I don't know what grabbed hold of me
Opening September 7th, 6 - 8pm
On view September 7th- October 12th, 2024
(Los Angeles, CA) UNREPD is excited to announce I don’t know what grabbed hold of me, Leonard Maiden’s inaugural West Coast solo exhibition. The exhibition is a profound engagement with the Southern Gothic tradition: rather than the grotesque, Maiden’s 11 portraits offer a haunting beauty, buoyed by the subtle power of mystery.
Maiden’s portraits are rendered in oil on canvas, with a muted color palette that serves to slow the viewing energy to a rural pace. Spending time with each portrait envelopes viewers in the feeling of Southern mysticism, as one slowly uncovers levels of feeling and meaning painted layer by layer. The haunting often used to describe Maiden’s work is based in something behind his figures’ eyes, in the sense that the figures contain deeper knowing than they might reveal. The paintings take on an uncanny quality as viewers wonder whether Maiden’s figures are up to something, or trying to send a message, or whether one has simply caught them looking. The mystery feels poignant given the figures’ posture, which is always slightly stooped–signaling something heavy being carried–and yet solid, unmovable. Together, the power of the eyes and the posture of Maiden’s figures reflect the energy of black Americans. It is an energy with roots in the very land that serves as backdrop in Maiden’s portraits; land that holds the sweat, blood, tears, and secrets of the South.
Within Maiden’s works, the dichotomies between beauty and pain, self and representation, known and unknown, and seen and unseen, give aesthetic form to theories of double consciousness; this exhibition makes visible the embodied dualities of black life. In Maiden’s portraits, people show up in their Sunday best. They persevere, and they do so with style, grace, and quiet confidence. In shouldering heavy realities while simultaneously embodying lightness, Maiden’s figures reference rich cultural narratives around rising, resilience, and pride.
The energy necessary to persist through omnipresent danger comes from a place that could be called supernatural. This space is also where one might find the ability to create paintings that touch viewers’ souls. I don’t know what grabbed hold of me, then, speaks to Leonard Maiden’s artistic process, to the way that black Americans continually find strength and joy in the face of hurt, and to the many under-explored mysteries of the Southern Gothic.