Zoé Blue M.
September 7 - October 5, 2019
in lieu is pleased to announce an exhibition of five new paintings by Los Angeles artist Zoé Blue M., her first with the gallery.
Zoé Blue M.’s wildly colorful paintings investigate a multicultural psychology in America as well as the representation of the East Asian female body cross-continentally. Blue M. utilizes folklore, mythology, patterning, and symbolism from her own cultural background to create a personal lexicon that speaks to a variety of multicultural and diasporic identities.
In Business as Usual, two subjects are entangled in an archaic version of tug of war. The point of the game is to drag one’s opponent to the ground by the ribbon that is looped around each opponent’s neck. While both subjects pleasantly play through what is surely a grueling game, a third figure kneels on the ground between them. The kneeling figure’s head exists as a Ko-omote, or Zo, mask which is blocking the bright beam of a flashlight. This work, along with others, includes symbolism that has been appropriated and reappropriated, taking up a multiplicity of meanings within a multiplicity of cultures.
