Rema Ghuloum | Inviting the Bell

November 19 – December 17, 2022

Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present Inviting the Bell, the debut New York solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Rema Ghuloum.  This also marks the inaugural Sargent’s Daughters presentation in “Underground,” an alternating exhibition space shared with SHRINE Gallery on the lower level of 179 East Broadway, New York.  

The phrase “inviting the bell” is a Buddhist chant attributed to Thich Nhat Hanh Het which invites practitioners to call in tranquility and joy, as the sound of the bell itself is an invitation to listen deeply and reflect.  For Ghuloum, Inviting the Bell is a means of entering into a meditative relationship with the work. Like the reverberations that emanate from a bell even after the audible tones have faded, this body of work resonates with energy and subtle sensation   

The exhibition features a rhythmic array of nine small paintings of identical scale, encouraging prolonged contemplation and intimate engagement with the work.  With long looking, the seemingly flat swirls of blues, pinks, yellows, and greens resolve and dissolve from grids to organic forms to deep, prismatic depths.  The compositions appear to resonate with synesthetic frequencies.  Each individual work varies from muted tones to deeply saturated hues, representing a full spectrum of colors and sensations.  

The experience of encountering these works mimics the process of their production.  Beginning on the floor, Ghuloum uses squeeze bottles and buckets to pour, flick, and drip diluted acryla-gouche onto the canvases.  Once this layer dries, Ghuloum moves the canvases onto the wall and slowly builds up thin glazes of oil paint, working with and against the initial poured layer.  Moving geologically, Ghuloum continues to build and subtract from the composition, sanding between each successive layer until the work vibrates with an internal tension.  The finished surfaces retain the history of this improvisatory and responsive practice, manifesting a resonance between the works and the viewer.

Rema Ghuloum (b. 1978, North Hollywood, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach in 2007 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2010. Rema has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of multiple grants including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, Davyd Whaley Foundation Artist-Teacher Grant, and the Esalen Pacifica Prize. Rema’s work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Hyperallergic, CARLA, the Los Angeles Times, Fabrik, among others. Her work is included in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts Works on Paper Collection at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco.