The Pit is delighted to announce our group exhibition Wild range at our Los Angeles location. The show will include work by Shara Mays, Anders Scrmn Meisner, James Goss, Hopie Hill, Tracy Thomason, Howard Fonda, Jennifer King, Camila Varon Jaramillo, and Yirui Jia. The exhibition is on display from August 10 - September 14, 2024 alongside James Hayward’s solo exhibition. Join us for an opening party on August 10 from 4-7pm!

Shara Mays (b. Princeville, NC) received her BFA from George Washington University and her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. Mays creates large-scale paintings which take the shape and form of both landscape and intuitive figuration. Her works are performances of subconscious motions and are in constant conversation with the natural world. Her art practice represents an evolution of narrative, from a focus on literal, southern landscapes, and family struggles, to chasing freedom through the act of gestural abstraction.

Notable solo shows include Color sanctuary at Marrow Gallery, San Francisco (2023); Overgrown at Mehari Sequar, Washington, DC (2023); and Everywhere at Chandran Gallery, San Francisco (2022). Select group shows include Arcadia and elsewhere at James Cohan Gallery, New York (forthcoming); After Eden at LatchKey Gallery, New York (2023); Considering female abstractions at the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas (2023); Creative gatherings at the International African American Museum, Charleston (2023); and Bloodchild at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco (2022).

Residencies include the Vermont Studio Center, Meta Open Arts, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her work is included in both public and private collections, including the International African American Museum, the Green Family Art Foundation, and Art in Embassies.

Anders Scrmn Meisner (b. 1981) is a Danish visual artist, who currently lives and works in Copenhagen after having lived abroad touring with a punk band and earning the moniker “Scrmn” for his eclectic vocals. Recent solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) Solo show, The Pit, Los Angeles (2025); (Upcoming) Solo show, Isabel Sullivan, New York, NY (2025); Everything is amplified, Hans Alf Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark(2024); and Shark smiles and sunflowers, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2024). His work has been included in group exhibitions at Koldinghus Museum in Denmark, with AJG Contemporary in Sevilla, Francis Boeske Projects in Amsterdam and L’inlassable Galerie in both New York and Paris.

James Goss, born in 1956 in Bainbridge, Maryland, received his at BFA Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1980. He has maintained a studio since 1973. Goss has been living and working in the Adirondacks, NY since 1983. He is the former co Director of White Columns from 1981-82. His recent exhibitions include a solo exhibitions at WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong (2022); The Pit, Palm Springs, CA (2022); and Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2021). He has also been included in group exhibitions at WOAW Gallery, Singapore (2023); Frieze No. 9 Cork Street with The Pit, London, UK (2022); and Harper’s, East Hamptons, NY (2021). His work can be found in numerous private collections in the US and Abroad.

Tracy Thomason (b. 1984 in Gaithersburg, MD) received her Master of Fine Arts from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD.

Thomason has been the subject of recent solo and two-person exhibitions at Marinaro, New York, NY; Teen Party, Brooklyn, NY; Cuevas Tilleard Projects, New York, NY; and the Interlochen School for the Arts, Interlochen, MI.

Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at The Pit LA, Los Angeles, CA; FJORD Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Analog Diary, Beacon, NY; MOTHER, Beacon, NY; Marinaro, New York, NY; SUNNY NY, New York, NY; Over the Influence, Los Angeles, CA; University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery, Knoxville, TN; St. Charles Projects, Baltimore, MD; Pablo’s Birthday, New York, NY; Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY; and 56 Henry, New York, NY.

She is the recipient of awards and residencies including an Exhibition Partnership and Collaboration with Dieu Donné, Brooklyn, NY; Fall Artist in Residence, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN; Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; Residency with Dana Schutz, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL; and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship Fund, New York, NY.

Thomason lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Howard Fonda was born in Syracuse, NY in 1974. He received his MFA in Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously an instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Fonda has lectured, served on jurying and critique panels and pursued curatorial projects at numerous universities and art centers. He has had solo exhibitions most recently at Asia Art Archive, Taipei, 2023; The Pit, Los Angeles, 2022; Ampersand, Portland, OR, 2021; Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2020; and Grifter, New York, NY, 2019. His work can be found in the collections of the Fidelity Investment Group and the X Museum in Beijing, China. Fonda lives and works in Scottsdale, AZ.

Jennifer King (b. 1968, Connecticut) makes ceramic pots rich with imagery of intertwined figures juxtaposed uncomfortably with references to the natural world, using a rich palette of glazes and textures. After a tumultuous upbringing and personal struggles, King found her way as a student of ceramics and printmaking at the University of Colorado in Boulder where she studied under renowned ceramicist and painter Betty Woodman. The deconstruction of the form of the vessel became the focus of King’s creative exploration.

King’s imagery evokes a psychological exploration of how we perceive ourselves. She is continually reinventing her pots, using various tradi- tional and “invented” techniques to create them, exploring bold patterns, brushstrokes and colors with a naive sensitivity. King has participat- ed in a number of group and solo shows in and around Los Angeles. In addition to her unique fine art works, her practice includes a functional line of ceramics which can be found in select boutiques and museum shops across the country. Her works are in the public collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. King lives and works in Los Angeles.

Camila Varon Jaramillo’s practice is rooted in the process of learning about nature through movement, rhythm, light, and color. Her most recent work presents compositions that strive for balance between the elements in the paintings, in an effort to investigate and create an atmosphere that conveys harmony in the way that it exists in nature. She’s interested in how, within the process of learning from natural environments, there is a simultaneous introspective process that informs human experience and emotion.

These surreal landscapes and dreamscapes are therefore a combination between a physical space and a mental space, serving as a bond between childhood memories of growing up in Colombia, and painting as a mechanism for the physical exploration and psychological examination of the self.

Raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Camila moved to New York to study at Parsons School of Design where she obtained a BFA in Architectural Design in 2017, and recently obtained an MFA in Painting at School of Visual Arts in 2023. Working as an architect, designer, and artist over the past 10 years, Camila has worked in design and production for pavilions at the London Design Biennale and PMQ Hong Kong. She’s also created installations, murals, and exhibitions across New York that have been featured in E-flux Journal and Airmail Weekly. Most recently she’s shown her work at New Collectors Gallery, Tuleste Factory, Andrew Reed Gallery and was featured in Artsy’s Curator’s Picks for emerging artists for her works shown at Selena’s Mountain.

Yirui Jia (b. 1997), Binzhou, Shandong, China. Lives and works in New York.

Within Jia’s work resides a cast of characters—many of whom are derived from popular culture and cartoon influences to anthropomorphic objects and animals. Each character has their own complex identity within the childlike worlds in which they are portrayed, empowered by the reinvention of the ordinary. Jia embraces the idea of her paintings serving as visualized narratives to the sculptures and vice-versa. The first of her family to become an artist, Jia is inspired by daily life—the personal and shared experiences, “the undifferentiated universality of objects”, and, perhaps most importantly, the humor of it all.

Yirui Jia moved to the United States in 2015, where she subsequently received her BFA from Gettysburg College, PA and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. Her work has been featured in previous solo and group exhibitions at Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong; PM/AM Gallery, London; COMA, Sydney; Bill Brady Gallery, Los Angeles; Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing; LKIF Gallery, Seoul; TUBE Culture Hall, Milan; Latitude Gallery, New York; WerkStadt, Berlin; and Hive Art Center, Beijing. Yirui currently lives and works in New York.