Maja Ruznic - Geometry of Exile - Karma Los Angeles
Maja Ruznic - Geometry of Exile
Karma Los Angeles
September 16th-November 4th
Review by Timothy LeBlanc
Geometry of Exile is a show of new work by the painter Maja Ruznic at Karma Los Angeles that everyone should see. The paintings pull from seemingly different and disparate personal experiences of the artist's, motherhood, displacement, and mysticism. Any viewer willing to spend time with the works will see these qualities in each, though.
The group of the works share characteristics across the show. There are bodies and pattern all overlapped on top of each other. It may be a single figure like the potential dancer, of The Split/The Beginning, 2023, (Shown at the start of the article) it may be many like those who dance across both top and bottom of the show's titular Geometry of Exile, 2023. (Shown above) It can even be a family, watched over, like The Force Field, 2023. (Shown Below) Each of the works utilize a technique of multi-level rendering. This causes somethings to be sharp while others may not even be able to be seen. This magic that washes over the works showing some things to each viewer but never everything all at once.
Ruznic is able to do all this by pulling these themes into reality by systemic experimentations. Viewers are told that she starts each studio session with "improvising" and using "muscle memory" to improvise small scale. This is felt in the final works. The artist rotates the works working on them from literally multiple viewpoints. She then builds the works with highly thinned paints. Up to 15 layers of washes and Frankenthaler-esque stains go on to the canvases. This allows any viewer to get trapped and fall into the depth of the works.
Even the few works that have no living figures have this feeling. Ones like MOM, 2023 (Shown below) take on a feeling like that of an heirloom textile. A rug or sampler made by a long-lost family member, carried and passed from place to place, generation to generation. They pull this feeling of having been handmade and layered, which has only been exposed by the time and use generations have given it. This reality has been lost to most in the modern era, where machines do the work and once worn, their documentation of life lived with them is thrown away. It will be fascinating to see how these paintings, already imbued with a sense of worn depth, have time work on them.
None of this push towards deep looking is an accident. Though not told, it’s clear that this depth is built from even the preparation that goes into the canvases themselves. Before every starting to work on a piece, the artist grounds her canvases with a grey body and then some have a color such as pink ground added before painting begins. This is a simple step yet builds the incredible depth up from the very beginning. When we see through the works, we aren’t greeted by the white of a painter's canvas but by a world tinted in its entirety. A world that we all should spend some energy exploring.
Go and see the show Geometry of Exile by Maja Ruznic at Karma Los Angeles at 7351 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, on view from September 16th to November 4th, 2023.