ANGELA CHINA

Girl in the Garden

Opening: Friday, September 5th, 6-8 PM

September 5th - October 2nd, 2025

The exhibition title for Angela China’s annex show is “Girl in the Garden.” Immediately, the phrase conjures up a quote from novelist Kurt Vonnegut about how life is a garden, not a road. We enter and exit this garden thru the same gate. the author’s sentiment echoes teaching from the Rudolf Steiner school about the Rainbow Bridge as the path by which we all come into existence. Angela went on a road trip in June to Idaho where upon spotting a rainbow, she tried futilely driving to where it touched the ground, knowing full well that rainbows never do, but something in her needed to make sure. The title “Girl in the Garden” also brings to mind the ending of Voltaire’s “Candide.” After scouring the globe sucking up experience, our portraitist is left with the understand that the most important thing in life is tending to one’s own garden. In Angela China’s case, this intent means a lot of scraping and building up her paintings, a kind of creative mulching of top crops and the planting of seeds. The entirety of her annex exhibition consists of a single sixteen foot long painting, “After the Rain (the extended version),” less than two feet tall. Here, the painting IS the horizon, a landscape - Angela points out - “without a flower in sight,” and yet awash in color. So gave upon her painting and then close your eyes and inhale deeply. Can you smell the sweet earth?