November 14 through December 26, 2020
Extended through January 16, 2021!
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 14, 6-9 pm
Bermudez Projects is excited to present Metamorphosis, an exhibition of paintings and prints by LA artist Yolanda González. This is the artist’s first solo show at the gallery.
For more than four decades, Yolanda González’s paintings and antic ceramics have been characterized by a vivid use of color – palettes of blues, reds, greens, and yellows characteristic of her Chicana artistic background and the 20th century German Expressionism that have influenced her work.
But González’s imagery in her groundbreaking Metamorphosis series in the 1990s shows a double turning in her career, reflecting both the present world and life as she experienced it a generation ago.
Metamorphosis is more somber, darker, and less representative…and, in its way, far more visceral, cathartic, and emotional.
González says people familiar with her recent work will be surprised at this body of work, which at the time of its creation lacked the proper platform to be understood and embraced.
The change towards this darkness dates back 27 years ago, when Yolanda was in an Artist-in-Residency fellowship in Japan. There, at age 29, she found herself suddenly experiencing a change in her life, a change in the way she viewed her spiritual and emotional environment, and the way she viewed the world. The death of a dear friend brought her face to face with the concept of mortality, and led to a dramatic shift in her art-making philosophy.
González returned to the US 1993, and worked on her Metamorphosis series from 1994-1997.
These new works reflected what she had learned of fundamental Japanese aesthetics, along with Zen concepts which transfixed González by the simplicity and intensity of monochromatic materials. The result was a series of emotionally wrought, semi-representational, and (mostly) black-and-white painted shapes that allowed for viewing in any orientation. She actually painted their surfaces as she twirled them in different directions … the spinning symbolizing the disorienting spirit of loss she felt.
After completing the series, González put these paintings aside – with the exception of a few being exhibited in Finding Family Stories at the Japanese American National Museum.
In 2020, González began a new series, Metamorphosis II, to honor and reflect on the death of her mother (who passed in January) with whom she was extremely close. There was also the impact of the world-wide despondency of the Covid-19 pandemic. Once again, González finds her work simplifying and darkening in response to her lived environment.
The works in Metamorphosis and Metamorphosis II reflect the artist’s transformation and reinvention of herself both in body and soul. Void of any bright colors or figurative representation, they are raw, visceral expressions of González’s soul.
The exhibition will present approximately 30 artworks – mixed media paintings and etchings – and be accompanied by a fully-illustrated color catalog with an essay by Hollis Goodall, Curator of Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
