Las Vegas–raised painter eri king co-opts the persuasive powers of gambling hall interior design at Available Space Art Projects.
eri king: Scripted Spaces
November 15–December 13, 2024
Available Space Art Projects, Las Vegas
If you have ever attempted to see hidden images in an autostereogram—like the illusions in the 2D images from the popular ’90s book series Magic Eye—and couldn’t master the optical trick, fret not. Scripted Spaces embodies the captivating moment when recurring patterns blur and merge, intertwining until they come into focus and reveal a crisp image that appears to hover above the surface.
Las Vegas casinos harness a distinct atmospheric feeling within their cavernous halls—a spirit designed to create and crush FOMO (fear of missing out), manifested in carefully calibrated sensory overload. Shaped by her Las Vegas upbringing and the labyrinthine dynamics of American capitalism, New York-based artist eri king playfully reveals subtle tricks of the casino world in her solo exhibition Scripted Spaces, on view at Available Space Art Projects in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Spoiling locals and guests with bright lights, vivid colors, open spaces, and endless opportunities to drop cash, Las Vegas has a tightly structured design language marked by subliminal messages and blaring advertisements, particularly within the casino jungle. I was once a Las Vegas local, and there is one thing I can say with certainty: the carpet designs are hard to miss. To what extent are we influenced by the carefully selected patterns and color schemes within Las Vegas gambling halls?
In Scripted Spaces, king offers compelling insights about the influence of these intricate designs on human wants and behaviors. Contrasting with the massive Las Vegas casino spaces, ASAP is an intimate space for this tight exhibition of eight paintings. Each canvas depicts dense patterns reminiscent of casino carpets, foregrounded by Las Vegas-inspired iconography.
Heaven or las vegas (2022), for example, presents energetic designs consisting of money-green, leaf-like shapes clustered among explosive blues, purples, reds, yellows, oranges, and greens. Move closer and the words “heaven or las vegas” become apparent, a sort of optical illusion.
Cherubs, a common element, add to the heavenly-but-kitschy vibe of king’s illustrative imagery, representing the euphoric high of guilty pleasures. Hidden messages and silhouettes are cleverly woven into repeating color blocks.
Labyrinth effect (ilinx) (2024) features the thematic carpet-like aesthetic, camouflaging a structure resembling a Greek temple. Inscriptions appear at the top of the four pillars, meant to represent “the four forms of play: agon (competition), alea (chance/surrender to destiny), mimesis (simulation/role playing), and ilinx (borrowed by Caillois from the Ancient Greeks, which translates to ‘whirlpool’),” according to king’s artist statement. Two abstracted cherub silhouettes seem to float above the picture plane, swept away in the “disorienting” swirl.
In her compositions, king adapts the familiar design vernacular of playing cards. Memory wafts through the vents (2024) and scripted spaces (2024) may just provide a small serotonin boost as they mimic a winning hand in a retro game of desktop solitaire.
Wild card (2024) illustrates the same carpet-like designs and color schemes, yet the cherubs here are stone-like, floating around a bent ace of hearts, possibly escaping a shuffling dealer’s hands.
King’s work delves deep into the intricacies of casino interior design, overlaying an artistic commentary that reveals how these environments are meticulously crafted to engage our subconscious. With a clever, meta approach, the artwork draws back the curtain, exposing how these spaces are designed to tap into our innate desires and instincts, subtly luring us toward certain behaviors. Yet king pushes beyond this revelation, using the same tactics to illuminate rather than obscure. She invites the viewer on an ideological heist of sorts, infiltrating these temples of late-stage capitalism to extract dark (and absurd) truths of humanity.
