Nino Mier Gallery is thrilled to announce Elements of Space, our first solo exhibition by British-born, New York and Mexico-based artist Rachel Garrard. In Elements of Space, Garrard presents a series of new paintings where meditative, abstract realms unfold. Produced with natural rock pigments, the works fuse earthly elements with less tangible states of consciousness and perception, bridging the external world with internal landscapes. The exhibition will be on view in Los Angeles from May 18 – June 29, 2024.
The paintings in Elements of Space represent a continuation of her recent artistic endeavors, delving deeper into the imaginary and the esoteric. Paintings move between the liminal space of the physical and the unseen worlds. Drawing on a specific process that involves internal visualization and the careful construction of materials and compositions, Garrard's paintings are imbued with a language that has evolved over time, rich in diagrams, symbols, and interpretations of feeling states. References to sacred geometry, desert landscapes, and brutalist architecture appear throughout the works.
Garrard's multi-disciplinary practice encompasses painting, sculpture, video, performance and installation. Her forays into other time-based and three-dimensional media testify to her sensitivity to time, change, and full-body perception. The paintings in Elements of Space showcase such a sensitivity within the two-dimensional plane of the canvas. Not only do her works have a sense of architecture and landscape, despite being abstract, but they also possess a tangible haptic quality produced by her natural materials.
The artist creates her pigments ground from rocks, transferring these handmade hues to canvas in geometric shapes and iconography. These gestures honor the origin of the material while illuminating narratives activated through meditative states. Garrard, therefore, establishes a relational dynamic with her natural surroundings, one that gives her works a unique surface texture. The surface of the works acts as topographies, each application of pigment revealing a journey through physical and metaphysical realms.
Rachel Garrard was born in 1984 in Devon, England and currently lives between New York and Mexico. Garrard gained a BFA and MFA at Central Saint Martins, London. She has been awarded artist residencies at Casa Wabi, Oaxaca (2022), CCAndraxt, Mallorca (2022), the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, CT (2018) Yaddo, NY (2018) and Millay Colony, NY (2018), the Center for the Holographic Arts at Ohio State University (2012) and the Atacama Telescope Farm in Chile (2011). Her work has been exhibited at the Academy Mansion, NYC (2023), Casa Wabi (2022), Hammond Museum, NY (2019), Kraftwerk, Berlin (2017), Pioneer Works, NYC (2016), the National Academy Museum, NYC (2015), Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, France (2015), Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City (2014), Eyebeam Art and Technology Center (2012), Participant Inc. (2010), Yota Space Digital Arts Festival, St Petersburg (2010), and ICA, London (2009). She has been the subject of solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Aspen, Berlin, Mexico City, Monterrey and Hong Kong. Her work has been featured in publications such as Art Forum, Art Observed, Harper’s Bazaar, Monopol, Dazed and Confused, Architectural Digest and The Wall Street Journal.