PRESS RELEASE 03/30/2024
Public Notice is pleased to present “The Law of Truly Large Numbers”, a group show featuring the works of Chris Miller, Joachim Castañeda, Nick Rose, and Thomas Macie. The exhibition is on view through April 26, 2024 and is a part of Post Modern Palm Springs preview “ODDS” at Market Market.
Diaconis’s law of truly large numbers states that even an outcome that has a tiny chance of occurring can become almost certain when given enough opportunities. Chance becomes certainty by way of time and devotion. Miller, Castañeda, Rose, and Macie’s works are testament of that. Each piece is started with an openness and a commitment to material and by working and reworking from intuition, form begins to emerge. Paper and canvas envelope found objects and relationships are formed between each foreign item. Vessels are built up and then collapse upon themselves to create new shapes and definitions. To view them is to look actively, searching for each separate component that slowly amalgamates into one whole work.
Chris Miller and Thomas Macie, working in the mediums of clay and paper, respectively, use a similar process of chance to create. Miller builds clay upon itself until it becomes a vessel-like form, wherein he then allows the form to collapse inward on itself, letting weight and serendipity take the wheel. Once the clay has taken on its new form, he works outwards to incorporate the bulges and folds into a final imagining of a vase or pot. In like manner, Macie creates his paper works face down on the paper press, working from intuition, but then surrendering control until the pulp has dried into paper. Once the paper has dried, he continues to use it as a canvas, using paint and materials to create almost abstract expressionist 2D works.
In a more muted pallet, Joachim Castañeda and Nick Rose work with raw canvas. Castañeda allows a vignette to play across each of his paintings with found objects as signs of imagined characters. Alongside these objects, instinct plays a part as he draws and adds layers of canvas and paint to the frame. Time becomes palpable as each piece is added and, once complete, each work seems to be its own microcosm. Rose too references time, in some cases quite literally, ie a large drawing of a stopwatch, but also in works that pull from memory. As a polyglot of practices, he uses painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography to inform a greater body of work that feels at once familiar and alien to the viewer, leading them to a place of personal remembrance.
Across vessel, paper, and canvas, form is realized by constancy throughout “The Law of Truly Large Numbers”. Chance happenings across the works are, in actuality, rare forms showing themselves due to dedication to and time spent with each piece. Miller, Castañeda, Rose, and Macie allow space for possibility and because of their continued receptiveness, remarkable events occur and are celebrated, making for a collection of works that are not about happenstance, but about being attuned both inwardly and outwardly.
Panda Landa • ODDS Artist Q&A
1. How did you find your way to the desert? What is your story?
I moved to Joshua Tree seven years ago for a relationship. The relationship ended, but my love for this place remains. High deserts have always been in my blood though, after growing up in Reno, NV.
2. When you think of our definition of Postmodernism as an intrinsic questioning of reality, of societal norms, of cultural conventions, of what has come before, of what is known. How do you see that coming to life in your work? Or do you see your work as post ____?
To me, that’s also the definition of queerness, so that just feels intrinsic to anything I do in my life: question the way things are done (while also honoring those that came before.) My work honors the world of traditional craft and quilting but I also find a way to do things my way. And because I consider myself more of an outsider artist (no formal art education) anything I do is going to inherently confront the way things have been done before.
3. One of the things that excites us about the artists included in this preview exhibition is everyone’s versatility across a broad spectrum of media. Tell us more about how the artworks in the show relate to your included objects in our One of One gift shop.
I got into quilting during the pandemic, and after making several quilts, I began to make quilted clothes. My pieces in the One of One gift shop represent a collection of my quilted clothing.
4. Who or what inspires you? Where do your ideas come from?
My Chilean grandmother died recently, but she was an artist her whole life until she developed Alzheimer’s. Her life revolved around her art-making practice, and I got to see what that looked like from a young age. She inspires me every day, and now I get to be surrounded by all of her art at my house. Art feels like my roots, my matriarchal lineage.
5. What’s next?
I plan to do some art residencies this year where I plan on developing a series of large quilted flags that make a statement about queer and trans bodies belonging wherever they are and then do a short photo doc series with queer and trans folks planting the flags in different locations.
6. Tell us something unexpected about yourself.
I grew up on a sheep ranch and did 4-H and would wear cowboy boots and jeans with no back pockets and I loved Garth Brooks.
PRESS RELEASE 02/25/2024
Market Market is pleased to announce the launch of Post Modern Palm Springs. Opening March 3rd, 2024 and running through May 3rd, 2024, this springtime preview, titled ODDS, highlights new works by a selection of artists Market Market and Mojave Flea Trading Post have worked with and provided a showcase for in the galleries of their retail outposts in Palm Springs + Yucca Valley. Inspired by the significance of the number three as a symbol of creativity, communication, and curiosity, the team chose works in a series of threes from each artist included – three works, three shoppable objects.
Post Modern Palm Springs - ODDS is a visual journey into creativity in the high and low desert. It is an intrinsic questioning of reality, societal norms, cultural conventions, what has come before and what is known - art making off the grid, self taught creativity, distinct and dynamic new visual languages. It is a true, radical freedom from the status quo.
Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Market Market will be looking back at the dynamic collaborations and activations that their retail outposts have seen over the past three years as an act of visioning towards our shared future. From Mah Jongg tournaments to Paint & Sips and culinary experiences, stay tuned for an upcoming calendar of events.
In celebration of ODDS, many of the artists included will make one-of-a-kind shoppable + wearable objects for ONE OF ONE - our Post Modern Palm Springs gift shop.
ODDS is the inaugural preview edition of Post Modern Palm Springs curated by the Market Market team in partnership with Becca Hoffman.