Everyday Breath Public Preview

EVERYDAY BREATH

Group Exhibition

September 6th - October 4th, 2025

GGLA is proud to present Everyday Breath, a group exhibition that meditates on the sharp precipice of obsession—that emboldening compulsion that can drive us to new heights, yet can too easily lead to unhealthy compulsions that further isolate and divide us. What constitutes a positive and healthy obsession, and where exactly is the tipping point that oscillates to destructive behavior? Are these norms that we must delineate as a society, or are these personal boundaries that we each must define and regulate ourselves? With works by Sadie Barnette, Adam Beris, Troy Lamarr Chew II, Daniel Albrigo, Jasmine Little, Reniel Del Rosario, Mansur Nurullah, Chris Lux, Kristen Morgin, Devin Reynolds, Julio Del Rio, Mia Scarpa, Hubert Schmalix, Francesco Igory Deiana and Andrew Schoultz; Everyday Breath as an exhibition provides a space in which we can unpack how notions of control, obsession and repetitive processes manifest within each artist’s practice, and the ways in which these compulsions manifest within our own daily lives both positively and negatively.

Sadie Barnette’s Typeface 5 creates a rhythmic composition composed of alternating italicized colon and right parentheses punctuation marks, creating 130 smiling or frowning emoticons in subtly shifting tones of blue colored pencil, from indigo to aqua and back. Barnette’s painstakingly analog drawing rendered in even fields of colored pencil shading feels digital in its precision, yet its employment of the smiley emoticons as a vestige of the early personal computer age in the 1980’s also speaks to our digital present, unpacking the ways in which artists today navigate the grey areas between IRL and virtual worlds. The sense of control evident in Barnette’s Typeface 5, resonates throughout the exhibition and surely our lives as well, as we struggle for control in various facets of our lives or become at peace with letting go. Kristen Morgin and Julio Del Rio like Barnette employ graphite or colored pencil, with Morgin realizing a hovering Prince “Love Symbol” amidst a starry universe backdrop, oscillating between moments of tightness and looseness, while speaking to the almost divine nature of the musician, and his legendarily obsessive musical and performance practice. Julio Del Rio, on the other hand creates a coursing field of colorful hatch marks of every possible color, layering and crashing into one another, leaving a mysterious field of white negative space in the middle of the composition that also bares some resemblance to Prince’s iconic symbol.

Sadie Barnette, Typeface 5, 2025, Colored Pencil on Paper, 21 x 17 in. Framed

Troy Lamarr Chew II, Portals, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 26 in.

Works on canvas by Francesco Igory Deiana, Hubert Schmalix and Andrew Schoultz, all explore themes of obsession and control in their own ways. Deiana through the application of One Shot signpainting enamel creates lusciously glossy overlapping brushstrokes that compose an abstracted horned and winged figurative form sitting atop a saturated orange background–the demonic / angelic being comprised of a deft series of lines so perfectly centered that each sector is a perfect mirror of the other. Schmalix on the other hand gives way to the nuances and subtleties of a meandering and imperfect line, yielding a loose portrait in oil of two roses set against a deep lavender background. Schoultz combines some sensibilities of Schmalix and Deiana within dense compositions that are all his own. Speaking to notions of power and empire, a battalion of birds across and through a blocky fortress, buttressed by all-seeing eyes and poofs of air–all layered with the artist’s beautifully brushy linework, forging a composition that reveals a new vantage point and meaning with every viewing.

Hubert Schmalix, Small Roses, 2023 , Oil on Canvas, 27 x 21 in.

Chris Lux, The French Spectre, 2025, Oil, flashe, and graphite on found fabric, 47 x37 in.

Jasmine Little, Three Two One, Glazed Ceramic, 2025, 67 x 23 x 23 in.

Adam Beris, An Unwanted Guest, 2025, Oil on canvas, 22 x 17 in.

Daniel Albrigo, Homer and Monty, 2025, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in.

Mia Scarpa, Little Guitars, Acrylic on canvas, 2025, 10 x 10 in.

Mia Scarpa, Set the tone, Acrylic on canvas, 2025, 10 x 10 in.

Mia Scarpa, Blow My High, Acrylic on canvas, 2025, 10 x 10 in.

Julio Del Rio, Untitled (D1337) , 2018, Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 in.

Works by Mansur Nurullah and Reniel Del Rosario on the other hand, are exercises in the practice of relinquishing control and letting go. Nuruallah’s richly textured and intensely layered quilted-pieces are a compendium of foraged fabrics, as well as the occasional scent element, batting and grommets, all held together through an obsessive pass upon pass of a Juki industrial sewing machine. Imbued with personal meaning and hidden narrative elements, Nurullah’s sculptural textiles revel in their maximal compositions, yet also operate as a therapeutic release for Nurullah after his days as a counselor in the San Francisco Unified School District working with suspended and expelled youth. Ceramic Dodgers hats by Reniel Del Rosario embrace the happy accidents and magic that only a 2000 degree firing can provide. Working with the artist’s voracious practice of recreating everyday objects in clay, Rosario takes full liberties with a litany of finishes upon the “Dodger Blue” caps, with dashes of white glaze splitting into small islands, or ancient rock-like growths sprouting from the vertical bar of the “L”. Alongside the rich mixture of glazes and time honored techniques that comprise Rosario’s “LA Hat 1 & 2”, the works also make perfectly clear our city’s greatest collective obsession–The Dodgers.