Leena Similu
@
Fourteen30 Contemporary and Frances May
August 2020
By Ashley Gifford
Glowing alabaster light pours onto Southwest Market street, from the entrance and windows of Fourteen30 Contemporary. Entering the space, my eyes are immediately met with bright, eye-popping glazes of lemon, bright blue, and gold luster. Amongst the vibrant hues are pieces glazed carefully with soft blushy pinks, dark celadons, and chocolate earthen browns. All the sculptural works that decorate the ground and shelves were crafted by L.A.-based, British transplant Leena Similu.
The work has an immediate attraction to one’s eyes, the gold luster is so thoughtfully applied. In some instances, it is combined with wax resist that create speckled patterns and overlays the sculptural personified elements adhered to outside of the pots, that lure the viewer closer. Many of the vessels have extruded and handbuild forms jutting off of them, creating what we can only in our own humanistic narcissism conclude are eyes, noses, and mouths. As a viewer, you cannot help but be captivated by the energetic colors that are so clearly juxtaposed with the immaculate ivory backdrop of the gallery’s walls and floor. You’re compelled to move closer to these vessels for detailed examination, as you realize that some of them have faces, or dare I say personalities, unto themselves.
Most of the work currently being shown at Fourteen30 Contemporary and Frances May was made within the past year, which complements the impermanent nature of the floral arrangements that Manu Torres adorns in their collaboration. This impermanence additionally speaks to the urgency that can be felt in Similu’s work. The joint locations will have Similu’s work centered within Torres’s florals, which act as a response to the strong feminine figures and personifications that Similu incorporates within her ceramics.
Originally Similu’s show at Fourteen30 Contemporary was scheduled for June but, given the current coronavirus health crisis, had to be respectfully pushed back. It was during this imposed limbo that Fourteen30 Contemporary’s gallery owner, Jeanine Jablonski, reconsidered alternative ways on how to show artist’s work, outside of the immediate response so many galleries took to moving exhibitions online. As Jablonski thoughtfully approached this question, she considered Similu’s background, which leads her to think of her friend Pamela Baker-Miller, the owner of Frances May, an art-minded and modern boutique. Knowing Pam’s interests in art, Jablonski presented the idea, and they decided to work together to show Similu’s work at each of their respective locations in Southwest Portland.
Similu had been working in fashion up until several years ago—collaborating with clients like Stella McCartney and Jil Sander and launching her own fashion line, Les Chiffoniers, in the often impenetrable and cutthroat industry. When considering her previous experience, alongside the thoughtful and cohesive approach to her color choices and forms in clay, it seems almost obvious that Similu has an innate eye for creating stories through hues and form. Yaya Situation, the moniker that Similu uses for her ceramic-based sculptural work, was literally born out of her own experience and desire of wanting to pass something on to her son, Cosmo. Similu shared with me in our brief, but resonant conversation that it was during her pregnancy three years ago that she started making work in clay, a relaxing and pleasurable outlet that she had no previous experience in, and came to at the suggestion of a friend. As she continued to work in the medium, she kept thinking about her West African origins and heritage that she could pass onto her son. It’s with this desire that Similu continues to make work.
Yaya Situation ceramics emulate values of matriarchy, power, femininity, and fertility, which makes Similu’s work relatable, compelling, and dynamic. Working with these themes makes Similu’s collaboration with Portland-based artist Manu Torres feel completely natural. Torres’s sculptural floral arrangements are captivating both in terms of structure and color, similar to Similu’s work. Torres’s arrangements often use unexpected colors on familiar plants or materials that are somehow both completely original and yet familiar, such as with the deep sangria-painted palm frond with chartreuse dots poking outside Similu’s two-legged azure torso vessel. A generous amount of pampas grass and a matte black palm branch curls almost stopped in motion, as if it was paused mid sway with the wind, also accompany the vessel.
Their pairing resists mere adornment, as together the works create entirely new works. As a viewer, it seemed like perhaps in some instances, their work was also intended to be shown together, but this was not the case. When reconsidering how Similu’s work would be shown, Jablonski mentioned Torres work, who Similu was already familiar with. The pairing makes sense both in terms of form and function, ceramic vessels are often shown and photographed alone, as is, without anything else alongside or within them. It’s refreshing to see ceramic vessels so thoughtfully paired with floral arrangements, as they are in this specific documentation. Together Similu and Torres work provides new possibilities for the work to be considered and spurs a viewer’s imagination of how they could potentially live with this work in a very real sense.
This collaboration between Similu and Torres brings new meaning to both of their practices and it creates new work with what they both already have in their language of form, shape, and specifically, color. This is most apparent in the feminine-figured vessel-sculptural-form Similu made; a head and neck glazed in matte with a mouthlike adornment shining in gleaming gold luster, balances, and fits seamlessly on top of a torso shape with pointed breasts. The torso has linear almost mountainous patterns throughout the surface, etched with white slip overlay on top of the terracotta background. Torres adds a fluorescent pink feather where the two ceramic pieces meet. Nuanced, it is the only addition to the sculpture and consequently impactful.
Time spent with this work offers a sense of enjoyment that is not forced, but natural. It is a moment to appreciate the themes that Similu’s work deals with, like one’s personal histories, both those that we’re inherited and that we create. It is a glimpse into Similu’s world that is thoughtfully displayed, and the entanglement of her collaboration with Torres only amplifies the strengths of both artists. Yaya Situation centered within Torres florals are on view throughout the month of August and offers viewers a much needed visual respite.
All images courtesy of the artist and Fourteen30 Contemporary
