As Yet and Still to Come, curated by Emilia Shaffer - Del Valle

Jun 3 - 25, 2023

“Actually, you are a multiplicity because you are very much one with yourself. If you are one with yourself, you can be many at the same time.” – Trinh T. Minh Ha

Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles is pleased to present As Yet and Still to Come, a group exhibition of work by Liz Hernández, Maddy Inez Leeser, Tracy Ren, and Yike Zhang, and curated by Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle.

As Yet and Still to Come brings together four artists whose work exists between the past and the present, the earthen and the spiritual, and the personal and the collective. Ancestral ephemera, practices, and memories are the materials through which these artists imagine and reclaim their own identities. Challenging linear notions of space and time, the artists in the exhibition build diasporic visual languages that give shape to the complexities of living among and in-between many histories, cultures, and landscapes. The work in As Yet and Still to Come is layered in its meanings, inviting sustained engagement with artists grounded in their multiplicity.

Artist Liz Hernández references spirituality, historical and religious iconography, and her upbringing in Mexico City to weave stories of cultural and personal resonance. Among several clay and mixed media pieces in the exhibition, As Yet and Still to Come features a collection of objects from Hernández’s recent body of work, in which she investigates the language of myth and legend, opening a visual space of plurality and possibility. Maddy Leeser is similarly interested in mythology and draws from her family’s material archive to make objects that hold memories across time and place. Leeser’s ceramic works, including a new piece made for As Yet and Still to Come, honor her roots, while also bringing forward new meanings and possibilities. Artist Tracy Ren has also made a new piece for the exhibition which, through wire and wool, bells and talismans, gives shape to the entangled threads that form us. Ren’s new work will be shown alongside two earlier, related pieces. Considered together, these three objects demonstrate Ren’s evolving engagement with themes of liminality and convergence. Yike Zhang’s two textile pieces show her development as a textile artist. Each piece uniquely articulates Zhang’s interest in cross-generational exchange and encourages viewers to consider everyday objects as sites of connection.

Liz Hernández is a Mexican artist based in Oakland, California since 2011. Her work spans a variety of techniques—painting, sculpture, embroidery, and writing —which she uses to blur the space between the real and the imaginary.  Deeply influenced by the craft traditions of Mexico, her practice investigates the language of materials and the different stories they tell. This interest has led her to paint with clay, emboss aluminum, apply gold leaf, draw with thread, and sculpt papier-mâché. She draws inspiration from anthropology, syncretism, oral traditions, and the landscape of Mexico City; always looking for an element that breaks the normalcy of everyday life. Her partially autobiographical work has led to collaboration with her family in the shape of very personal research. Hernández has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the De Young Museum.
liz-hernandez.com

Maddy Leeser is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, ceramics and printmaking. Leeser attended the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon and currently resides in Los Angeles. She uses the elements of earth, water and fire to investigate themes of the body and healing. Drawing inspiration from mythology, generational magic, and herbal practices she processes trauma through clay. Her creative practice also includes the recurring themes of water, its history, mythology and its relationship to power. Her vessels are votives of ancestral alchemy, memory and process. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally, including Damp Earth at Harawik (Los Angeles, CA) and Possibility Made Real: Drawing & Clay at Gallery 12.26 (Dallas, TX). She has attended residencies at Conduit (Portland, OR) and the Vermont Studio Center.
@maddy_inez

Tracy Ren is a visual artist, writer, and curator based in Oakland, CA. Though they work primarily in sculpture, their practice is multidisciplinary and ever expanding. To date, their thinking has taken shape through drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and installation, often in various combinations with one another. Craft traditions, the culture, wisdom, and magic of their ancestry, and the poetics of materials, structures, and space all converge in their attempt to bridge the physical and the spiritual. Tracy received their BFA in Ceramics from California College of the Arts in 2018. They have since been shown in galleries across the Bay Area, including Jessica Silverman Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, Cone Shape Top, Dream Farm Commons, Pt. 2 Gallery, Graduate Theological Union, and CTRL+SHFT, among others. They have participated in numerous residencies around the country, and have been invited to give talks at Creative Growth, Mills College, and UC Berkeley.
tracyren.work

Yike Zhang is a Chinese-born artist based in the Bay Area of California. Zhang’s passion for art began at an early age, and after studying traditional oil painting for over four years, she earned her BA in oil painting from Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts in China. She recently received her MFA from California College of the Arts, where her focus shifted towards textile as her main medium. Zhang’s work centers on the idea that everyone’s life is shrouded in an invisible, larger environment, and that by exploring private stories, we can see reflections of the outside world. Through her art, Zhang seeks to create a dialogue between past and present, tradition and innovation, and the personal and universal. With a focus on domestic craft, Zhang believes that textile is an intimate way to uncover truth and meaning.
zhangyike.net

Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle is a curator and writer who considers the arts as a critical tool for education and change. Guided by research and sociopolitical context, and centering lived experience, her work encompasses exhibitions, collaborative public programs, writing, and publications. Her curatorial projects include make_place (2016), Consejos de la Isla/Advice from the Island (2017), Social Objects (2018), and It Feels Like Reality (2019), and As Yet and Still to Come (2023). Her writing can be found in The Dancer-Citizen, New Body (Wolfman Books), The Interjection Calendar 004 (Montez Press) and The Keeper (New Museum). Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now works between Los Angeles and the Bay Area. She received her BA from Columbia University and is currently pursuing a MA in Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts.
emiliashaffer-delvalle.com

Press Contacts: Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle, emiliasdv@gmail.com
Tiger Strikes Asteroid, losangeles@tigerstrikesasteroid.com