About the Event
Silverlens is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition by Gregory Halili and Nona Garcia, countercurrents.This show marks the first time these artists will show together. In this exhibition of new works, Garcia and Halili dialogue with each other and one another’s practices, both drawn to the sea.
Somewhere in the Gulf of Alaska, there’s a point where two bodies of water seem to meet yet never merge, as if a thin wall, an invisible border is lodged between them, perhaps to uphold some man-made delineations on a map. This strange, optical phenomenon, which has found its way to more mainstream conversations mainly through a few photographs that were shared and reposted in the way information behaves today— has come to be known as the place where two oceans meet.
This image of converging water currents comes to mind in this somewhat unexpected encounter between artists Nona Garcia and Gregory Halili in countercurrents, an exhibition that is buoyed not just by the tangential similarities in their respective practices but more so by the deeper and more arresting contrasts. Though both highly gifted painters, Garcia and Halili inhabit opposing ends of the spectrum, most evidently in terms of scale. Garcia is known for her expansive canvases, paintings of skies and seas executed in such massive scales that approximate, indeed approach their subject matters in their vastness, in their capacity to engulf. As her paintings implicitly usher viewers to take a few steps back just to catch sight of the whole picture, Halili’s work pulls people in, inviting each viewer to take a closer look, to wonder at the abundance of detail skillfully imbued in such minuscule proportions. His recent series, paintings of eyes on hand-cut, mother-of-pearl pieces, are intimate portraits of people whose lives were largely shaped by their proximity to the ocean. As Halili willingly retells their stories, Garcia’s instinct has always been to withhold or conceal identities. Her works are in fact mostly bereft of human presence and in the few instances that they do appear, their narratives are usually left beyond the margins of the frame. Her current investigations involve the use of wood veneer; repurposed as a painting surface, it serves as a familial ground that poignantly cradles various forms of driftwood, which are in themselves, essentially, objects wholly shaped by nature.
Even as we continue to track these divergences, certain intersections persist and they always lead back to the water: these sea-derived materials (such as corals and driftwood) continuously find their way into foreboding works that allude to skeletal and physiological forms, possibly revealing some shared thoughts on the origins, and perhaps, the inescapable eventuality of all life. In countercurrents, Garcia and Halili engage in an unrehearsed and genuine dialogue, allowing their works to speak without any contrived effort to interact, and all the while still profoundly respond to the constant call of the sea.