Hugo Rocha: Grids, Colors, Worlds
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 20, 6-8 pm
July 20 – August 31, 2024
Tierra del Sol Gallery presents Hugo Rocha: Grids, Colors, Worlds. This is Rocha’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.
Inspired by telenovelas, cinematic media and a range of visual experiences, Hugo Rocha translates dramatic encounters into colorful surrealist grids that landscape feeling. Like Agnes Martin’s paintings convey sublime emotion, Rocha’s compositions are laden with imagery that refuse to instruct or critique, but rather encourage and invite the viewer to tune their senses to the joy of his reimagined worlds.
Rocha populates these worlds with words, numbers, abstracted people of all ages, animals, signs and objects. As with pop art that presents the everyday, hard edges both encapsulate the ordinary and structure it into provocative storytelling that is ordered yet expressive. The grid allows for reflection on the singular and the whole, aggregating bold colors, feelings and narratives to make an immersive and vivid installation that feels dimensionally rich. (Continued)
Included in this exhibition are painted sculptures that bring certain gridded elements into the gallery in new ways. Rocha is a master at translating scale, from his billboard works found across Los Angeles to these new three-dimensional figures. His signature use of loose abstraction and color are always foundational to his practice, as evidenced by these playful sculptures that enable visitors to engage Rocha’s world anew.
Play is another fundamental aspect of Rocha’s work. He listens to music and sings his favorite songs out loud in the studio as he makes work. Like Sol Lewitt’s later wall drawings that distort the grid and Carlos Cruz-Diez’s boundless curiosity in his explorations of color, Hugo Rocha’s study and pleasure are unmistakable. His first exhibition in Tierra del Sol’s new gallery in West Hollywood demonstrates that he is creating more opportunities to expand his interests and ours.
Hugo Rocha: Grids, Colors, Worlds opens on Saturday, July 20th, with a reception from 6-8 pm at Tierra del Sol Gallery in West Hollywood.
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