Vielmetter Los Angeles is excited to present new works by Edgar Arceneaux, on view in our viewing room through May 31, 2025.

This presentation features two new trapezoidal paintings that reflect the artist’s experimental practice through minimal formalism. The works serve as conceptual portals inspired by themes of birth and transformation. They are related to smaller-scale canvases from the artist’s ongoing “Skinning the Mirror” series, in which he utilizes silver nitrate and mixed media in pink, rust, and terracotta hues.

Arceneaux’s “Skinning the Mirror” series showcases the artist’s ongoing fascination with how paintings can engage in an interactive relationship with the viewer. They are based on the artist’s longstanding interrogation of history and his poetic interweaving of historical narratives to create new associations and meaning. By chemically stripping the backing from mirrors and applying them to canvas, Arceneaux creates complex and dynamic picture planes that change in the confrontation with the viewer and the space. These works delve into themes of loss and love while reflecting on the intricacies of memory and the poetics of grief.

In philosopher Alan Watts’ “Images of God” lecture he recounts a story about an astronaut who, upon returning from space, is asked if he saw God. The astronaut replies, “Yes,” and then adds, “She is black.” Like Watts, Arceneaux uses this anecdote to challenge traditional, patriarchal images of divinity and to explore the symbolism of the divine feminine and the concept of the void in various spiritual traditions.

The series is inspired by how a pregnant woman might see their own belly when looking down upon it. Sensing a connection to the divine, the belly, the vessel of creation swirls with cosmic force, becoming as grand as a planet. Arceneaux, who is an atheist, is a reformed catholic who has explored the history of God, its religions, and the supernatural for most of his life.

Where the original Skinning the Mirror series (2019-2023) was loosely inspired by the passing of Arceneaux’s mother Merc from dementia, the new Belly Painting Series captures both the light and dark aspects of creation and oblivion.

Edgar Arceneaux (b. 1972, Los Angeles) works in drawing, sculpture, installation, performance, and video, often exploring connections between historical events and present-day truths. Recent and upcoming residencies include the Joyner and Giuffrida artist residency program at the Reno Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.

Arceneaux has had solo exhibitions at such institutions as The Kitchen, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the Vera List Center at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Switzerland; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria. His work has also been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, The Bronx Museum, Performa 15, The Whitney Museum, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Art in Oslo, Norway, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, among many other venues.

Areneaux’s work is represented in the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum Museum of Modern Art, Hammer Museum, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other esteemed collections. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at USC. He attended the California Institute of the Arts (MFA, 2001), Fachhochschule Aachen (2000), the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1999), and Art Center College of Design (BFA, 1996).