Blinked Twice: Vani Aguilar
August 9, 2024 – October 6, 202
Tala
1644 W Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL 60622
Blinked Twice is the first solo exhibition in Chicago of Los Angeles-based artist Vani Aguilar. Showcasing the artist’s trajectory with new and previously made works, the exhibition calls back to the phrase “Blink twice and you’ll miss it”, a figure of speech signaling moments of remembrance and awe.
Working across airbrushed acrylic and colored pencil drawings to create chrome-like scenes that invite moments of pause, Aguilar negotiates themes of transformation and remembrance in the rapidly changing urban landscape. In this body of work, Aguilar sheds light upon the beauty of their communities and the environments that they exult in. Amidst the changing cultural landscapes of Los Angeles and Chicago, they draw upon friends, front lawns, construction sites, and dogs at play to remember and reimagine moments of vitality, celebration, and brilliance—blink twice and you’ll miss it.
Vani Aguilar is a Los Angeles based Chicanx painter who was born and raised in Pasadena, California. They attained their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and their AA from Pasadena City College. Aguilar’s work reinterprets traditionally Chicano modes of image making to contend with their identity and the changing landscape of brown working class neighborhoods that they’ve spent significant time in throughout Southern California and Chicago. While acknowledging the negative implications of gentrification, their luminous compositions carry a passively poised disposition. Vani has received several awards including Ox-Bow’s Latinx Artist Visibility Award, SAIC’s IDEA grant, and Watershed Center for Ceramic Art’s Zenobia Award.
Tala is a gallery and contemporary art space in the West Town neighborhood located at 1644 W. Chicago. Its architecture is imbued with places of gathering and rest as essential to expand the capacities of artists, writers, organizers, and curators to shape new realities.
You must be logged in to post a comment.