Praise the High Grass
Amber Codiñera Locke
Gallery A
2.11 — 3.25
Here, the painting functions not as a window but rather as a two-way mirror. Los Angeles, the setting for Amber Locke’s new body of work, offers the unique experience of viewing the sublimity of mountains and deserts from within the confines of a soundstage.
Like throwing a pot on a wheel, symmetry and balance anchor these works, rendered in clay-like earth tones and soft brush strokes. In Electric Kiln, a particularly flat painting of a loaded kiln looks as if to be from a thousand years ago, without any suggestion of electricity. Locke, with a background in ceramics, shows us the baking of wares in a kiln timelessly and with solemn gratitude.
The paintings may have human beings occasionally referenced, maybe they passed through, left something behind - but there are distinctly no figures present. Objects which have been manmade, or altered by humans, take on anthropomorphic attributes. A plush toy of a fat seal begins to magically come to life and return to the ocean. Tree stumps wear litter like clothing, as if to mock us. A deadly spider shows off her perfect symmetrical figure. Look, but don’t touch. :) We are reminded that we are outsiders.
- Chloe Seibert, 2023
Amber Codiñera Locke (b. 1989, Port Huron, MI) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Locke holds a BFA in Industrial Design and Ceramics from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Her work draws heavily from Filipino American Diaspora, collaborative process, and the Ceramic Arts to transcend the utilitarian object. She is a co-founder of Hamtramck Ceramck. Locke has exhibited work at the Bahamas Biennale (Detroit, MI), The Pit (Los Angeles, CA), No Place Gallery (Columbus, OH), Interstate Projects (Brooklyn, NY), College for Creative Studies Center Galleries (Detroit, MI), as well as participating in art fairs such as NADA with Essex Flowers (New York, NY)).
Threads and webs
and horns and
bags and everything
is a vessel–
what is filling your jar?
Do you fill it until it breaks?
Do you find what’s yours
in the jar
in the jar
in the jar
I find someone else, today
the little red squirrel
who frequents my yard
jumping from one wooden
limb to another, on the massive
silver maple out
back, in certain sunlights
their puffy tail contains
shades of honey–a child
of the sun
of the sun
of the sun
so bright the material world
forgotten; amazon orders
and burgers and brooms and
broken items returned
money earned, deposited, and spent
in the webbed rush of modern
meter, when time would rather
go untracked
untracked
untracked
in the snow.
Webs and Webs
Lisa John Rogers