KP Projects is proud to present the latest body of work by artist Deedee Cheriel, “Cosmic Connections.” Deedee Cheriel’s spiritual compositions reference East Indian ritual art: attempting to invoke deities, exorcise negative forces, celebrate rites of passage, and mark turning points in growth, rebirth and renewal. Drawing upon nature and her trademark hybrid animal-people as subjects, the artist creates enlightened and meditative narratives.

This new body of Deedee’s work “Cosmic Connections” explores themes of: illusions of separations, ego, humility, forgiveness, truth, passages, connectedness, enlightenment, and new beginnings. Although whimsical at times, Cheriel examines profound dichotomies between adversity and catharsis and similarly, love and acceptance. These complexities are inherent to humans’ ability to connect and also accept each other and ourselves. Her iconic imagery is reminiscent of tarot cards, 1920’s political art, Alchemist manuals and dreamscapes that evolve into a reflection of self and collective experience.  Incorporating elements of her earlier work, Cheriel’s new series has blossomed into an increasingly strong narrative of emotion and color that evokes commentary on personal relationships, and man’s interaction with nature and environment.

Now showing at KP Projects (seen just above) is “Transition to Freedom”, an exhibition by multimedia artist and Los Angeles native, Adia Millett. Through careful design and structural process using color, shape, and forms, Millett delves into the expressiveness and hybridity of cultural identity. Whether through whimsical color schemes or in her stitching, fabrication, and placement, Millett crafts a new and avant-garde definition of self through textiles.

“Transition to Freedom” explores themes of movement, transformation, and the constant redefining of what an images represents. Like the sun rising and setting, the work attempts to reveal a transition to freedom, to something not confined to one definition. In both the quilted wall-hangings and the cross-stitch pieces, Millett uses images and patterns to examine how craft and hand stitching can reinvent itself as humans do. Geometric shapes (triangles, circles, and squares) are pieced together to illustrate traces of a home, of crystals, or a sunset, coming apart, flattening out, layering, and reconnecting.

The material, like identity, is reshaped, redefined, taken apart, rearranged, abstracted and made into something/someone new.  The fabric, the essence of who we are, constantly evolves into a new state of being. For example, the Medicine Wheel refers to the four directions, four seasons, four elements in nature and four stages of life, a concept prevalent in many Native American tribes. Here we are reminded that we (like nature) are always moving from one state of being to another. This piece ties four of the other quilts together: Your Edges and Mine referencing a stone or crystal (earth), Hurricane referencing rain (water), Longing for Sunset, referencing to the sun (fire), and The Price of Air referencing (air).

For More Information, please contact Merry Karnowsky at info@kpprojects.net

Press Contact: Jessica O’Dowd jessica@kpprojects.net