Installation photo credit: Jeff McLane

Opening reception: Saturday, March 22, 4 – 6 pm

Vielmetter Los Angeles is excited to present Unlearning, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Tonia Calderon, on view from March 22 to May 3, 2025.

Tonia Calderon employs a bold and innovative approach to painting, utilizing materials such as acrylics, floral pigments, fuel, glass, ink, sand, and resin. Her additive technique balances restraint with impulsiveness, producing finely detailed abstractions that highlight the powerful interplay between time and nature.

Unlearning includes nine large-scale works on panel as well as a suite of five smaller panel pieces. Calderon’s paintings display atmospheric surfaces and otherworldly textures, reflecting her methodical curiosity and establishing a synergy between the microscopic and macroscopic.

Calderon begins each painting as a poem, drawing inspiration from fragments of language and memories. She deconstructs these elements into abstract forms. The unexpected combinations of natural and synthetic materials create intricate, expressive surfaces that embody both harmony and tension, challenging conventional definitions of painting. This process embodies the theme of unlearning, as it involves relinquishing rigid ideas to uncover the fluidity and honesty inherent in transformation.

Floral pigments are created by boiling flowers to produce dyes, which are then chemically modified. Resin is added to interact with the colors, serving as both a preservative and an interrupter. Sand and glass provide additional texture and disruption. Deeply connected to their materiality, Calderon’s works exude a gestural resonance, reflected in the interplay between the physical properties of the materials and the expressive forms she creates.

Throughout her creative process, Calderon contemplates both physical and symbolic meanings, addressing themes such as chaos and order, as well as time and memory. By emphasizing the limitations of language through visual abstraction, she examines the tension between organic and synthetic elements, celebrating impermanence and the fleeting beauty of life. Her works embody the notion that everything is in a state of change, evolution, and decomposition.

Tonia Calderon (b. 1987, San Jose, California) is a visual artist based in Los Angeles. Over the past decade, she has exhibited her work through various platforms and at institutions such as SF MoMA and MOCA Cleveland. Her efforts embody an ambitious vision that challenges traditional boundaries and explores new opportunities for presenting contemporary art.