Gutz: ASMA + Sophronia Cook
April 24, 2021 – May 22, 2021
Et al. Gallery
620 Kearny St.
Guts, from the proto-german root gheu “to pour '' becomes a point of intersection between two practices which focuses on a poetic material process of infusion, transmuting multiple elements into container objects. These experimental and intuitive constructions hint towards a visceral sensation of bodily insides and at the same time seek to obscure and protect a language of memories and affections.
Sophronia Cook’s temporal collapse works contain images remixed and flattened. Pieces fall and shrink into cast resin, detaching them from time and combining them within a fused object. This detachment allows multiple time frames to collapse into each other at once; becoming a viscerally trapped moment - contained and distorted by the opalescent, rigid material.
In the series 69 Asma presents experimental low-relief silicone paintings which explores a resistance to repetition through a juxtaposition of sculptural and painterly gestures. The image of two butterflies locked-together appear and disappear as a second image emerges from within. This presence hints at an invisible inner thought that permeates scenes from a collective memory. Accompanying the painting series are two smaller works made on syringe boxes, linked through a sense of partial containment, with an encoded drawing mimicking an ancient script or a teenager's drawing.
ASMA is an artist duo based in Mexico City, formed by Matias Armendaris (Ecuador b. 1990) and Hanya Beliá (México b. 1994). The duo focuses on developing work produced exclusively through active collaboration. Their work uses open narratives and architectural spaces exploring formal interrelations between painterly and sculptural expressions. In their collaborative process they explore the act of interaction and how things in contact start affecting each other. In this interrelation, things start erasing their boundaries and begin to fuse, they play with the potential of this process of transformation, both formally and conceptually.
They hold an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Emily Carr University, as well as a BFA in Visual Arts from the Facultad de Artes y Diseño (UNAM). The duo has exhibited internationally including Manifesta Biennial (FR), Museo Tamayo (MX), The Chicago Artist Coalition (USA), Embajada (PR),PEANA (MX), Makeroom (USA), Galería CURRO (MX), Galería Sankovsky (BR), A.M. 180 Gallery (CZE), Jessica Silverman Gallery (USA), Rachel Uffner Gallery (USA), Centre Clark (CA), Diablo Rosso Gallery (PAN), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito (EC), XIV Bienal de Cuenca ( EC), Pane Projects (IT), Centre Clark (CA), Cassandra Cassandra (CA)
Sophronia Cook is an artist living in San Francisco, California. She is concerned with photos collected from past and present and exploring textures that when combined create uncanny images. Sophronia holds a BFA from Hampshire college and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. She has exhibited with Embark Gallery, SomArts, The Diego Rivera Gallery, and Fort Mason Center For the Arts in San Francisco. Her work has also been exhibited with Tube Gallery, Schaffer Gallery, Beacon Gallery, and Harold F Johnson Gallery in Massachusetts. She has been an artist in residence with Recology and Lightsource in San Francisco, as well as Piano Factory Residency in Massachusetts. In 2018 Sophronia was awarded the Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award