Not Really Here

Mindy Shapero, an emerging, Los Angeles-based artist, creates paintings that are populated by curious, otherworldly creatures that seem to hide from view and peer out from the edge of the surface on which they appear. Other paintings, characterized by delicate lines punctuated by specific, amorphous shapes, seem to depict the habitats in which these creatures reside. The work of Shapero has qualities that are at once surrealistic, dreamy, and slightly sinister, as if representing the dark underbelly of a sweet and rosy fairy tale gone awry. Derived intuitively and spun together like a good yarn, loose narratives unfold within each piece, with story lines suggested through image and occasional text. Shapero’s show at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions consisted of new painting and sculptural work and was her first solo presentation in this city.