ATOPIA 

July 20 – September 2, 2023 

Opening reception: July 20, 6 – 8 pm 

David Castillo presents Atopia, a group exhibition curated by Claudia Mattos and Alina van Ryzin, featuring the work of Adam Amram, Rachael Anderson, Chris Dougnac, Alanna Fields, Maria de los Angeles Rodriguez Jimenez, Jillian Mayer, Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty, Lee Pivnik, Illeana Tolibia, Nadir Souirgi and Ricardo E. Zulueta.

The artists in this exhibition engage in practices that work against a desire for univocal meaning, claiming their Barthesian “sovereign right to wander off the point” as a creative necessity. Each work included wanders and journeys, treating contradiction as celebration and the elusive as final form.  In a paradoxical exchange, the artists embrace the ineffable, defined as that which is too great to be expressed, while creating something tangible. The works presented in this exhibition, explore, negotiate and deconstruct without arriving at any determinate conclusion.

Atopia provides a pathway to escape discernment while holding material form. Where Utopia refers to a place that can never be, Atopia refers to a place that can never be fully conceived. Dominant aesthetic and material structures malfunction in the face of Atopia, unable to curb the distillation of singular meaning. The works in this exhibition give way to complex, comedic, and sincere pluralities that transcend their material conditions.

Adam Amram 

Rachael Anderson

Chris Dougnac 

Alanna Fields 

Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty

Lee Pivnik 

Nadir Souirgi 

Ileana Tolibia

Ricardo E. Zulueta