Lilah Slager Rose & Jean Nagai

In Avalon, the sun is a black opal.

Avalon is a space in which metaphysics and internal emotions are explored in billowy streaks of lava, salmon, sapphire, and gold.

Scattered across biomorphic and geometric forms, the cones of your eyes bend to take in a levitating constellation of color. Remember, when the universe blew up, the stars broke into pieces and landed on Avalon.

Notice the repetition, an obsessive fixation with buried patterns. Even the expansive arrangement overhead acts as the greatest portrait you’ve ever dreamed of or perhaps it’s the perfect hallucinogen. In Avalon, you see your grandmother in the sky, your old dog, Apollo’s torso, a pile of turtles.

There is no horizon, but merely soft layers covered in waves of light, achingly alive.

Lilah Slager Rose and Jean Nagai have been collaborating on projects together since 2014, showing primarily in Olympia, Washington where they first met. Their work has frequently drawn from a shared aesthetic of the landscape, and fabric. As they first began to work together, Jean was experimenting with Shibori and Batik dye techniques, while Lilah apprenticed to a costume designer. This foundation eventually transitioned Lilah’s work into large scale foam sculpture and Jean’s work to painting on canvas. They currently live and work in Los Angeles.