Annie Pendergrast

Burning Peduncles and Potato Chip Portals

January 14 - March 11, 2022

Opening reception: January 14, 4-8 PM

Gallery hours: 1-6pm, Thursdays and Fridays
3315 West Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90018

Shoot the Lobster Los Angeles presents Burning Peduncles and Potato Chip Portals, a solo exhibition of paintings by Los Angeles based interdisciplinary artist Annie Pendergrast.

In a new series of gouache on found canvases, Pendergrast projects us through a nexus of abstraction and figuration into a singular interdimensional world. Her system weaves influential threads of allusive abstraction, op art, and transcendental painting of the American Southwest. The works articulate a realm - and portals to it - that is situated between Pendegrast’s minds-eye and consensus reality. It’s a place that is a shared space of terrestrial and otherworldly sentience. The patterns and gradients of bold color emit a palpable electric charge that is simultaneously a burning release of energy and a frozen state of euphoria.

The devastating California wildfires of recent years have imprinted signatures on Pendergrast’s psyche and her relationship to the natural world. The record-breaking gigafire that raged through the late Summer of 2020 manifested a poor air quality that made it difficult to venture outdoors - compounding with a moment when being in nature was a balm to illness, death, and isolation from quarantine.

Pendergrast’s flowers mirror her experiences. They twist and curl horizontally while craving nourishment, and some have the likeness of microbial or viral beings. Their loop-de-looping peduncles don’t have normal stems. Their forms invoke neon light waterslides, or psychedelic visions from a spirit-molecule trip. Pendergrast’s flowers might exist in a future where transhumans have constructed holographic floral icons in memory of their extinct ancestors. Yet they aren’t only depictions of apocalyptic states. In Flowers With Roots, there is a single connecting root between the entities - a rhizomatic interconnectedness that exists regardless of external temporal events.

Through the act of painting, Pendergrast addresses her own ingrained constructs and perceptions of perfectionism, anatomy, femininity, and sexuality. Her floral renditions are far from idealized paintings of the past, and her use of wobbly lines and asymmetrical forms illustrate her expanding definitions of beauty.

Annie Pendergrast (1989), lives and works in Los Angeles and graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor in Fine Arts. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Big Pictures, Los Angeles; Gensler, Los Angeles; Exhibit A Gallery, Los Angeles; Bombay Beach Biennial, Bombay Beach, California; Collyer's Mansion, Brooklyn; and Repop, Brooklyn, amongst others.

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STL LA hours are 1-6 PM, Thursdays and Fridays

To protect our visitors and staff, and mitigate exposure to COVID-19, face coverings are required for entry and must be worn at all times. Visitors must maintain proper social distance.

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For artwork or press inquiries contact us at losangeles@shootthelobster.com