United States

Brenna Youngblood

Los Angeles

Roberts Projects

Painting

Out of the Blue

Jolly Rancher

Hourglass

Dirty Mondrian #1

Closure #10

Closure #9

Closure #8

Closure #7

Closure #6

Closure #5

Closure #1

22658A

the LIGHT and the DARK takes as its genesis Youngblood’s experience navigating the difficulties of last year and applying her lived experiences – endured as two separate but simultaneous realities – to her practice. From a deadly pandemic to a global movement for equitable racial justice, 2020 was defined by its world-shifting events.

The works on view hold space for light and dark, and the material representation of both by taking into account their own considerations and possibly different ideas surrounding each, but as a whole the show is committed to Youngblood’s highly personal response to her particular memories and experiences addressing the events and issues we have seen unfold so far. the LIGHT and the DARK brings together twelve energy-filled mixed-media collages on canvas and board.

In INCARCERATION (2020), Youngblood employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast a collaged sweater’s black and white stripes with the canvas’ otherwise smoothly painted surface. The artist’s phenomenological interrogation of abstract concepts without immediate reference to the human body hints at the larger story of the erasure and animus that has always been there for Black Americans. One of the most damning features of the U.S. criminal justice system, and the country as a whole, is its vast racial inequity. Though, immaterial abstractions seem appealing when the material world is devoid of benevolence.

Youngblood’s embrace of unconventional materials from everyday life handily blurs the distinction between painting and sculpture. New assembled collage works incorporating hundreds of craft buttons allow her to create a topographical surface to then build up and paint on with a variety of techniques: thick impastos, transparent washes, loose and smooth brushstrokes. The result is a playful intermingling of shapes and patterns, texture, and sensibility.

Though often classified as an assemblage artist among the ranks of Noah Purifoy, George Herms, John Outterbridge and Betye Saar, Youngblood’s practice defies one specific categorization. Her ability to strip the art-historical canon of assemblage of any ambiguity further bolsters her dedicated practice of collecting society’s discarded fragments to spin them into highly charged cultural critique.

the LIGHT and the DARK

the LIGHT and the DARK

Take 3D Tour