Scoli Acosta: To Ward The Setting Sun: AF Projects, Los Angeles

AF Projects is pleased to announce the launch of its program with a solo exhibition by LA artist Scoli Acosta. This marks the first LA solo exhibition of Acosta since his 2011 showing at the Armory in Pasadena "Rippling: An Earnest Moire Effect" and his 2008 exhibit "Bountiful" at LAXART.

In "To Ward The Setting Sun", a mobile made of sliced wooden drum shells depicting surfer hands and the sun in flight, forms the entry to a body of fragments in paintings, drawings, and sculpture that extend into the gallery. Acosta opens a space to reflect on Los Angeles and the gallery's location on Sunset Boulevard. It's the site and culmination of hope and brightness, new life and new people, the pursuit of the spotlight, the frontier of westward expansion and the ocean itself. Here, the sun is the ideal we cling to and thrive under, but the sun does set, and the day, like a lifetime or empire, ends.

Working with the basic idea of what he calls " the aesthetics of resourcefulness," Acosta manipulates materials familiar and found, repurposed and ultimately revived. He absorbs and isolates elements from the external world, not so much to elevate as to expose them for their intrinsic humble poetics and narrative potential. The artist maintains a transparency of the handmade quality of his art, laying bare the signs and traces of enchanting imperfections. "Though you can see how it's made, the mechanics of it, it still has a beauty and a magic to it… when you make something, when you use your hands… you create the world."