November 12 through December 10, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 12, 6-9 pm
Over the 9 years Erynn Richardson has been showing at Bermudez Projects, she has achingly portrayed the destruction humans have wrought on the natural world. In her new show, Future Fables, it turns out humankind has succeeded in destroying all animals that they themselves have become mythical creatures.
Says the creator, who teaches art to the young autochthons of Riverside, “creatures from fairy tales are beautiful and fearsome beasts with wings and claws that draw on our imagination and instill of whimsy into our stories.” But to Richardson, “the real world is filled with beautiful and fearsome beasts: from the animals we keep as pets and livestock, to the wild creatures of the forest and the deep.” Deer, and cows, and sheep, and rabbits, and snakes.
In 8 new works, Future Fables imagines a tomorrow looking back at the creatures of today with the same whimsy and regard as mythical beasts, because we’ve killed them all off, and in a world where they no longer exist, they take on the same mystery and magic.
And since the originals are gone and memory is imperfect, the image mutates.
Richardson worked in watercolor and pastel on Arches paper – there is a hint of gold leaf on only one work. Her soft, overbright colors create a feeling of the synthetic … something lab-grown and too vibrant. The colors fade and blend, like pixels or Xerox copies of copies of copies; mimicking how a story might fade with time. Would we recognize these creatures? Or would something as ordinary as a lamb be as mystical as a unicorn?
Gallerist Julian Bermudez says, “There’s a favorite saying that I feel perfectly applies here: history becomes legend; legend becomes myth. With this exhibit Erynn Richardson shows us what to expect if we don’t care for our world and all its fauna: simulated, alien.. a facsimile.”
Says Richardson, “I hope to inspire the viewer and reignite a sense of wonder for the creatures around us.”
Look now, before it’s too late.