L.A. LOUVER
7 June - 1 September 2023
The Flower Show: Identity
Lending itself readily to anthropomorphism and symbolic association, the floral form has been embraced by artists as stand-in for the self and human identity. This is seen through the flower’s historic equivalence with the body, especially the female body; the use of floral motifs an indication of familial relation; and even geographic identification with certain flowers to communicate a sense of collective aspiration, value, and experience.
Selected from more than 80 works featured in The Flower Show at L.A. Louver, we highlight eleven that utilize the flower motif to convey a sense of identity.
Marcellina Akpojotor
Marcellina Akpojotor
Dede's Farmland of Dreams (From Ode to Beautiful Memories Series), 2022
fabric, paper, charcoal, and acrylic on canvas (diptych)
48 x 96 in. (121.9 x 243.8 cm)
signed, dated, and titled verso
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Marcellina Akpojotor
Dede's Farmland of Dreams (From Ode to Beautiful Memories Series) (2022) (detail)
The flowers of Marcellina Akpojotor’s Dede’s Farmland of Dreams (from Ode to Beautiful Memories Series) (2022) are those of the cassava plant, produce vital to life in the artist’s home country of Nigeria. Akpojotor writes of this piece:
Inspired by the power of traditional textiles to commemorate cultural histories and narrative and also honor loved ones who have passed, Dede's Farmland of Dreams speaks to the ideas of memory and the importance of preserving family history. It is a tribute to my great-grandmother, who worked tirelessly on her farmland while dreaming of a better future for her family where formal education was within reach. Through this piece, I explored the themes of remembrance, memory, and history that are essential to our collective understanding of who we are and where we come from. I wanted to pay homage to the hard work and determination of my great-grandmother and other countless women who have toiled to create a better future for their families and communities. This piece is imagined as a farmland where she not only grew cassava and other crops, but also cultivated her hope, dreams and aspirations.
Installation of The Flower Show at L.A. Louver
Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer, 2023
Terry Allen
Terry Allen
Barbara Rose Meets Frank Stella on Cloud 9, 1966
mixed media on paper
image: 28 x 22 in. (71.1 x 55.9 cm)
framed: 38 1/4 x 31 1/4 in. (97.2 x 79.4 cm)
signed and dated lower right
In Barbara Rose Meets Frank Stella on Cloud 9 (1966), Terry Allen depicts the renowned scholar Barbara Rose and prolific artist Frank Stella as an illustrated rose and zebra sitting on a cloud in the shape of the number 9. Comedic in its merging of literalness and pun, Allen’s mixed media work on paper suggests a commentary on the personal aspects of each of the sitters, who were married from 1961-69.
Terry Allen
Barbara Rose Meets Frank Stella on Cloud 9 (1966) (detail)
Tony Berlant
Tony Berlant
Iris, 1963
paper collage on masonite panel
panel: 8 1/2 x 6 1/4 in. (21.6 x 15.9 cm)
framed: 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. (24.1 x 19.1 cm)
signed verso
Tony Berlant's archly wry Iris (1963) is a triple-entendre on the iris: featuring the flower, the iris of the artist's eye, and the body of a woman named Iris. The theme of identity appears here through the superimposition of the artist's self image into the work as a compositional element.
Amir H. Fallah
Amir H. Fallah
The Epicenter, 2023
acrylic on canvas
20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
signed, dated, and titled verso
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The flora of Amir H. Fallah's The Epicenter (2023) and other paintings from his botanical series do not naturally occur in the same space; indigenous plants mix with so-called exotic ones, extinct vines grow next to contemporary hybrids, and flowers mingle together from different ecosystems. In the botanical still lives of the Northern Renaissance, such contrived arrangements signified the dominance and power associated with conquest and colonization. Fallah, however, appropriates the visual strategy as a metaphor for immigrants that attempt to thrive in their new country, creating a new space that spans the limits of geography and disrupts the fallacy of borders.
Charles Garabedian
Charles Garabedian
Full Frontal, 2012
acrylic on paper
paper: 85 x 31 in. (215.9 x 78.7 cm)
framed: 91 1/2 x 36 1/2 in. (232.4 x 92.7 cm)
initialed and dated lower right
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Humor is at play in Charles Garabedian’s Full Frontal (2012), in which one flowering plant seems to leap out of a woman’s dress and another smaller plant displaces the subject’s face from her head to her stomach. Playing on the idea of a full-frontal nude, Garabedian has concealed aspects of the woman’s body, and has set her within a watery landscape.
Luis Gonzàlez Palma
Luis Gonzàlez Palma
La Rosa, 1989
hand-painted silver gelatin print
image: 17 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (44.5 x 44.5 cm)
framed: 34 1/4 x 32 1/4 in. (87 x 81.9 cm)
edition of 35
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Titled La Rosa (1989), this hand painted silver gelatin print is heralded as Gonzàlez Palma’s most iconic image. Depicting a serenely beautiful woman whose head is garlanded with roses and crowned with a human skull, La Rosa stares directly at the viewer. Eliciting conflicting emotions associated with pain, beauty and paradox, the artist alludes to the impact of colonization in Latin America, creating a sense of tension and foreboding.
Glenn Hardy Jr.
Glenn Hardy Jr.
May Flowers, 2023
acrylic on canvas
40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
signed and dated verso
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Hailing from Washington D.C., Glenn Hardy Jr. celebrates the city’s cherry blossom season in May Flowers (2023). Composed as if an impromptu photograph, Hardy Jr. captures the joy and energy of youth, foregrounding a beaming young man against a backdrop of exuberant pink flowers.
Installation of The Flower Show at L.A. Louver
Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer, 2023
Patrick Martinez
Patrick Martinez
Monterey Park/East LA Bougainvillea (diptych), 2023
stucco, neon, acrylic, spray paint, latex paint, and tile adhesive on panel
each panel: 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm)
signed and dated verso
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In his diptych Monterey Park / East LA Bougainvillea (2023), Patrick Martinez contrasts the brilliance of the pink bougainvillea flower that is commonplace to Los Angeles (the artist’s home) with the city’s gritty landscape. As a diptych, this dichotomy is underscored by showing two forms that are visually different, yet essentially one and the same. Each canvas features a pink neon bar, emphasizing the brilliance of the motif.
Patrick Martinez
Monterey Park / East LA Bougainvillea (2023) (detail)
Vanessa Prager
Vanessa Prager
Golden Hour, 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 48 in. (121.9 x 121.9 cm)
signed and dated verso
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A lighthearted approach to identity is conveyed in the elaborately impastoed Golden Hour (2023) by Vanessa Prager, whose subject’s face is completely obscured by blossoming flowers. With a humorous nod to Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Proto-Surrealistic naturalist visages, Prager’s portrait employs the flower as metaphor for both the transformative and transitory qualities of life.
Alison Saar
Alison Saar
Black Eyed Susan, 2023
acrylic and charcoal on found seed sack and fabric
76 x 22 in. (193 x 55.9 cm)
signed and dated lower right
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Alison Saar’s Black Eyed Susan (2023) features the black-eyed Susan flower, a symbol of encouragement, motivation, endurance, and justice. Painted on recycled seed sacks, Saar’s figure grows these flowers as if a living crown along with her child. Black Eyed Susan stands strong, a tribute to mothers and their fortitude.
Alison Saar
Black Eyed Susan, 2023 (detail)
Jennifer Vanderpool
Jennifer Vanderpool
We've arrived, Dorothy! (From the Dorothy Series), 2023
archival pigment prints on 200g watercolor paper
paper: 42 x 36 in. (106.7 x 91.4 cm)
framed: 45 x 41 1/4 in. (114.3 x 104.8 cm)
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In Jennifer Vanderpool’s new Dorothy! series the artist imbues her collaged compositions with mid-century nostalgia. Inspired by the Modern Baroque interior designs of Dorothy Draper that incorporated lavish and fanciful floral arrangements, Vanderpool creates the world as it was advertised in the mid-century. Beyond visual enticement, this series alludes to the artist’s broader interest in industry culture, chains of production, and exchange through the incorporation of the floral background created from historic stamps which no longer hold value in our current time.
Jennifer Vanderpool
We've arrived Dorothy! (From the Dorothy Series), 2023
Installation of The Flower Show at L.A. Louver
Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer, 2023