Cameron

Nicole Klagsbrun is pleased to present an exhibition of work by the artist Cameron (b. 1922, Iowa, d. 1995, California). Closely associated with occult and avant-garde art circles in Los Angeles since the 1940s, Cameron produced drawings, paintings, and collages, both mesmeric abstractions and graphic figurations. As a mentor to the artists Wallace Berman and George Herms, Cameron was also known for her on-screen collaborations with the filmmakers Kenneth Anger and Curtis Harrington. This exhibition features spellbinding works spanning the 1950s to the 1980s, including the iconic Dark Angel and Fossil of Raven as well as never-before-exhibited works. Cameron’s self-portraits and chimeric representations are kin with her surrealist contemporary Leonora Carrington, who the California artist met while living in Mexico in 1948. Depicting ritual practices and altered psychological states, Cameron invoked a world of incantations, archetypes, and pagan divinations. In Black Egg, vacant eyes recede while thin fingers hold up a large egg inscribed with mysterious letters; Cameron’s signature red hair surrounds her attenuated face like a halo. A selection of ink on black paper works depict beings shifting in and out of recognition. In an untitled gouache, three hybrid figures with fox-like faces and human legs prance together in the darkness. The Fossil series showcases Cameron’s visionary composition and milky line work. As if a photographic negative or x-ray, the white-on-black works suggest spiritual transmutation and the ossified traces of life, real and imagined. Fourteen drawings from the series Pluto Transiting the Twelfth House (1978-86) register the astrological transit that Cameron experienced during those years. The drawings evoke quivering seismographs, with multiplied lines contouring semi-abstract forms. When Pluto passes through the twelfth house of an individual’s zodiac, it is said to cause a profound reckoning with one’s unresolved past. The drawings indicate Cameron’s preoccupations with the body, the cosmos, and transit from one plane to another. In 2007, Nicole Klagsbrun mounted Cameron’s first exhibition in a commercial gallery and has continued to champion her work. This exhibition is an opportunity to rediscover an artist whose life and practice have long captivated those seeking the intersections of surrealism, ritual, and representation.

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508 W 26th St, Room 318

Chelsea, NY