IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES at Compound YV

We are born in nature. We are always creating worlds from our imagination.
– Allegra Pecheco

Compound Yucca Valley gallery presents local and international artists with ties to the desert in upcoming exhibition, Imaginary Landscapes. The show invites six artists to reflect our wildness, either by retreating into the wild of their brains and bodies, or transforming the gallery into its own immersive world that invites the viewer into a state of play.

Compound Yucca Valley gallery presents local and international artists with ties to the desert in upcoming exhibition, Imaginary Landscapes. The show invites six artists to reflect our wildness, either by retreating into the wild of their brains and bodies, or transforming the gallery into its own immersive world that invites the viewer into a state of play.

Another featured artist is Emily Silver, a former Yucca Valley resident and gallerist (Unpaved Gallery, 2019–2020), who now lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work is similarly transcendent across dimension and form, including video and animation, textile pieces, and sculpture. The woven felt pieces she is contributing for Imaginary Landscapes reference the layered, stimulating moving stickers, text, and emoji of an Instagram story, for “much of the work ends up animated, sometimes before a painting starts, midway or after,” says Silver. It “shifts in and out of reality using social media apps to animate slipping through these virtual realities where we spend so much time.”

Artist Mary Jeys, of Yucca Valley, creates jigsaw puzzle-like mind maps on MDF she calls “Thoughtforms.” Joshua Almendinger will translate the natural and built environment with oil pastels in drawings he refers to as “Field Maps.” Tynan Kerr will offer a painting, “Hanky Waving from the Back of a Train at Sunset on the End of the Month (2018),” made from pigment and egg yolk on paper (framed), 38 by 20 inches and a sculptural element. Amy Kim Keeler, another Yucca Valley resident, creates works on corrugated cardboard with cotton thread that either reflect the circuitous jumble of thought or the silhouette of a mountain.

Imaginary Landscapes was co-curated by Compound YV Gallery Director, Lara Wilson, and Compound YV Programming Director, Caroline Partamian and is on view April 8, 2023 through June 4, 2023. An opening reception will take place on April 8 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.

About Compound YV
Compound YV opened in April 2018 in an empty storefront facing Twentynine Palms Highway. Proudly owned and operated by artists — working in photography, sound, graphic design, and dance — we primarily exist as a presentation space where visual artists at all stages of their careers can show immersive or experimental bodies of work. We curate group exhibitions, invite solo artists and curators, and host a variety of free and low- cost programs and performances that are open to the public. Learn more on our website, compoundyv.com, and on Instagram @compoundyv.

Katie Nartonis is a writer, curator, art + design specialist and film maker. Her exhibit “Edwin + Lloyd” based on the founding of the Institute of Mentalphysics’ Retreat Center and the Lloyd Wright architectural treasures there is open 10am-5pm March 3, 4 and 5th. Her most recent documentary film “Jack Rogers Hopkins: California Design Maverick” premiered at the Palm Springs Art Museum Annenberg Theater during Palm Springs Modernism Week, 2023.