Emily Berl, Tim Feeney, Eric Huebsch, Mariah Anne Johnson, Danielle Kohut, Chris Warr, Helena Westra, Sarita Zaleha

Exuviae

July 18th - August 9th, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 18th, 7-10 pm

A human-sized, flesh-colored latex suit dangles from the ceiling, carefully hung from an ordinary clothes hanger. The neckline and slits down the front and back reveal a red interior suggesting blood. Eric Huebsch's sculpture, titled "Out of Myself," is a kind of human exuviae, a term used to describe the shed skin of an insect. It's a sign of new beginnings and a dissolution of the past.

It is just one of the unsettling, corporeal works in Exuviae, on view at Monte Vista Projects from July 18 to August 9. The eight Southern California artists in Exuviae grapple with these questions of dissolution and transformation. Their pieces, which were selected by MVP members from the gallery's annual open call, each attest to the chaos and uncertainty of the present. But they are not satisfied with only reflecting this chaos. Instead, they capture a desire to discover some meaning and order in this chaotic present. But what we find is an order whose shape seems strange, with a meaning that we are not yet capable of discerning.

Tim Feeney's "Seismic Potential," an 8' x 10' bed of vibrating gravel, emphasizes this feeling of instability by evoking the geologic and environmental changes happening beneath our feet. So, too, does Sarita Zaleha's "Topography of Energy," in which a grid of overlapping square sheets of printed plastic packaging resembles a loose, fluttering geological palimpsest.

Mariah Anne Johnson's "Rhythms Around Us (Yellowing 2025)" and Emily Berl's "Mom's Grocery Lists," meanwhile, search for meaning amongst this chaos. In Johnson's, bits of trash gathered on a walk are neatly arranged in a 7'x4' rectangle, each carefully stuck to the wall. In Berl's, a tail of receipts hangs from the wall and onto the gallery floor. In these bits of litter, there is a sense of some secret meaning to be discerned, perhaps about society and even its future, if only we could properly piece it together.

In contrast, Helena Westra's "Shorn: A Leaving" gives a sense of entrapment. A wooden façade of a yellow house sits on six human feet. In small cutouts on the front of the house are: a lock of hair, an electric shaver, and a video of the artist shaving her head. As presented, this attempt at change, of finding a new meaning and new identity, feels feeble in comparison to the entrapment of the house. Danielle Kohut's "Weatherproofing" also plays with the form of a house. Constructed from sheet metal and bolts that hold the walls and roof together, it looks more like prison. But it hints at a way out: rust envelops the outside, indicating that this, too, is impermanent.

Chris Warr's "Hobble," meanwhile, mutates the familiar. Objects recovered from a fire at Warr’s parents' home—wheels, a triangular-shaped metal armature, yellow balls, and a kind of membrane made of pulped paper—are combined into a single, orderly form. But a form of what? A platform? A walker? A cart? Still-legible text in the paper pulp indicates that there is some answer to these questions, but it is an answer that has been lost and may never be recovered. Maybe it is precisely this not knowing that unburdens us from the past and fosters transformation.     

-Daniel Tovar