Minga Opazo | After Life

April 13 – May 25, 2024

Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present After Life, a solo exhibition of new works by Ojai-based artist Minga Opazo (b. 1992, Santiago, Chile).  Opazo’s debut presentation at the gallery includes a range of sculptural works which reflect her environmentally-oriented, sustainable practice. Her wall-mounted weavings and free-standing sculptures all reconceptualize the growing problem of textile waste, which accounts for 15% of plastic waste and 10% of CO2 emissions globally, through a combination of traditional craft practices and the emergent field of BioArt. 

Opazo approaches the problem of post-consumer textiles both by creating objects that recycle and remediate waste and by developing new ideas and paradigms for how waste can be reconceptualized. A fourth-generation textile craftsperson, who first developed an interest in textiles in her mother’s clothing store in Chile, Opazo incorporates her own personal and family history into the work. The intimacy of handmade objects is combined with scientific research to create a truly innovative art practice.

After Life features wall mounted weavings made of textile scraps, a material that would have entered a landfill but is instead transformed by the artist into saturated, abstract compositions. In Opazo’s Siempre más (Always More) series, layered fabrics take on the round shape of a geode to present a new kind of geology that meditates on the insatiable consumer appetite for more. These sculptures envision a future in which the microplastics from textile waste are incorporated into the natural geology of the landscape – a phenomenon Opazo herself observed in volcanic rocks in Hawaii, which were studded with colorful microplastics.

In Opazo’s most experimental project, entitled RE-DRESS, she uses mushrooms to convert toxic textile waste into regenerative soil; layers of mushroom spores and clothing scraps are topped with fungi, making a living sculpture.  These live mushrooms will continue to grow over the course of the exhibition, eventually drying out once they have consumed all the nutrients from their textile supports.  Opazo’s photographs of past iterations of this project are also included in the exhibition, transforming the ephemeral fruiting bodies of the mushrooms into a permanent record of her research.

Opazo’s work pushes the boundaries of art, science, and craft tradition, seeking creative solutions to the environmental problems collectively faced by humanity. At a time when the  traditions of textiles have been transformed into consumer products that threaten our survival, her practice offers innovation, resourcefulness, and collaboration with the natural world.

Minga Opazo (b. 1992, Santiago, Chile. Lives and works in Ojai, CA) received her MFA from CalArts in 2020 and her BFA from the University of California Berkeley in 2016. Selected solo exhibitions include the Architecture Foundation of Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA), and  Carnegie Museum (Oxnard, CA). Selected group exhibitions include Craft Contemporary (Los Angeles, CA), The Bunker Artspace (Palm Beach, FL), San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (San Luis Obispo, CA), Gavlak Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), MAK Center for Art and Architecture (Los Angeles, CA), Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (Santa Ana, CA), Museo de Artes Visuales (Santiago, Chile), and Worth Ryder Art Gallery (Berkeley, CA).

News

Minga Opazo and curator Alma Ruiz in conversation | Saturday, May 11 at 4pm in Los Angeles

Power in Every Thread: Maria A. Guzmán Capron and Minga Opazo, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA | January 28, 2024 — May 5, 2024