1. Nabilah Nordin at Parrasch Heijnen

It’s rare these days for an exhibition to consist entirely of sculpture. Nabilah Nordin’s recently opened exhibition at Parrasch Heijnen champions the medium, eschewing the gallery walls and filling the space with her abstract mixed media works. Each one is a dynamic three-dimensional composition — globular forms meet angular lines that topple over each other, balanced with negative space. In her process, Nordin builds her works using wood, wire mesh, and epoxy compound, honing in her compositions before coating them in various materials. These “skins” create a cohesive layer across each piece, disguising their hodgepodge structural materials and giving them a singular appearance that recalls timeless sculptural materials like stone, bronze, and plaster. 

Across the show, works are coated in a slew of materials such as powdered marble, limestone, oxidizing pigment, sand, rubber, pyrite dust, diamond flakes, marble chips, and turquoise stones. The life-size sculpture “Gathering” could be a sizable piece of underwater coral encrusted in sea creatures, while “Archive,” a tabletop work shrouded in an oxidizing iron paint, could be a rusty organic fossil undercovered in some archeological dig. Nordin’s voracious appetite for material exploration is apparent in these works that dually pay homage to and subvert traditional sculpture while lending invented material narratives to each piece.

On view: July 13th–August 10th | Map

2. 'It Never Entered My Mind' at Sean Kelly

The group exhibition It Never Entered My Mind, curated by collector and producer Michael Sherman claims not to have a curatorial theme. Yet, the 15 artists in the show (each of whom inspired a track on a Spotify Playlist curated by musician and producer MeLo-X as a footnote to the exhibition) share a common ground. The show includes a handful of sculptures, but leans into painting, specifically figuration. The majority of the artists included are BIPOC and seem to investigate notions of home, representation, or the resiliency of the human body. 

One of Chantal Wnuk’s painted figures bends into an acrobatic position (like yoga’s “crow pose”), their fist massive in the composition’s foreground, a suggestion of strength under physical constraints — the press release mentions the artist’s fight against breast cancer. Nigerian artist Michael Igwe’s representation of the body veers towards abstraction — in his painting a washy mauve figure fades into a hazy mist across the canvas. Harminder Judge’s works in the show are more firmly camped within abstraction, yet (perhaps surrounded by so many figurative renderings) their central washy fields of color feel subtly bodily, filled with life and movement.

The exhibition playlist features an array of genres and musicians — from Rosalía to Lee Scratch Perry to John Coltrane — yet evokes a cohesive mood despite the broad array of voices, much like the exhibition itself.

On view: May 18th–July 26th, 2024 | Map

3. Chiho Harazaki at Launch LA

Chiho Harazaki’s life-like graphite portraits at LAUNCH LA picture female subjects whose faces are rendered in delicate detail. Their bodies however are tattooed with repetitive geometric patterns which the artist meticulously applies to her figures using washi tape. 

Several of these figures appear to be holding yarn — a detail that illuminates the specific patterning that the artist encases her figures in — a Japanese method of embroidery called shishiko. In one nearly lifesize work, “Ingrained - Sashiko Boro,” a figure is covered with an array of patchworked patterns, some collaged onto the drawing with washi paper. The work’s title points to another Japanese stitching technique called boro, which has historically been used to mend garments, reinforcing them to add warmth and extend their life. In this way, Harazaki speaks to her own cultural experience as a Japanese immigrant — a unique patchworked blend of Eastern and Western cultures.

On view: June 29th–July 20th, 2024 | Map

No Material is too Unconventional

Nabilah Nordin’s process is experimental and consists of an array of material explorations. “A regular week in the studio might involve pouring resin on baguettes, encasing a sculpture in deflated balloons and melting kilos of beeswax,” writes Vogue Austrailia about the Singaporean-Austrailian artist, a recent L.A. transplant. “Nordin’s work is ambitious yet playful, and no material is too unconventional,” Vogue writes. Nordin explains that she doesn’t “believe in material hierarchies. Construction materials like timber, metal, concrete and adhesives are just as appealing to me as wax, bread, wigs, walnuts and feathers,” says the artist. “Whatever the material may be, I am always intrigued by its capacity to invoke seduction or repulsion in the viewer.”