Compound YV gallery presents Of Rare Earth exhibit this Saturday (November 22), artist talk on Sunday (November 23)

Compound YV gallery in Yucca Valley presents their new exhibition Of Rare Earth Saturday evening from 6-10 p.m. featuring local and visiting artists work, with an artist talk on Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Featuring local artist Grant Earl LaValley and visiting artist Shelley Kensler of Alabama and New York, the Of Rare Earth exhibit draws on the artists’ subconscious memories, dreams, and spirits to create three- and two-dimensional multimedia works using a mix of artistic and utilitarian processes. Organic and otherworldly shapes and figures form sculptures, vessels and paintings, through which personal truths are excavated by way of extracting and embedding. The outcome is not predetermined, but rather discovered, through the artists’ hopes of revealing some element of the intangible, something extremely rare. This feeling, of being able to glimpse or experience something rare and then share it, fleetingly, with others, is a deeply spiritual sense of gratitude for Earth itself. 

I asked Compound YV Operations Director Caroline Partamian about the show, “It will be a beautiful show that mixes a lot of media, a lot of sculpture, some paintings, and some clay made objects. We’ll kind of see a little bit of an insight into both artists’ creative processes and how they use their art to access subconscious thoughts and memories, giving life to these thoughts and memories through their work. There will be a lot of work with intricate wood carving, hand built and fired clay. We’ll really be able to appreciate both artists’ very different approaches to their practices to showcase this theme. For example, where they source materials is very different. Grant Earl LaValley is a local artist based in Joshua tree who finds a lot of his materials discarded in desert washes, so we’ll see both of them playing with different materials… Shelly Kensler uses a lot of hand built clay and canvas also to showcase her work.”

In addition to Saturday night’s opening, Partamian will also be mediating an Artist Talk with LaValley and Kensler on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

For more information, please visit: compoundyv.com.