Living Matter: Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja is Fully Alive at Matter Gallery

Multi-media artist Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja has a radiant new solo exhibition now at Matter Gallery in mid-city. Mystical, mythical, and wildly imaginative, her Living Matter is a full and rich investigation of her own personal story, one that both incorporates and leads to the symbols and rituals of her ancestors and their traditions.

The exhibition was created during the artist’s recent residence in Jamaica, and as such includes a vibrant color palette that seems infused with a sense of lush tropical light. She draws on the vivid landscapes and magical cloud formations of the island, as well as on what she describes as the energy of the island’s residents and the land itself.  Honoring the inspiration she received there, Davies-Aiyeloja is donating a percentage of sales from this exhibition to supporting those affected by Hurricane Melissa.

This is dazzlingly inventive work, in the flow of color and the the patterns that evoke flora and fauna, nature’s blooms and the flowering of dreams and dances. Her images here are mesmerizing in their use of color and light; look at a piece long enough and like sunlight dazzling the ocean waves or dew-encased leaves, there is a shifting and motion to the colors that each work contains.

Her work seethes with a sense of a mystery and the alchemical, from fierce blues to siwrling purples and magenta shades, the artist manifests her own unique vision of the island.

 

Working with acrylic paint, collage, ink, lace and other fabrics as well as beads, cabochon, and aquerelle, Davies-Aiyeloja’s “Generate Excitement” does just that with its layers and swirling lines and colors. She seems to be asking what wondrous, below-the-surface mechanisms allow the earth itself to bring this beauty forth.

In “Rhythm to My Soul,” the artist’s work unfolds through the inclusion of AR, turning this already motion-filled large work into one that literally moves and shifts and breathes and ripples beneath the surface of canvas and paint. This animated addition creates a truly immersive experience that brings the sensations of water and rain forest that find root in this painting fully to life.

Joyous human figures form the subjects of “Golden Elegance I” and “Golden Elegance II,” created from a mix of collage, pencil shavings, meixed media, acrylic and ink as well as collage. Recalling religious icons with the use of gold leaf, these figurative works are shiny, flowing depictions of happiness.

Both her “Hues of the Island” and “Island Glow” series embody patterns that resemble both sea life and flowers, as well as the shapes of rocks and other land formations. “Island Glow” offers the brighter palette; both boides of work are geometric, abstract, and layered, and have the grace and flow of the sea and the myriad of colors the waters themselves contain.

Highly sensorial and sinuous, the artist’s images are awash with atmosphere, reshaping and recreating the land and sea of  Jamaica itself, filled with energy and the wistful longing of memory. They are fragmented and dream-like, smooth and wavering, creating the same visual sensation of looking through astonishingly clear water to the multi-colored stones, shells, fish, and plants undulating below the surface. Or in less literal terms, Davies-Aiyeloja refers to the kaleidoscopic images of our pasts, our dreams, our roots.

The exhibition closes with an artist talk on January 4th, do start the New Year right with a visit to this shining, colorful island reverie.

Matter Gallery is located at 5080 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

• Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis