Opening Reception: Laura Esbensen: Soma

Opening Reception: Laura Esbensen: Soma
opening reception: Thursday, October 3, 6-8 pm
on view: October 3–December 13, 2024

Core Contemporary proudly presents Soma, a solo exhibition featuring the art of Laura Esbensen.

The Grotesque, before it is horror or alien, is simply and beautifully a sum of parts; it is a conversation about addition, about growing. The ethos of the Grotesque is potential. Creating abstract, loosely figurative sculptures and paintings under this thematic umbrella, artist Laura Esbensen explores processes of mutilation and survival, recognizing each work as a metaphorical body. Orbs that resemble disembodied organs are sandwiched between heavy blocks or isolated in a vinyl plane with glowing lights, presenting a playful haphazardness alongside implied toxicity. Esbensen utilizes the inverse relationship between spectacle and effects, and theatricality and narrative, to stage the sculptures in humorous, metaphorical worlds of hopefulness. The artist’s material interest in plastics, epoxies, and construction material doubles down on humour and artifice as a way to create playful representations of the fragility of the body, highlighting potential and survival. Organic reds, fluorescent pinks, and plastic transparencies continue a conversation about the boundary between authenticity and artifice. There is promise in plasticity.

“The conceptual deep-dive and fearless experimentation found in Esbensen’s sculptures and paintings captured my imagination at first introduction.” shares gallery owner/curator, Nancy Good. “Coming from my own perspectives as a humanist, philosophical artist, Esbensen’s work connects with an oddly-comforting familiarity, while also holding disturbing foreign components that compel me to look again.”

Dividing her time between Las Vegas and San Diego, Esbensen received an BA in Studio Arts from the University of California, San Diego and an MFA in Fine Arts From Leslie University.

The exhibition runs from Thursday, October 3, through Friday, December 13, with an opening reception and visit with the artist on October 3, from 6-8 pm. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Fridays, 11:30 am to 5:30 pm.