The Kate Oh Gallery is delighted to present Anima Mundi, a two-person exhibition featuring internationally renowned artists Celia Gerard and Emily Auchincloss. Join us for the opening reception on Thursday January 18th (RSVP only) from 5-8pm.

The title of the exhibition, Anima Mundi, is an idea expressed in both Eastern and Western philosophies. Anima Mundi refers to the concept of a world soul- a global life force that connects all animate things. Gerard and Auchincloss explore this idea of interconnectivity in their layered and vibrant abstractions.

Celia Gerard works intuitively and procedurally, combining improvisational and regimented procedures in works that evolve iteratively over time. Gerard uses a flat grid as an organizational tool to achieve spatial depth, which is vital to the final result. In both her works on paper and ceramic sculpture, Gerard builds forms, breaks them down, and rebuilds them again until new shapes appear - creating a haptic experience. She incorporates recycled forms to help find new forms which give life where both culture and experience coincide as generative powers.

Gerard’s works on paper and sculpture in Anima Mundi range in date from 2010-2017. The works on paper are made with graphite, charcoal, chalk, casein, Flashe paint, Korean watercolors, and walnut ink on handmade paper. The ceramic works are made using porcelain and T1 clay bodies and a variety of glazes.

Emily Auchincloss uses a limited language of concentric circles to explore the sublime experiences of color harmonies in her current body of work. She aims for an ineffable type of expression through experiments in composition, ratio, and shape of color. These experiments are discovered and explored on substrates of clay, bringing these expressions back into the overtly corporeal.

Her interest lies in flattening hierarchies of ground, space, and object through playful and unexpected means. Auchincloss’ recent works are of gouache and ink on paperclay tablets, which affords her the chance to build up and excavate textures and images. She uses tools such as chisels, sandpaper, and microplanes to score and carve the surfaces of her intimate wall tablets.