Becca Mann

Le Maximum is pleased to present Sleepwalk, a selection of paintings by Los Angeles artist Becca Mann.

Drawing on sensory phenomena of light, air, and space peculiar to LA, Sleepwalk approaches the momentary from a subjective position: heat radiating from asphalt after dark, blinding sunlight reflecting off chrome, overexposed foliage. Taken together, the works record an experience of a place and time without divulging anything in particular about what may have happened there. Mise en scène without a narrative.

The paintings are selected and configured in the gallery by a series of reversals. Black paintings are placed in the biggest white rooms; their subjects appear from the darkness slowly, challenging our eyes to adjust. Conversely, a smaller sunbleached guava branch irradiates in the black-walled gallery office, suggesting a sudden emergence from darkness into light. Emphasizing the optical, Mann amplifies the vagaries of nocturnal and diurnal perceptions. Related moods and sensations emerge: the cold mist of marine layer behind a moonlit flower, the lapping of a glowing swimming pool at night, the savage power of a hot-rodded engine burning asphalt. Silvery-blue window tints in a front room bring some extra refraction to the chroma and chrome of a turquoise Deuce Coupe, with a nod to the site-specificity of this installation in what was once the storefront office of Del Mar Auto.

Becca Mann lives and works in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions at Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, Safe Gallery, New York, Soccer Club Club, Chicago, Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as Bel Ami, Los Angeles, Friends Indeed, San Francisco, Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles, 356 Mission, Los Angeles, Basilica Hudson, New York, and Curtat Tunnel, Lausanne, Switzerland.