Ochi Projects is pleased to present Wanting Hide, Armed Mark by Lindsay Preston Zappas. The exhibition opens in our upstairs gallery Saturday, January 28^th, 2017 with an opening reception from 5-8pm and remains on view through Saturday, March 4^th.

Zappas’ work over the last several years has a distinct continuity. As her circular practice transitions through an array of mediums—expanding and contracting between the spatial and the flat—she maintains an interest in sculptural installation as a stage for reproduction. For Wanting Hide, Armed Mark, she incorporates elements of both into a series of work including tapestry weavings that were conceived and executed on a floor loom while teaching at Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, Oregon in the Fall of 2016.

While tapestry is a new medium for Zappas, the circular representation of imagery pulled through an array of media is a process in which Zappas is well versed . Her efforts in the studio flow through respective mediums with no equivocation, suggesting a non-hierarchical fusion of art, design, craft, concept, and ego . In Wanting Hide, Armed Mark, two large-scale woven paper works, and a series of intimate photographs join the weavings, displaying a push/pull tension that fully melds Zappas’ interest in the physicality of making with her ability to tread the thin line between chaos and cohesion.

Consistent in Zappas’ output is the presence of the body, whether manifested photographically or evidenced in handmade processes. Siting the body against a potpourri of patterned references, Zappas puts an image to mental saturation. For this exhibition Zappas has created a new series of photographs—each shot totally in camera—which insist on the handmade, and highlight small subtle gestures. While Zappas’ work brushes against art historical depictions of the female body and garish Op Art, it is hemmed in by a quiet, quotidian element. The everyday, with its small pitfalls and victories, become a lens through which to see the constructs that we inhabit: the commercial, cultural, and political.

Lindsay Preston Zappas (b. 1985) received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), an L.A. based critical art magazine that began in 2015. Recent exhibitions have included a solo show at City Limits (Oakland), a two person show at  VACANCY (L.A.), and group shows at Small Editions (N.Y.) and Klowden Mann (L.A). Zappas has written for a number of publications including Art21, LACanvas, SFAQ, Carets and Sticks, and Carla. She has been part-time art faculty at Cal State Northridge, Fullerton College, and was recently visiting professor in the MFA department at Oregon College of Art and Craft.