Opening reception: July 11, 2026 4 – 7pm

Vielmetter Los Angeles is excited to announce, Celestial Road Trip, Esther Pearl Watson’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. On view from July 11th through August 22nd, 2026, the suite of new paintings and works on paper focuses on the distinct flora and fauna that inhabit the site of Watson’s home and studio in Joshua Tree, CA, which she relocated to in 2025. Desert creatures such as coyotes, tortoises, and burros roam among angels, cowgirls, and an assortment of vessels of transport in landscapes situated somewhere between recollection and fantasy.

Having moved to Joshua Tree following the Los Angeles fires of 2025 and the subsequent passing of her father, Gene, Watson embraced the palette and unique ecosystem of her new home in the Mojave Desert. In her compositions, the skies and earth are lit up by dramatic sunsets, sparkling galaxies, and vivid super blooms brought on by the spontaneous alignment of environmental factors. The works reflect a burgeoning sense of wonder and mystery already latent in her practice, which often overlays memories culled from a childhood spent in poverty with fantastical images of spaceships and other extraordinary phenomena. The works in Celestial Road Trip journey both inward and outward, melding the landscape of the desert with imagery gathered from memories and from her father’s prolific visions and vast trove of writings about UFOs and angels.

Throughout the paintings, families of cows and coyotes mingle among Joshua trees and desert flowers, UFOs in various states of disrepair and levitation make their way toward the stars, and angelic beings hover in the spectacular skies. In the work The Intergalactic Flap, a cow and calf huddle together, while above them a pink saucer is encircled by angels holding Reese’s peanut butter cups. The painting grapples with a memory of a time in which Watson and her siblings subsisted on Reese’s for a week straight while her father pursued his obsession.

In the titular painting, a cowgirl mounted on horseback stands in a lush desert landscape at dusk among an abundance of purple, pink, and green wildflowers. There are nods to the rural Texas landscape of Watson’s upbringing in the rolling hills and small trees, and the sky is filled with colorful clouds, galaxies, comets, and a glittering silver UFO. In the figure of the lone rider surveying the saucer as it swoops from the sky, the artist evokes her own journey with her late father, whom she cared for and corresponded with until his final days.

Esther Pearl Watson was born in 1973 and lives and works in Joshua Tree, CA. She holds an MFA from CalArts. She has taught at Art Center College of Design, Oxbow Artist Residency, The Lexicon of Sexicana at Columbia College in Chicago, and was an Artist-in-Residence at Grafikens Hus in Mariefred, Sweden.

Her works have been exhibited at Maureen Paley Gallery in London, Galerie Judin in Berlin, Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York City, Museum Krona in Uden, Netherlands, Antonio Columbo Gallery in Milan, Sun Valley Museum of Art in Ketchum, Idaho, Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, Texas, Richmond Center for Visual Arts in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, and are held in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.