetter Los Angeles is pleased to announce abstraction of truth, Samuel Levi Jones’s third exhibition with the gallery, on view from September 21 to November 9, 2024. Samuel Levi Jones’s exhibition abstraction of truth presents a profound and timely critique of the structures that shape our understanding of authority and history. Jones’s method of deconstructing books, and now flags, serves as a powerful metaphor for the dismantling of the colonial and imperial narratives that continue to influence our legal and societal systems. By physically tearing apart these symbols of power and reassembling them into abstract compositions, Jones not only challenges the authority of these texts but also invites viewers to question the origins and implications of the knowledge they represent. The introduction of American and British flags as raw materials in Jones’s latest works underscores the pervasive influence of colonialism on modern governance and law. By obscuring and layering these flags over legal texts, Jones illustrates how deeply entrenched these colonial legacies are within contemporary legal frameworks, highlighting the ongoing impact of imperialist histories on present-day systems of power. Jones’s art is a call to action, urging viewers to reconsider the narratives that have been accepted as truth and to recognize the systemic inequalities that persist as a result of these constructed histories. His work not only redefines the boundaries of abstraction but also reimagines the role of art as a tool for social critique and transformation. abstraction of truth is a powerful reminder of the importance of questioning the structures that shape our world and the necessity of rethinking the balance between exclusion and equality in our society. About the artist Samuel Levi Jones was born and raised in Marion, Indiana, and he lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana. Trained as a photographer and multidisciplinary artist, he earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from Taylor University and a B.F.A from Herron School of Art and Design in 2009. He received his MFA in Studio Art from Mills College in 2012. Museum exhibitions include When You See Me: Visibility in Contemporary Art/History at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; The Empire is Falling at The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, OH; Left of Center at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indiana; Infinite Blue at the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Guiffrida Collection at the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago, Illinois; and Unbound, Studio Museum in Harlem. His work can be found in museum and public collections such as the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Wisconsin; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He is the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Alexander Wein artist prize awarded by the Studio Museum in Harlem.