Edi Dai, Yasmine Diaz, Margaret Nielsen,
Andrea Patrie & Kristine Schomaker

Her Intuition

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“Her Intuition” is an exhibition opening at Brainworks Gallery on May 6, 2017 from 5-8 pm, curated by Erin Adams featuring works by five local female artists. Edi Dai, Yasmine Diaz, Margaret Nielsen, Andrea Patrie and Kristine Schomaker will present new works that illustrates the myriad aspects of intuition. Intuition is defined by researchers as the brain’s ability to draw on internal and external cues in making rapid, in-the- moment decisions and the women in this exhibition take that idea—consciously and unconsciously as a point of departure. The works on view range from non-traditional large-scale oil paintings to collage to video installation as each artist’s choice of medium is also dictated by an innate sense of intuition. The exhibition explores intuition as a methodology and as content and celebrates the fact that these artists work from the gut, and do what they do with knowing confidence.

Edi Dai is a Los Angeles based artists who explores systems of oppression and how they are used to sustain inequality through the act of painting. She embraces commonplace materials to encourage the consideration of our history and how it relates to the matter surrounding us. Cotton is a dominant material in her work and she uses cotton not just to remind us of America’s history of slavery, but also to highlight modern, global forms of slavery which provide cheap products that float inconspicuously into our presence.

Yasmine Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles. Primarily a self-taught artist, her work for years consisted solely of oil painting and drawing with a focus on urban environments. Currently, her work is shifting to explore gender and broader social and political issues from her vantage point as a Yemeni-American and feminist. Her work has been featured in the BBC News, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, and is on permanent public display at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. She is a 2016-17 at land’s edge fellow.

For painter Margaret Nielsen, the journey has been a recurring theme in her artwork. The painter travels through her work and her own psyche, portraying aspects of life with a universal commonality and delving into the mystery of the human condition. Through the use of recurring imagery such as birds, the four elements, and other natural motifs, Nielsen connects the private, intangible world with the external, physical world. Her paintings, often small, jewel-like, and intimate, evoke Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious in that they touch upon experiences common to us all in the journey through life. Nielsen was received a BFA from CalArts and a MA from Loyola Marymount University.

Andrea Patrie is a painter working towards her MFA in Fine Art at California State University Fullerton (2017). She describes her process as very physical and feels painting is an intuitive event, often violent, aggressive and fast pace. In her large-scale paintings color is laid down with trowels, knives and large brushes, only to be later removed. For Patrie painting is a place where the outside world falls away; a place where there is no judgment, no rules, but when something does not fit, it clearly makes itself known. Her process is kinesthetic in nature as she believes to be able to feel the pose, the way the figure turns, sets, pushes and pulls is essential to the understanding and the depiction her subjects.

Kristine Schomaker is a new media and performance artist, painter and art historian living and working at the Brewery artist complex in Los Angeles California. She received her BA in Art History and her MA in Studio Art from California State University at Northridge. She works with various interdisciplinary art forms including online virtual worlds to explore notions of online identity and the hybridization of digital media with the physical world. Her current work is part of a new cross-platform project called “An Ode to a Lost Love” whose leitmotif addresses the de(con)struction of self in relation to society’s perception/projection/reflection of beauty. This work focuses on the complexities of gender identity, body image, and the societal privileging of women’s physical beauty over character and intellect.