I Do My Own Stunts

Michelle Blade, Andrea Marie Breiling, Cristina de Miguel, Camilla Engström, Veronica Fernandez, Louise Giovanelli, Elizabeth Glaessner, Jenna Gribbon, Angela Heisch, Mickey Lee, Tidawhitney Lek, Tahnee Lonsdale, Karyn Lyons, Kylie Manning, Jo Messer, Sarah Miska, Alejandra Moros, Ruby Neri, Alake Shilling, Amanda Wall Spazio Amanita is delighted to present its first exhibition in LA, a group show curated by Jack Siebert and Caio Twombly featuring paintings by twenty artists. Stunts are high risk acts that demand preparation and practice. Stunt performances disguise the arduous preparation behind a seamless film shot; cooperatively, the act of painting involves technical dexterity to achieve visual/conceptual finesse. There is one stark difference between stuntpeople and artists: the latter have an opportunity to express their identity. Within each gesture the artist imbues a repertoire of skill and personal rationale. I Do My Own Stunts aims to reveal the painstaking feats behind spectacular paintings. Films are experienced by viewers as a finished product. Similarly with little or no knowledge of the countless takes, edits and behind-the-scenes efforts involved in its creation, a painting presents itself to its audience as complete (in the context of an exhibition, unless otherwise specified...). As viewers of paintings, it is easy to derogate our consideration of the art’s production. Dangerous, high-action film shots are typically reserved for male characters. In recent years however, female actors have begun to disrupt this in an industry-wide shift that is slowly starting to subvert traditional gender roles. Despite the shift, many films and TV shows (largely in the superhero genre) continue to hypersexualize their female protagonists and present their characters in a way that does more to satiate the male gaze than to empower their female viewers. The title of this exhibition serves as a mantra for female artists - their agency is affirmed by choosing to command each step of their artistic process, by doing their own stunts. The exhibition seeks to celebrate a diversity of approaches, united by painting to form an open dialogue between powerful voices. Spazio Amanita is a contemporary exhibition space founded in 2021 exhibiting some of the most influential emerging artists. Spazio Amanita is based in New York with a permanent exhibition space in Florence, Italy. Jack Siebert is a Los Angeles based collector and advisor. He has been featured in Larry’s List “The Next Generation Art Collectors,” and in Cultured Magazine’s 2021 “Young Collectors.” Caio Twombly worked broadly across the United States and Europe, curating shows both independently and in collaboration with institutions and galleries. In 2020 he co-founded Spazio Amanita of which he is currently co-curator. Michelle Blade (b. 1981) lives and works in Los Angeles - she works in acrylic ink, allowing the water-based medium to abstract the outcome of her paintings. She has had shows at Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe; The Bonnefantenmuseum, Netherlands; Jack Hanley Gallery, NY; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; Western Exhibitions, Chicago; Roberts & Tilton, LA and The Torrance Art Museum, among others. Andrea Marie Breiling lives and works in Brooklyn. She is a contemporary abstract expressionist painter known for large atmospheric works created with spray paint and dye. She has recently exhibited at Almine Rech, London; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; The Mass, Tokyo; Carl Kostyál Gallery, Stockholm; Sunny NY, New York; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Achenbach Hagemeier, Berlin. Camilla Engström (b. 1989 Sweden) lives and works in Los Angeles. In vibrant, sorbet-colored landscapes, the self-taught painter Camilla Engström creates paeans to ecological empowerment and rebels against female beauty standards. She has recently exhibited at: Over the Influence, Los Angeles; Carl Kostyál, Stockholm. Veronica Fernandez (b. 1998) is based in New York and Los Angeles. Using colorful, large scale canvases with varying textured surfaces, paint is used as an expressive vehicle to highlight themes of disconnection, impermanence, and reconstruction, meanwhile putting a focus on the alternative realities we are apart of and enter when reflecting on our past and present. She has exhibited at Thierry Goldberg, New York; Jenkins Johnson, Brooklyn; Monti 8 Gallery, Latina, Italy. Louise Giovanelli (b. 1993) lives and works in Manchester, UK. Louise Giovanelli’s delicately luminous paintings draw on subjects from the canon of Western art and contemporary popular culture which she then suspends in enigmatic and unsettling narratives. She has recently exhibited at Grimm Gallery, New York; Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam and New York; Workplace Gallery, London; Frutta Gallery, Rome. Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester. Clearing, New York. Elizabeth Glaessner (b. 1984) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She creates brightly hued paintings that teem with life. Her paintings are drawn on personal history, memory and ritual. Elizabeth Glaessner has recently had shows at Perrotin Gallery, Paris; P.P.O.W Gallery, New York; Wallspaceplease, Dubai. Jenna Gribbon (b. 1978) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her sumptuous, textural paintings hover between alluring intimacy and off-putting voyeurism. Has recently exhibited at The Frick Collection, New York. Kurpfälzisches Museum Heidelberg, Germany; Massimo De Carlo, London; Fredericks & Freiser, New York; The Journal Gallery, New York; Gnyp Gallery, Berlin; Taymour Grahne, London; Carl Koystal, Milan. Angela Heisch (b. 1989) lives and works in Brookly, NY. Rendered with a luminous application of colour, Angela Heisch’s paintings are composed of repeated motifs, curving forms, and delicate dark lines. She has recently had shows at Davidson Gallery, ADAA, New York; Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London; Projet Pangée Gallery, Montreal; Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn; Nassima Landau Gallery, Tel Aviv; Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam; Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles. Mickey Lee was born and raised in rural Oregon and is currently based in Los Angeles. Longing for the landscape she grew up in, her work is permeated with pastoral narratives that are simultaneously naive in their childlike renderings yet sophisticated in their art historical references. Her work oscillates between safeness and threat, birth and death, and the beautiful and the grotesque. In each of her paintings, her work reveals a fantasized vision of the contemporary world, as well as a personal approach to subject matter characterized by her affinities for motherhood, rabbits and provincial life. Tidawhitney Lek (b. 1992) lives and works in Long Beach. Tidawhitney is a Cambodian-American painter who plays with narrative and the Asian experiences of first-generation Americans. These bright and somber paintings present nuances of domesticity, figures and hands interacting in composition as culture and Southeast-Asian elements echo through mundane objects found from places like the home. Has recently exhibited at Taymour Grahne Projects, London; Luna Anais Gallery, Los Angeles; Pow Wow Long Beach, Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, CA; Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles. Tahnee Lonsdale (b. 1982, United Kingdom) is a painter of vibrant semi- abstract narratives. Her paintings contain illustrated characters and make references to religion, literature and art history. Some of her shows include: Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Cob Gallery, London; Mine Project, Hong Kong; De Buck Gallery, New York; Public Gallery, London; Pt.2 Gallery, Oakland. Karyn Lyons lives and works in New York. She depicts intimate interior scenes, dramatically lit still lifes, and enigmatic snatches of personal life in rich hues and expressionist brushstrokes. Has had recent exhibitions at Turn Gallery, New York; Annarumma, Naples. Kylie Manning (b. 1983) lives and works in New York. Manning`s work celebrates and embraces a violent sensuosity that is both the nature of painting and of desire. Her paintings are about being picked up, swept away, and dissolved into a mass of pure sensation. Recent exhibitions and acquisitions include: Anonymous Gallery, New York; Pace Gallery, New York; Anonymous Gallery, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hollis Taggart, New York; CG Boerner Gallery, New York; Sotheby’s, New York; Every Woman Biennial, New York. Jo Messer (b. 1991) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Messer’s paintings are caught somewhere between abstract expressionism and representation, frequently punctuated by veiled figurations. Jo is represented by 56 Henry, NY. Cristina de Miguel (b. 1987) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She takes a visceral approach to painting, where the emotional prevails over the rational. Her work bases its sources on literature, her own life and the absurd. She has recently exhibited at The Journal, New York; Allouche Benias Gallery, Athens; Galleria Herrero de Tejada, Madrid; Fredericks & Frasier Gallery, New York; Ruttkowsky 68, Paris; Marvin Gardens, Brooklyn. Sarah Miska (b. 1983) lives and works in Los Angeles. Miska examines the rituals of outward presentation with the assiduity of a magnifying glass, appealing to our innate desire to control how we are perceived in the external world. She has recently exhibited at Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Friends Indeed, San Francisco; Below Grand, New York. Alejandra Moros (b. 2000) lives and works in Miami. She uses painting to explore the duality of vulnerability, as a source of both comfort and discomfort. She has had recent shows at Dale Zine, Miami; Flowerbox Projects, Miami; 3100, Miami. Ruby Neri (b. 1970) lives and works in Los Angeles. Neri draws upon 20th century West Coast traditions as well as a global catalog of art historical and anthropological modes. She depicts the human body as a porous instrument of pleasure, terror and everything in between. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries including Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles; Salon 94, New York; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley; David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. Alake Shilling (b. 1993) lives and works in Los Angeles. She is a painter and sculptor of creatures, in a gelatinous rainbow style, bearing carefully coded emotions and driving rich narratives about companionship, risk and reward. Her work has been recently exhibited at 356 Mission and Maitland Foley in Los Angeles. Shilling has been included in group shows at the Hammer Museum, The Rubel Family Collection, Jeffrey Deitch, Karma International LA, and Steve Turner. Amanda Wall (b. 1985) lives and works in Los Angeles. A heady mix of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and 21st century existentialism, Wall's work exposes the intimate and uncanny. Her recent shows include, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; The Cabin, Los Angeles; Köning Galerie, Berlin; Almine Rech, New York and Brussels; Nino Mier, Los Angeles; and Gana Art, Seoul.

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1015 N Cahuenga Blvd, Stage 4

La, NY