JODIE CAVALIER // “Figured that you”
On view January 4–February 9, 2025
Opening reception Saturday, January 4 (2–4pm)
Nationale and curator Gabriel Garza welcome multidisciplinary artist Jodie Cavalier to the Project Room. The exhibition “Figured that you” is composed of a collection of fourteen photogram works, mounted on pegboard and accompanied by household objects related to or used in the production of these light-sensitive works. Fruit netting, binder clips, a safety pin, a horseshoe, and a comb are just a small selection of the items Cavalier has cheekily puzzled together to bring these inanimate objects to life. The resulting faces span the gamut of emotion from downturned to deadpan, remaining jocular despite their laconic nature.
In addition, two sculptures complete the exhibition. A “piñata” composed of black paper dotted with scraps of blue paper features three stones hanging off its bottom edge. A larger cardboard work curves into a u-shape, not unlike the horseshoe shape seen earlier, with festive tassels and another photogram hanging respectively off opposite sides. The tassels feature in this final image as the wacky “hair” of the artist’s imagined character. With “Figured that you”, Cavalier has cunningly re-imagined the trappings of daily life. Much like the show's title, the viewer is left to fill in the blanks.
“Looking up, you see a face in the clouds. It’s smirking, staring, sad and then gone. The sidewalk cracks create a similar smiley, emotion changing from weeds growing through their jaggedness, highlighting eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. When you come face to face with Jodie Cavalier’s photograms, figures form from objects that incidentally invoke mysticism, becoming animated when placed just the right way. Is it wrong to give life to objects that have no agency, to make them perform as someone that they didn’t choose to be?
From my own obsessive collecting of objects, I know Jodie keeps utmost care of the material used for this work. When the time is right, the bolts, scraps, and wires find a new life in a successful arrangement, captured in an enlivening portrait. Afterwards, they can go back to storage, or be put to rest.
These characters might have their heads in the clouds, or could be stepping on a sidewalk crack. We see their expressions and it's pretty clear what state they’re in. They view back at you, and see your expression. You look funny! I figured that you might say that.”—Gabriel Garza, curator of “Figured that you”
Jodie Cavalier is a conceptual artist living in Portland, OR. She earned a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Her work has been exhibited with Converge 45’s Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project in Portland, OR; the Schneider Museum in Ashland, OR; the deYoung Museum in San Francisco, CA; the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA; CoCA in Seattle, WA; Practice in New York; and Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany, among others. Cavalier has participated in residencies such as ONCA in Brighton, England; the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover, UT; Wassaic in Wassaic, NY; and AZ West in Joshua Tree, CA.
Gabriel Garza is an artist from Los Angeles. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Art from the University of Southern California Roski School of Art and Design, and he received a B.A. in Art and minor in Music History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017. Recent curatorial projects include Norte On We Brown Town Scene a two-person show of Lisa Samudio and Victor Saucedo, Hervídor Príma, a solo show by Jasminne Morataya, both at Bass & Reiner (San Francisco, CA), Drawings, a solo show by Barbara Stauffacher Solomon at Staircase (San Francisco, CA), and Helping Heads, a group show of artists and their children at Personal Space (Vallejo, CA). Prior to that, Garza co-ran the projects In Concert (San Francisco, CA) and Thats A More (Oakland, CA) with Theadora Walsh. From July 2020 to July 2021, Garza ran a project space in his parent’s backyard, Punto Lairs inc.
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