Things I Can’t Unsee: Adele Renault

Good Mother Gallery is pleased to present Things I Can’t Unsee, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Adele Renault.

Over the past several years, Renault has cultivated a distinct visual language rooted in the peripheral ecologies of Los Angeles. Many of the city’s iconic plants, like palm and eucalyptus trees, are not native, yet they’ve become part of its cultural fabric. In this way, flora mirrors the rooted and uprooted people who shape the city’s identity. The scenes Renault chooses are markers of what persists despite being ignored.

Things I Can’t Unsee presents a focused group of oil paintings that elevate the incidental into the monumental—a severed cactus growing between chainlinks, moss seeping from a broken sewer line, a graffitied eucalyptus towering over a highway overpass. Each subject is rendered with cinematic depth and surgical precision. Renault begins with photography, documenting spontaneous encounters in neglected environments. She then builds each painting through layers of aerosol and oil, using spray paint for atmosphere and tone, and fine brushwork for anatomical accuracy. 

The result is not an illusion, it is a confrontation. These works ask what is seen, what is overlooked, and what becomes unforgettable once observed. Renault does not aestheticize Los Angeles; she records it with clarity. Her city is shaped by accident, decay, and unintended growth, where native and invasive species intermingle. 

The title frames the work as personal, almost involuntary. Things I Can’t Unsee suggests a shift in perception that cannot be reversed. These images are not curated scenes but fragments of a city that speak louder when no one is paying attention. Renault treats painting as a form of witness, preserving what exists in plain sight yet escapes the dominant image of Los Angeles.

There are no open vistas or sweeping views. Instead, Renault offers thresholds, edges, and interruptions—spaces where nature and urban planning collide. To those who live in Los Angeles, these scenes may feel familiar. But in Renault’s hands, they become something else entirely. Not romantic. Not tragic. Simply visible. Unavoidable. Unforgotten.