ANABEL JUÁREZ

Every day on street corners across Los Angeles—from dawn to dusk—and in all weather conditions, flower vendors set up temporary, mobile shops. These vendors, many of whom are immigrants of Latinx heritage, create vibrant, ephemeral spaces that bring beauty and life to the urban landscape. Inspired by these labourers, Juárez has produced an installation that pays homage to their resilience and the labor they perform. The installation features an array of ceramic containers filled with sunflowers, dahlias, California poppies, birds of paradise, roses, and water-storing succulents—flowers that evoke the provisional fleeting nature of the flower stands these vendors assemble each day. A small white stool with a gardening glove resting on top sits near these buckets. The seat and glove, tools of respite and protection, are also stand-ins for these workers, whose absence directs attention to the ‘invisible’ physical labor force that often keeps the gardens and homes of Los Angeles pristine.

Juárez’s selection of plants and flowers reflect a combination of both native Californian species and migrant plants that arrived in the region through multiple paths. She considers their stories of origin as well as the plant’s natural characteristics to reflect on notions of migration, adaptation, and survival. For example, the bird of paradise, graceful, sharp and hardy, is able to withstand drought and wildfire smoke, perhaps ironically this non-native chimera is the official flower of Los Angeles—a symbol of both migration and resilience.

While Juárez has previously explored floral motifs in her work, often as painted imagery on freestanding forms—one such work, Girasol, is presented in this exhibition. The large totemic two-sided work is named the Spanish word for sunflower; it alludes to the sun’s singular presence in, and daily journey across, the sky. As a sunflower ‘moves’ to follow the sun, the presiding sculpture also refers to a clock or compass, markers of time, a marker of working. From Sunrise to Sunset marks her first foray into sculpting life-like representations of floral motifs. However, both the monumental ceramic sunflower sculpture, and the smaller buckets of blooms, allude to the interwoven histories of people, plants, and place, reflecting the ways in which both human and natural worlds are shaped by migration, adaptation, resilience, and survival.

Anabel Juárez is a binational artist born in Michoacán, México (1988), who lives and works in Los Angeles county. Juárez received an MFA in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BFA in ceramics from California State University, Long Beach. Her work has been showcased in solo exhibitions at Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; Five Car Garage, Santa Monica, CA; and Lefebre & Fils, Paris, FR. Selected group exhibitions include Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York; Guerrero Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; K11MUSEA, Hong Kong, CN; American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township, NJ; The Mistake Room, Los Angeles, CA; The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, CA; The Pit, Palm Springs, CA; Galeria Mascota, México City, MX; Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles, CA; and Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles, CA, among others. Her work has been reviewed in publications including Artforum, Hyperallergic, and La Revue de la Céramique et Du Verre. Juárez’s work is in collections including the French National Ceramics Museum-Sèvres, as well as in several private collections.