1. Bruce Richards at Sea View 

Bruce Richards Soundings enters its last week at Sea View. In the exhibition, the gallery presents a series of oil on linen, oil on canvas, and oil on basswood works by the artist. His incredibly precise paintings include spilt milk across a gray sky, an acrylic-washed glass slipper in front of a blue background, tires set ablaze, and a candlestick burning at both ends. Less obvious is the social critique behind Richards’s stunning paintings, which developed out of a response to political moments of the 1960s in which he was working. At Sea View, the gallery also attempts to place Richards within a lineage of artists such as Chris Burden, Robert Irwin, Vija Celmins, and John Paul Jones, who studied or taught at UC Irvine in the late 1960s and 1970s, when the university’s art department became a hub of creativity and innovation. In addition to painting, there are two sculptural works found in the office of Sea View. Placed on a bookshelf is "Eve" (1989), an incredibly small painted bronze apple that appears to be bitten. Adjacent to it is "Leave Any Information at the Signal" (2016) an oil on basswood book-like work that recreates Ed Ruscha’s "Adios" from 1969.

On view: June 2–August 10, 2024 | Open map

2. Okey Ofomata at M+B

Okey Ofomata’s Respite is the artist’s first solo exhibition at M+B closing this week. The young artist’s figurative paintings merge his personal histories with socio-political commentary, resulting in works that are equally serious as they are humorous. In "Cross The Messenger," the acrylic, oil, and charcoal on canvas work features a USPS driver brawling with a disgruntled homeowner over a delayed package. In "Just Go Along With It," President Biden and the First Lady stand at the head of a dinner table; behind them is a framed portrait of former President Obama. They are grinning while holding bags of fried chicken, which they share with a Black family. In this painting, Ofomata presents an “exaggerated rendition of an actual event” and critiques political performativity and the complexities of racial representation in the United States. In many of his works, Ofomata presents us with tense moments of action suspended in time. In "Still Drinking," we are left to wonder how badly the presumably drunk, suited protagonist will fall off of his chair. In "And For My Last Trick," we are shocked to see a young man placing his head directly into the mouth of a lion. 

On view: June 29–August 3, 2024 | Open map

3. Material Matters at Nazarian / Curcio 

In the group exhibition Material Matters at Nazarian / Curcio, artists Jamal Cyrus, Vaughn Davis Jr., Aryana Minai, Fay Ray, and Tori Wrånes use the language of abstraction to explore personal narratives, address political histories, and deal with issues such as migration, memory, labor, and the body. Vaughn Davis Jr.’s canvases challenge the medium of painting and its boundaries through acts of creation and destruction. He transforms his pigment-soaked canvases by cutting, ripping, and fraying them and later pinning them directly to the wall. Jamal Cyrus uses denim as a raw material, transforming used jeans into “painterly abstractions;” he uses the material and format of the quilt to document aspects of Black political movements and spiritual struggles. In Tori Wrånes' work, the frame becomes equally important as the painting it carries; she literally pierces the wood frame and pushes the painting to the outside by applying silicon and pigment directly onto the glass. 

Aryana Minai returns to the gallery with a series of new paper-based wall reliefs, introducing a softer palette of whites, pinks, and blues that draw from her personal experience growing up between Iran and the United States. This time, the artist’s literal fingerprints and handmarks are present on the work’s surface. Finally, Fay Ray’s massive sculptures are suspended from the gallery ceiling and incorporate a variety of manmade and natural materials; the objects borrow from symbols and compositions of traditional religious relics. 

On view: July 27–August 31, 2024 | Open map

Richards, Ruscha, and UC Irvine’s Art Department 

In Sebastian Zinn’s Artillery review of Bruce Richards’s Soundings at Sea View, he discusses the relationship between Richards and the work of Ed Ruscha, whose retrospective is currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Zinn describes Richards’s five decades of work as “still lifes of matter in states of flux,” which invoke Ruscha’s oeuvre in both subject matter and formal approach. 

In the press release for Soundings, art writer Suzanne Muchnic quoted Richards, who recalled that his time at UC Irvine’s art department “quickly changed” his course of thinking. Richards noted, “We were not forced into a single minimalist aesthetic, but we did accept the ground rules to apply to what we did.” Richards also noted advice he received from Robert Irwin, which was to “consider the purpose” of his artistic practice and how he could bring his ideas “to that purpose and not just glide.”