Samuelle Richardson And Joy Ray In Beyond/Within

at Launch Gallery, Los Angeles (through September 28)
Reviewed by Genie Davis

The two-person exhibition now at Launch LA on La Brea literally and figuratively soars. Curated by MOAH’s Andi Campognone, Beyond/Within features the work of artists Samuelle Richardson and Joy Ray. The exhibition is uniquely paired. Both have utilized paint and fabric, create textile art, and rely on painterly technique. Richardson, whose fabric sculptural work here depicts primarily birds – but also human heads – some with bared teeth, is also a highly skilled artist when working in paint. The grace and fluidity of her sculpture, and its elegant refinement in what is traditionally considered “craft” materials, evokes her background. Using, embracing, and even accentuating the rougher aspects of her fabrics, the pieces recall the fact that they are created, not actual, living birds, while revealing themselves simultaneously to be delicately alive and transcendent. They could fly, if you let their magic in.

Richardson’s figures are so alive, in fact, that the art used to create them appears almost seamless, as if they emerged whole. She utilizes hand-built armature, stretching fabric and stitching it over the form. She says that she considers the fabric itself to serve as a kind of skin that she pulls over the “bones” of each piece. She works in layers, which is something that also links her to a background in life drawing and a strong knowledge of anatomy.