Angela China

Malin Gallery is pleased to present, Girl on the Grass, a solo exhibition of work by Angela China. Featuring 14 new paintings, Girl on the Grass is the artist's debut solo exhibition in New York and her first show with the gallery.

China's initial inspirations for this body of work were fleeting memories that evoked deep emotions and instigated spiritual yearnings. The exhibition's title, Girl on the Grass, superficially refers to the blissful sensation one feels when laying outside on a warm summer day. For China, this scenario also alludes to such moments when the mind has space for contemplation and meditation on the natural surroundings. From a metaphysical perspective, China considers the works to be expressions of creation in its diverse manifestations: biological, artistic and contemplative.

From her singular perspective, China considers the act of painting as a means of fostering her own evolution. The paintings featured in Girl on the Grass are her first body of work that largely eschews narrative and figuration. China approached the creation of these works without premeditated themes, instead allowing her own process of creation to guide the work. She strives to respond to each canvas with intention and acceptance - approaches that extend beyond painting into all parts of her life. China says of these works:

Each of the paintings is like a memory, but a memory that is more of an "idea" or "emotion" that is not fundamentally rooted in a moment in time. My hope is that the ambiguity and abstraction of the work promotes a phenomenological state wherein the viewer can have a direct, unmediated experience of the work.

Angela China (b. 1985, Baltimore, MD) currently lives and works in New York. China’s artistic career began in 2012 in downtown New York, where she was a street artist, known by the name of Gumshoe. In 2017, China enrolled her Masters of Fine Art at the New York Academy of Art, marking her transition to her studio practice which she maintains today.

Recent exhibitions include: For All (Man)kind, IV Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Interactivity, ARMR Gallery, New York, NY (2022); Anthem X, Malin Gallery, Miami, FL (2022); The Graces, Colm Rowan Gallery, East Hampton, NY (2022); Take Me to Mars, Norwood Arts Club, New York, NY (2021); Frontline, Long Island (2020); Jewish Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY (2020); Tribeca Ball, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY (2019); I Met God and She Is, Ideal, Glass Gallery, New York, NY (2019); On the Origin of Species, Castle FitzJohns Gallery, New York, NY (2018); Tribeca Ball, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY (2018); Sex Work, Art Work, Beauty for Freedom, Charity Event, New York, NY (2018); Art 4 WTC, World Trade Center Gallery, New York, NY (2017); Exposed, Castle FitzJohns Gallery, New York, NY (2016); Holla Back! Studio 301, Brooklyn, NY (2016); Red Bottoms, Treason Gallery, Seattle, WA (2015); X Contemporary, Treason Gallery, Miami, FL (2015); Lust for Life, Museum of Sex, Charity Event, New York, NY (2014); Great American Summer Show, Galerie Burkhard Eikelmann, Germany (2014).