December 30 – February 5, Artist Reception December 30, 5-8 PM
350 Walnut Aveue

Ochi Gallery is pleased to present New Works: Molly Larkey & Nellie King Solomon, a show bringing together two fantastic women. Together their work is perfect to celebrate the new year, offering reflection, humor, and beauty.

In her new body of work, Molly Larkey examines the imagery of language so closely that it becomes abstract.  In the painting series 'Lost Alphabet', Molly challenges the reality of morphology and syntax, as she dissolves individual letters past their breaking point to form something new entirely. By creating layered presentations of clay, fabric and paint, she brings us beyond the foundations of language, and alters our relationships to our most familiar mode of communication.

Similarly, in her sculpture LADYPANTSS!! and Yellow Dress and paintings Pants that Fit, the artist examines gender roles and identity through both language and feminine attire. While wielding steel is a masculine act, the sculptures depict feminine words such as 'ladypantss' and 'yellow dress'. And as women across the globe are acutely aware, it is hard to feel powerful if your pants don't fit.

Nellie King Solomon has always been interested by the movement of energy, especially on a large scale, such as 'where tectonic plates meet and collide'.  Simultaneously tangible and conceptual, her San Francisco portraits bring a familiar city both 'on' and 'off' the map as she brings a place to attention and sends it to oblivion. Painting on a 9' x 9' table, the artist is omnificent as she creates topographical maps that both represent and transform. In the past, her work has commented on natural disaster, the human footprint, and current events. Here, San Francisco ebbs and flows out of her own memory and experience of city. With acrylic and Flocking on Mylar, the pieces remain immediate, as the paint looks as if it is still running its course.

In the Green horse Series, Nellie brings humor and history together as she maps out the liberation of Paris and Doctor Seuss on the same plane, a map of the globe filled with quips and characters. In other works, Flocking Horse and Coffee is for Closers, we see a playful juxtaposition between deliberate and spontaneous strokes, with little stickers delicately placed throughout the series. These seem to create a dreamscape within the real world.

Molly Larkey (b. 1971, Los Angeles) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She received a MFA from Rutgers University, New Jersey and a BA from Columbia University, New York. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at PS1 Moma, New York; The Saatchi Gallery, London; The Drawing Center, New York; Horton Gallery, New York; Samson Projects, Boston; Bobbie Greenfield Gallery, Santa Monica; Ochi Gallery, Ketchum; among others. She is the founder of Statler Waldorf Gallery, an alternative art space, which she runs from her home in Echo Park.

Nellie King Solomon (b. 1971) lives and works in San Francisco, CA.  She received her MFA from California College of the Arts and her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has exhibited throughout the United States.

CHECKLIST OF WORKS