Amy Myers: The HandHeld Universe

Gallery III

Vielmetter Los Angeles is pleased to announce The HandHeld Universe, Amy Myers’s solo exhibition with the gallery, featuring the artist’s recent monumental drawings and paintings that reference biology, mathematics, particle physics, philosophy, and altered states of consciousness.

The finely executed drawings and, most recently, oil paintings, form loosely symmetrical networks of structures and systems of activity that shift in perspective and scale. The title, The HandHeld Universe, references Myers’s intensive tool-based creative process—pencils and brushes, graphite and oil—and her exploration of the slippage between the sublime vastness of cosmic scale and the intricate realm of sub-atomic particles.

For Myers, an artist comfortable with the unpredictability and interconnectedness of nature and the universe, all matter—particles like atoms and molecules—are in constant transmutation and are inherently beautiful. She finds beauty in the harmonious organization of mathematical equations and particle physics theorems and seeks to represent these systems with color, light, and line. The symmetrical dynamism also alludes to the processes of consciousness that in turn lead the artist to depict her interpretations of interior bodily processes like circulatory and neurological systems and exterior states of perception and integration.

Myers’s newest work references both processualism—a philosophical theory which states that change is continuous, simultaneous, and without a finite endpoint—and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of colors—the exploration of the psychological impact of different colors on mood and emotion. The resulting paintings showcase dynamic shifts of light and mood, and explosive movement and transformation. A long-time user of graphite, her transition to oil allowed her to harness light and luminescence, as seen in 2023’s A Hydromelodic Event, where translucent layers of pigment reflect light in an ethereal glow radiating infinite energy. Other works like Phase Transition in Pink (2023) return to graphite and gouache to explore an earthy pulsing central axis that emanates luminous layers of color toward the work’s edge. Here, the two distinct palettes of vivid blues and pinks surrounding the ochres and umbers in the ghostly core respond to Goethe’s study of the interplay of darks and lights and convey a simultaneous collapse and expansion of energy and mood.