EMILY MARCHAND: THE SLUMBER OF A PRINCE

OCHI is pleased to present The Slumber of a Prince, an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Emily Marchand. This is Marchand’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The Slumber of a Prince will be on view at OCHI, located at 3301 W Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA from January 11 through February 15, 2025. An Artist’s Reception will be held on Saturday, January 11th from 4:00 to 7:00 PM PST.

The Slumber of a Prince features ceramic sculptures, wall works, and vessels that consider tenderness and care as strategies to access a range of emotions with a timely focus on joy and grief. After a move into a new studio during the pandemic caused a shift in energy and priority, Marchand began to make work about two parts of her life that felt the most joyful, meaningful, and transformative—her garden and a 15-year relationship with her beloved dog Ozzy. Hand-building life-size versions of Ozzy—lying on his back with his tongue hanging out, sitting up like a good boy, reclining and curling his tail with excitement—Marchand channeled her love for Ozzy, but also anticipatory waves of grief into these effigies. Covering Ozzy’s aging body in small ceramic offerings like medicinal plants and flowers, eggs, and garden-grown vegetables and fruits, Marchand offers an insight into the nature of love characterized by abundance and informed by her work with mutual aid and community engagement.

Marchand’s Ozzy sculptures are accompanied by several small and one large-scale hand-sculpted tile wall works, fused together with blue-tinted grout, and framed in walnut milled and planed by the artist. Together they portray surreal though serene landscapes in which gardens, water, the night sky, and cosmic energy visibly merge. The culmination of several years of clay and glaze experimentation, Marchand’s tile works create a portal between the physical and the spiritual. Imbued with personal significance, each natural element activates various emotional energies of grief—weeping willows bend and mourn; red French coquelicots relay peace and remembrance; a bridge offers safe passage from one realm to the next; sardines leap with joy; a delicate garland of daisies falls apart; and an enormous spiderweb anchors everything into place—a fitting environment for shadowy figures to commune. With long tails, floppy ears, and limbs outstretched, furry silhouettes of dogs offer a visualization of spirits in transit, floating with light, peace, and joy.

Mediating the anxiety of inevitable loss, Marchand reclaimed agency over her grief by making work about her dog while he was still alive. Instead of fixating on Ozzy’s death or a future life without him, Marchand made sculptures that carry his presence. While continuing to prioritize her social practice work about food politics, ecological activism, and community actions like feeding unhoused neighbors, Marchand has found a deepening in her practice as she embraces solace, using clay to channel feelings, memories, and senses amplified by the grief of Ozzy’s passing in the summer of 2024.