Beneath the Horizon & Cosmic Bodies
Saturday October 14th, 2023 - Sunday October 28th, 2023

Dongpu Ling and Caleb Craig present the dual group exhibition Beneath the Horizon and Cosmic Bodies, on view from Saturday October 14th through Sunday, October 28th as part of their 2023 CalArts REEF Residency. Works by artists Cara Bonewitz, Gabriella Boros, Tyler Calkin-Low, Mateo Croom, Nat Decker, cymoonv, Esteban Kuriel, Christine Yerie Lee, Matthew Pagoaga, Oriana Poindexter, Kate Rusek, and Elisabeth Smolarz.

“The body is an idea that is cosmic, which is to say, ‘inconceivably vast.’ ” - Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism, 2020 

Cosmic Bodies is a group exhibition of artists responding to the body as cosmic – defined in Legacy Russell’s “Glitch Feminism” as “infinitely vast”. The artists in this show consider bodies that encrypt, stitch, camouflage, and defy boundaries. Their works employ hybrid techniques of tracing, indexing, erasing, and choreographing to explore human and more than human bodies, microscopic ecologies, paradoxes, and systems. They bend and shape reality through abstraction, recursion, and distortion to confront deeply situated cultural models of normalcy and deviance. 

“We must remember too that deep in the ocean lies one of the main archives of human history that must be interpreted and preserved.” - Mario Soares, The Ocean: Our Future, 1998

Beneath the Horizon is a group exhibition in which artists respond to the ocean's significance in providing food and resources and the impact of human activities on our natural environment. These artists use various art mediums as tools to inspire and encourage viewers to reflect on our relationship with the ocean and the potential ways art might be used to mitigate the serious implications of continuing with our current environmental policies worldwide. The works focus on marine debris, environmental destruction, species extinction, medicinal plants, beauty and decay, waste, and excess.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:


Cara Bonewitz is an interdisciplinary artist and textile designer born in Pittsburgh, PA. Currently based in Ojai, CA and Los Angeles, she works predominantly in sculpture, drawing, and painting. She takes her inspiration from everyday surroundings, using commonplace or discarded materials to create pieces that, despite their rudimentary origins, are a bit mysterious and difficult to categorize. Her work has been shown in New York City, Glasgow, and throughout Southern California. In the summer of 2020 she organized and curated Joyride: Ojai, a weekend-long public art experience. She has participated in residencies at The Studios of Key West and La Napoule Art Foundation in La Napoule, France. She received her B.A. in Studio Art and History from Yale University in 2008 and her MFA at The Glasgow School of Art in 2018. 
carabonewitz.com
IG: @carabonewitz

Gabriella Boros has shown her prints, paintings and multimedia works nationally and internationally. Currently focusing on woodblock prints and handmade books, Gabriella also does nature photography, watercolors, paints in acrylic on wood panel, and makes drawings, sculptures and found-object cheeseboxes. Born in Israel, Gabriella immigrated to the United States as a child. Her narratives reflect her European parentage, Israeli childhood and American influences. She has a BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art. She currently lives and works in Skokie, Illinois.
gabriellaboros.com
IG: @gabriellaboros

Tyler Calkin-Low is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Reno, Nevada. His work has been exhibited, screened, and performed in art and educational institutions around the world, including at the Seoul Metro International Subway Film Festival in Seoul, The 60 Seconds Festival in Copenhagen, National Changwon University in Changwon, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, The Supernova Digital Animation Festival in Denver, Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Los Angeles, and Harvestworks in New York. He received his MFA in Art and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts in 2011 and is currently Assistant Professor and Area Head of Digital Media at the University of Nevada, Reno.
www.tylercalkin.com
IG: @tyler.calkin

Mateo Croom is a Los Angeles-based artist best known for his paintings and digital design that address the historical underrepresentation of his intersecting identities. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia in 1999, Croom’s artistic practice was informed by his upbringing at a primarily white institution in the south. His journey as a member of intersectional communities has inspired him to use art as a means of self-expression and social change. In his art, he intersects the narratives of race, neurodivergence, and transgender experiences, using elements such as furniture, self-portraiture, mathematics, and mental health to represent the essence of the queer and black soul. In 2023, Mateo Croom graduated summa cum laude from USC with double majors in Mathematics and Art and was named the outstanding scholar of the Roski School of Design’s undergraduate class. He is the recipient of the Renaissance Scholar prize, and joined the permanent wall of scholars at USC as a result. His work has been exhibited in the High museum, the Lindhurst museum, and Vision98 studios.
mateocroom.myportfolio.com    
IG: @mateolake

Nat Decker (they/them) is a Chicago born Los Angeles based artist interpreting the intimacies of queer and disabled lived experience as provocation toward collective care and liberation. Creating between digital and physical mediums, they identify the computer as an assistive tool affording a more accessible practice. They use digital 3D software to trace serpentine connections between the body and technology, reimagining fantastical mobility devices as cultural celebration and agitation of conventional desirability politics. This cyclically informs their work with sculpture, creating non-functional mobility devices as aesthetic scrutiny and frictional commentary on designations of usefulness. Nat is also an access worker, consulting on accessibility for various arts organizations. In June 2022 they graduated from UCLA with a degree in Design/Media Arts and Disability Studies.    
natdecker.com
IG: @crip_fantasy

cymoonv is a self-taught digital artist from Havana who explores new subjectivities around the performance of virtual identities, self-perception, sexual expression and intimacy through fluid representations of bodies set in worlds inspired by nature and posthumanism. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Barcelona, Valencia, London, New York, Havana, Bogota, at Miami Art Week, Refraction Festival, MMMAD (Madrid’s Urban Digital Art Festival), IGNITE Broward Festival, EROTIKA Festival, the NFT Biennial, and diverse web3 projects.
www.instagram.com/cymoonv/
IG: @cymoonv

Esteban Kuriel is a photo-based artist from Bogotá, Colombia. Themes in their work include intimacy, performance, commodity culture, as well as the body in relationships with everyday objects. They moved to the United States in 2014, where they studied photography at the international center of photography before earning an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media. Kuriel currently lives and works in Queens, NYC.
fakefrivolous.com
IG: @estebankuriel

Christine Yerie Lee is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist working in video, performance, sculpture, and drawing. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Lee has exhibited in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, as well as abroad in France, Finland, Argentina, and the Netherlands. Most recently, she was awarded the College Art Association's Visual Arts Fellowship and served as the Artist-in-Residence for the Public Art Residency at Heart of Los Angeles in partnership with Centre Culturel Jean-Cocteau. She has also participated in the Crosstown Arts Summer residency and will be an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in 2024. Lee has taught workshops and courses on video art at CalArts, CSULB, and Pomona College.
christineyerielee.com
IG: @yeriesh

Matthew Pagoaga is a Los Angeles-based artist and technologist. His work interprets datasets toward aesthetic revisualizations and embodied experiences utilizing a combination of mixed-media, technology, public art, and light and space installations. Matthew’s work probes elements of shared exploration, self-history, and collaborative play. At the same time, his work also interprets processes of archival degradation, social justice, and disruption. Matthew's work has been jury-selected in the MOZAIK Future Art Awards in both 2020 and 2021, won multiple Honoraria awards from the Burning Man organization, received a grant from the CalArts Commission on Sustainability (CCS), as well received other honorariums and awards. Matthew holds an M.F.A. in Art + Technology from California Institute of the Arts, and has served as Director of Media Studies, Production Services at Pitzer College since 2022. Matthew is actively creating work that hybridizes gallery installation work with a post-studio, public art and sculpture practice.
matthewpagoaga.net
IG: @matthewpagoagaart

Oriana Poindexter is a photographer and marine scientist. Her work opens dialogues about our relationship with the changing biodiversity of the ocean using traditional and alternative photo processes. She received a M.A.S. in Marine Biodiversity & Conservation from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego in 2015, and a B.A. in Visual Arts from Princeton University in 2011. Poindexter worked for nearly a decade with academic institutions, government agencies, and environmental organizations as an expert in the sustainable seafood and fisheries management arenas before shifting her focus back to visual art full time in 2021. Poindexter has been featured in the publications of Smithsonian Magazine, the Getty Center and the Wall Street Journal. Poindexter’s work has been shown at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Aquarium of the Pacific, Lois Lambert Gallery, LA Artcore, San Diego Public Library, Sparks Gallery, Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego, and Center for Fine Art Photography. Her works are held in private collections across the United States and in Europe.
orianapoindexter.com
IG: @opoindex

Kate Rusek assembles highly tactile sculptures transmuting themes influenced by man-made environmental catastrophes, emotional landscapes, and ecological systems, into abundant maximalism. She shapes scenes that interrogate the binary between the living and manufactured worlds. Selected exhibitions include Mizuma, Kips, and Wada, Studio Archive, Li Tang Gallery, The Lowe Art Museum, The Gallery of Visual Arts at The University of Montana, 440 Gallery, Portal Art Fair, La Bodega, and Governor’s Island Art Fair. She is a Socrates Annual Fellow for 2023 and a recipient of a Wingate Distinguished Fellowship for Innovation in Craft and. Rusek has been awarded residencies at The Archie Bray Foundation, Chulitna Lodge, Vermont Studio Center, The Hambidge Center, GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, and Western Montana Creative Initiatives among others. Additionally, Kate Rusek is a Daytime Emmy winning designer and builder of costumes, puppets, and props with contributing roles at The Jim Henson Company, NBC Universal, and the broader television and film industry. Rusek lives and works on the East and West Coast, splitting her time between NYC and the Pacific Northwest.
katerusek.com
IG: @thekaterusek

Elisabeth Smolarz was born in Poland and emigrated to Germany as a teenager. Raised between two cultures affected by communist and democratic systems, and then having moved yet again to the liberal democracy of the US, she creates photography, video, and social interactions investigating how consciousness, perception, identity, and value are formed by one’s cultural milieu. Smolarz has exhibited her work nationally and internationally for two decades. Smolarz received a BA in Photography and Video and an MFA in Multimedia from the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, Germany. She currently teaches Photography at the Pratt Institute, New York, and lives and works in Queens.
smolarz.com
IG: @elisabethsmolarz


ABOUT THE CURATORS:

Caleb Craig is a Los Angeles-based artist and performer who creates long-term audiovisual projects using immersive media, music production, and digital fabrication techniques. Their work is characterized by an interest in queer representation and politics. They work with virtual reality, 3D modeling, 3D printing, couture, animation, and music production to create experimental and innovative modes of performance. They received a B.F.A. in Expanded Forms of Art from the Lamar Dodd School of Art of the University of Georgia in 2018 and an MFA in Art & Technology from the California Institute of the Arts in 2021. Their work has been exhibited at Honor Fraser Gallery, Vellum LA, the JACCC George J. Doizaki Gallery, Palazzo Ferretti di Cortona, and Tin Flats, among others. They were a 2023 FIAR Artist-in-Residence and Reef Artist-in-Residence.
calebcraig.com
IG: @smokinhotqueer

Dongpu Ling is an intermedia artist based in Los Angeles. She works at the intersection of art and technology, exploring the space among digital and physical entities by creating a multidisciplinary relationship with machine intelligence. Dongpu started her work in visual media, including video and sculpture. Soon afterward, she began exploring interactive media, including algorithm-based mechanics, real-time sensory feedback, and artificial intelligence. Her work has been shown at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, The College Book Art Association, Tin Flats, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Coaxial Arts Foundation, and Santa Clarita City Hall. She received a B.F.A. in Intermedia Art from Arizona State University in 2018 and an M.F.A. in Art & Technology as well as a concentration in Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts in 2021 and currently teaches AI and XR in the program.
dongpu.studio
IG: @xestax

ABOUT THE CALARTS REEF RESIDENCY

The CalArts REEF Residency supports recent graduates from the MFA & MA programs in the schools of Critical Studies, Film/Video and the School of Art for one year in a creative and collaborative working environment at the Reef Building, Maker City, in Downtown Los Angeles. 
https://criticalstudies.calarts.edu/reef.