Reception Saturday, May 17, 7-10pm / Performance at 8pm

Exhibition dates: May 10 - June 1, 2014

Into the late nineteenth century, an invisible substance known as luminiferous ether ( light-bearing ether ) was purported to permeate the universe and provide a medium for the propagation of light. The notion of ether harkened back to Ancient Greece, where it was elucidated by Plato as the classical fifth element, joining earth, air, fire and water in the composition of the universe. In 1887, the Michelson-Morely experiment set out to detect the relative motion of the earth and the luminiferous ether. The experiment produced the now famous “null result”, where no measurable evidence was found indicating the ether, effectively disproving ts existence. Although it seemed to have failed its original mission, the experiment helped establish the constancy of the speed of light, which proved foundational to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, often referred to as the “second scientific revolution”. From the ancient to the modern, we have sought to explain and visualize the unseen, with varying results. Half a world away, and thousands of years earlier, inhabitants of Oba Island created Stone Age ritual rock and sand tracings to guide the passage of the departed into the netherworld. Their labyrinthine courses inscribe a physical path and a spiritual cosmology that formally echoes the path that light was refracted in the Michelson-Morely experiment. Some truths may never be proven to be true. We remain as our ancestors, ever searching for our source, in the shadow of the invisible.

Monte Vista Projects is proud to present "In the Shadow of the Invisible", the first solo exhibition by Los Angeles based artist Christina Ondrus, which includes a new series of text and diagrammatic drawings on canvas and a live eurythmy performance. The show involves overlapping languages for the ineffable in science, philosophy and mysticism, exploring ways in which articulations of the unseen inform perception of the visible.

The drawings on canvas pull from diverse sources, including a 19th century experiment on the relative motion of matter (Michelson-Morely experiment), a Stone Age ritual sand tracing, and a series of appropriated texts that describe aspects of the unknown and the nature of the universe. The works suggest how language and imagination provide access to nascent knowledge—tapping into an encompassing sphere of human thought, or state of cosmic consciousness. Formal aspects of the drawings correlate with revelation and obfuscation. Their opaque, matte black surfaces absorb light, while built-up graphite areas of text and image reflect it. Depending on the lighting and position of the viewer, the paintings are more (or less) visible.

The show also presents a one-night collaborative performance with eurythmist Maguerite McKenna, which includes eurythmy, vocal incantation and a group movement of Cassini ovals (a series of quadratic curves named after astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini who investigated them while studying the relative motions of the Earth and the Sun in 1680). Eurythmy is a form of expressive gesture developed by Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophy) and Marie von Sivers as a therapeutic means to visualize the unseen, such as the heard sound or spoken word.

Christina Ondrus is an artist whose work participates in the experience of mystery and the search for knowledge, wandering a liminal space where science, philosophy and mysticism grasp toward understanding perception, phenomena and one's place in the universe. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and was a 2010 artist fellow with the Terra Foundation for American Art. She recently published an artist book, An Invisible Way: A Synchronous Journey, tracing her travels to a Neolithic archeoastronomy site in France. Christina is also the founding director of KNOWLEDGES, which organized a site-specific exhibition featuring more than thirty artists at the Mount Wilson Observatory in 2012. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Performance participants (subject to change) Diana-Sofia Estrada, Amanda Yates Garcia, Paul Gillis, Lauren McElroy, Marguerite McKenna, Sarah Petersen, David Prince, Brian Ramisch, Sylvie Spencer, Alise Spinella, Clarissa Tossin, Brica Wilcox