Rare is pleased to present A Ban Done, Christina Shurts' second one-person exhibition at the gallery. With her new series of paintings and drawings, Shurts continues her visual and psychological exploration of familiar and imagined places. The show runs from September 5 until October 10, with an opening night reception on Thursday, September 5.
Feelings of nostalgic longing for a remembered past and a hoped-for future haunt, mingle, and coalesce in Shurts' cinematic landscapes which hover between representation and abstraction. Her richly filmic spaces offer up cabana stripes, circus tents, tree houses, waterfront shacks, beach umbrellas, and other objects that once existed within now forgotten, abandoned vacationlands.
Finding their way into the artist's paintings and drawings are vintage family photographs, magazine images, and childhood relics that enhance the familiarity and nostalgia of the compositions. The inviting quality they convey is counterbalanced by Shurts' ability to rework and transform the physical aspects of objects and structures to give them a particular posture and an almost human characterization. When combined with an "off" color palette, these qualities impart a strange humor and an unsettling inflection to her imagery. The result is an adept and moving commentary on the psychological impact of past times, remembered places, and once occupied spaces.
A resident of Huntington Beach, CA, Shurts has participated in group shows at the Torrance Art Museum, Pacific Design Center (West Hollywood), LA Municipal Art Gallery, Lawrence Asher Gallery (Los Angeles), Shoshana Wayne Gallery (Santa Monica), JK Gallery (Culver City), as well as at the Saatchi Gallery (London). She and fellow RARE artist Nathan Ritterpusch are scheduled for a two-person exhibition in January 2014 at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in Denver, CO. Shurts' work has been included in three New American Paintings annuals (Nos. 87, 91, 103).