Pamela Smith Hudson: Empty Space

Chris Miller: Push

Yamamoto Masao: New Works

February 11 - March 25, 2023

Reception: Saturday, February 18, 5-7 pm

Artist Talk with Pamela Smith Hudson and Chris Miller: March 18, 11am

PRESS RELEASE

Pamela Smith Hudson ‘s first appearance at Craig Krull Gallery was her inclusion in our group exhibition, of rope and chain her bones are made, in the spring of 2021.  This exhibition, which traveled to the Bakersfield Museum of Art (through May 6, 2023), brought together nine LA women whose work employs tactile, raw materials, and displays the evidence of their hands in rhythmic processes and repetitive acts.  For her first solo exhibition at CKG, entitled Empty Space, Hudson combines aspects of printmaking through the layering of paint, wax and collage to build thickly complex textured surfaces.  She describes her paintings as “topographical…where each layer is constructed, then deconstructed.”  Though entirely abstract, the work reflects her exploration of Los Angeles, its density, homelessness, traffic, and unease. A child of Compton, California, her earliest memory was of people running in the streets when they heard that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Her Afro-indigenous grandmother schooled her in diverse traditions and, in fact, two works from this exhibition, Rain Dance 1 and 2, were inspired by her. Hudson’s organic layering of elemental materials such as wax and graphite also alludes to her environmental concerns about increased wildfires, melting glaciers and a polluted ocean.  These subjects are suggested in lines resembling tire tracks and overlapping patterns that give the impression of “aerial, satellite, excavation energy,” or ancient symbols etched in stone.

In his current body of work, Chris Miller takes formal cues from organic, geologic, and anthropomorphic sources, often blending them intuitively to create objects that are vaguely familiar yet undefinable. His first exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, entitled Push, demonstrates Miller's belief in chance and unexpected occurrences in artmaking. Risk is a fundamental aspect of his process and, as he states, "each piece must be on the brink of failure." His ceramics are fired as many times as necessary to develop their complex surfaces and color. Sometimes this happens after a single firing. Often, works are fired six or more times with successive layers of material and glaze to achieve their final state. They are both monstrous and beautiful, intuitive and strategic, honest and impolite. His sculptures are visceral combines, presenting "uncertain scenarios where something vital has been forgotten or lost." Miller is a professor of art at California State University Long Beach which fosters one of the most respected and fertile ceramics communities in the world.

Like a Zen master, Japanese photographer Yamamoto Masao approaches his work with an “active passiveness.” He is active in his observations of Nature, but passive in his understanding that he is an inextricable part of Nature itself.  Living in a forest, he photographically “harvests” what he calls “treasures breathing quietly in nature.”  For Yamamoto, the act of making a photograph is like picking up a rock on the beach and holding the universe in your hands.  For his eighth exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, Yamamoto will be premiering his latest body of work utilizing the 19th century Ambrotype photographic process.  As the artist states, “The fluidity of this collodion process shows us an accidental and unknown world.  I feel the time has rewound and I am traveling back to the origin of photography.”  Yamamoto will also be exhibiting new works from his Tomosu series, a word which means “to illuminate, or to put a little light in the darkness.”