Roni Shneior: Place in the sun

February 9, 2017

artis grant program, israeli artist los angeles, Roni Shneior, roni shneior joan

by: JOAN

April 23 – June 4, 2017

JOAN is pleased to present Roni Shneior: Place in the sun, an exhibition of new and recent sculptures and paintings by Los Angeles-based, Israeli artist Roni Shneior. With a nod towards Bay Area Funk of the late 1950s and 60s, Shneior’s sculptures teeter between the absurd, the erotic, and the eccentric. At the center of the exhibition is Bloom (2017), a gnarled mass of twisted limbs flung akimbo. As if emerging, or blooming, out of the ground, the arms stretch, prop, push, grope, and slither along the floor and wall. A set of three small ceramic sculptures, Duck (I), Duck (II), and Duck (III) (all 2017), are scattered throughout the space.These bewigged creatures balance on mangled and bent limbs, as if birthed by Shneior’s massive crude and ungainly knot of painted papier-mâché and ceramic forms.

Shneior approaches painting in much the same way as she does her ceramic and sculptural work, often building out her surfaces over time to create highly impastoed renderings of trees, bushes, and cacti found in and around Southern California. In their organic, anthropomorphic treatment, Shneior’s Trumpet Trees (Brugmansia), Bottlebrushes (Callistemon), and Agave plants extend the artist’s playful if irreverent approach to representation. Significantly, both the paintings and sculptures are based on an intuitive method of art making, one influenced by the personal and lived realities of life lived in a foreign city. Like Shneior, the Trumpet Tree, although rampant in Los Angeles, is non-native. Originally found in South America, the highly toxic and hallucinogenic plant is now extinct in the wild. Shneior depicts her subjects at dawn or dusk surrounded by washes of violet blues or peach pinks. Their leaves and flowering limbs stand tall, sag, or droop much like the spider-like arms of Bloom. As with her sculptural work, Shneior’s paintings articulate a kind of irresolution as if they were continuously in a process of becoming, eternally blooming in the sun-drenched city of Los Angeles.

Roni Shneior: Place in the sun is generously funded by The Artis Grant Program.

Roni Shenior (B. 1980, Cabri, Israel; lives in Los Angeles) received an MFA from the Benzalel Academy of Arts and Design in Tel Aviv. Her work has been exhibited at Magenta Plains, New York; Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas; 356 Mission, Chin’s Push, JOAN, and Night Gallery in Los Angeles; and Uri and Rami Nechushtan Museum, Gal On Gallery, and Hissin House in Israel, among others.

Image credit: Mayumi Hashi, Brugmansia, date unknown.

Installation view of Roni Shneior: Place in the sun, April 22-June 4, 2017 at JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Installation view of Roni Shneior: Place in the sun, April 22-June 4, 2017 at JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Installation view of Roni Shneior: Place in the sun, April 22-June 4, 2017 at JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Roni Shneior, Eye, 2017, acrylic and paper on canvas, 14 x 13 1/4 inches, courtesy of the artist and JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Roni Shneior, The end of the day, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 50 inches, courtesy of the artist and JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Roni Shneior, Agave, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 65 x 70 inches, courtesy of the artist and JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Roni Shneior, Tree and smiling moon, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 51 1/4 inches, courtesy of the artist and JOAN, Los Angeles, photo by Barak Zemer

Categories: 2017, Past