Genevieve Gaignard: Thinking Out Loud

Vielmetter Los Angeles is delighted to announce Thinking Out Loud, Genevieve Gaignard’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from September 21 to November 9, 2024.

Genevieve Gaignard is haunted. We all are. Hauntings can take on many forms: memories from childhood; the trauma that manifests from centuries of systemic racism; or the echoes of friends and lovers, come-and-gone. In what might be Gaignard’s most intimate body of work to date, Thinking Out Loud overlaps her practice with her most recent lived experience, set against the backdrop of her newly situated life in New York.

Thinking Out Loud signifies an evolution in Gaignard’s practice as she excavates concepts of identity and reflects on the intersections of life’s journey. Her symbol-laden, cryptic work speaks to larger truths: the building and breaking down of walls, the rupture of domesticity as wallpaper tears, and the detritus of everyday life that we must all work our way through. Gaignard explores the veil as armor, representing protection while moving through growth. Her art transcends the personal, becoming public through the artist’s intent, and challenges us to consider the significance of our own stories within the larger context of humanity.

Thinking Out Loud invites viewers to closely consider open-ended questions that haunt the intricacies of personal relationships. Dreamscapes, depicted in the collages and the exhibition environment, become fertile ground for exploring the emotional landscapes of love and self-perception. Gaignard has described her working process as a “lived playlist, a diaristic processing of my life, a creative vibe set against the backdrop of mix tapes and personal soundtracks that transcends, romanticizes, and provides an escape from the everyday.”

In Lucid Girl (I’m Letting You Go), Gaignard casts herself as a ghostly figure, levitating in front of a swath of vintage wallpaper. The title materialized during the creative process when she found unexpected visual-sonic synchronicity in the lyrics of Thee Sacred Souls. Another “song” in this playlist, the collage Players Only Love You When They’re Playin’, is from Fleetwood Mac’s song Dreams. A young Gaignard wields a wiffleball bat while navigating a sea of wallpapered baseball “players.” An arched text above her reads “ballbuster,” reclaiming and embracing the misogynistic insult as a badge of honor. She deconstructs her often methodical working process, revealing layers of wallpaper that show the disorienting multiplicity of spaces.

In Angel and Muse, titled after a song by Radamiz, Gaignard ruminates on the passage of time and creates a narrative about perception, memory, and desire. The work is a window into the artist’s interior life represented as a surreal street scene from her newly adopted borough of The Bronx. Gaignard herself is an observer within the microcosm of activity that surrounds her. An unexpected, sexy selfie of the artist can be found looking out through a stained glass window, gazing at a disembodied arm orchestrating a flutter of butterflies.

In Tits for Tats, the artist offers a defiantly unadorned self-portrait, leading viewers to wonder for whom the glistening image was originally intended. She emerges through two torn layers of wallpaper, conjuring herself into spiritual relief. The tattoos that cover her body denote signifiers such as the biblical, the occult, and symbols of power. Gaignard’s “third eye” suggests that enlightenment is possible through self-acceptance and awareness, while three anatomical hearts mystically orbit her crown.

True to the essence of Gaignard’s signature style, this body of work engages viewers with a poetic and nuanced dialogue that challenges them to see beyond the obvious. Thinking Out Loud lifts the curtain on the complexities and struggles of everyday life, highlighting the uncomfortable spaces in between awareness and the mysteries of our existence.