Charlie James Gallery
Group Show Curated by Erick Medel
The show includes works by
Alex Becerra
Alan Chin
Daniel Gibson
Sean Hutton
Sarah Kim
Higinio Martinez
Alex McAdoo
Ohad Sarfaty
Dates: september 13 - october 18, 2025
Opening Reception: september 13, 5-8pm
Venue: Charlie James Gallery 969 Chung King Road
969 Chung King Road
Charlie James Gallery is proud to present Neighbors, a group exhibition curated by Erick Medel. The exhibition features painting and sculpture by artists who make up Medel’s own community of peers.
Curator Bio:
Los Angeles-based artist Erick Medel (b. 1992, Puebla, Mexico) creates intimate portraits of immigrant life using a sewing machine and thread much like one would use a paintbrush and oils. Medel began working with textiles while completing his MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. Medel moved to the United States from Mexico as a teenager, and he positions his work in the context of the wider history of immigrant labor. Medel’s work has been shown internationally and domestically in locations such as Plan X Gallery, Milan; de boer, Antwerp; Omni Gallery, London; Martha’s Contemporary, Austin; F2T Gallery, Milan; and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. His work is in the collection of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento. Medel lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and is represented by Charlie James Gallery.
This work included in the exhibition was made in response to the accumulation of photographs made of poppy along the California coast, since moving from from the Bay Area to Los Angeles i have noticed some common themes of vegetation that grows naturally on the California coast, poppy’s are one of those chosen to highlight. Both my partner take the time to find and celebrate their delicate and resilient beauty.
Description of works included:
There are echos of history with in the imagery of poppies themselves, a very personal imagery is that my grandfather was sold as a slave by my great-grandfather to pay off an opium debt. Opium is a drug made from sap from the poppy. It is also directly linked to the trade of ceramics, particularly porcelain with Britain and Europe. AS porcelain was worth more than its weight in gold till the alchemist were able to make bone china with the dead animals bones, the material was highly regarded, so much so that the silver reserves in England at the time were depleted and England needed a strategy to replenish their reserves once again, tea and porcelain were both mainly responsible for depleting this reserves as the fascination with the translucent vitrified substance of porcelain and the medicinal elixir of tea was all the rage for the highest fashion in royal classes, the middle class began to also have a strong desire for the materials. Tea also has a direct connection to the broken tile painting titled “” which uses the technique of Kintsugi which was a practice created by the wabi sabi tea tradition of mending broken ceramics with urushi or lacquer from the Sap of a tree and then gold dust being applied in the cracks to bring the vessel or object of importance back together but this time celebrating the imperfections of life and its beauty.
There are so many ways in how people use the material of ceramic and more specifically the use of ceramic tile. Many tiles throughout human history have been records of mark making and cultural history.
The tile exploded in the kiln by surprise and ceramic has a coefficient of thermal expansion where chemical water is stored and is released after the first temperature of boiling water at around 200 degrees then the next is the chemical water boiling at around 800 degrees.
From the scientific history of use of ceramic tile as a medium to California arts and crafts movement to artist like Jim Melchert that says when you drop a tile and it breaks there is a shock that soots through and follows the path of least resistance which suggests something alive. To the with of Maxwell Henderson that often uses gravity with material itself and explores relationships with segmentation and color.
Excited to have a couple of my new works included in the exhibition “Neighbors” curated by @erick.medel which opens this Saturday September 13, 5-8 pm @charliejamesgallery in conjunction to the opening of Erick Medel’s solo show “ El Mañana,” 969 Chung King Road in Los Angeles!
1.
Intersection
Ceramic, 24k Gold, Glaze
17 5/8 in × 17 5/8 in
2025
2.
Afternoon Frequency
Ceramic and Glaze
12 in × 12 in
2025