PRESS RELEASE

 

I think about generosity and how we relate to one another. I think about how hard it can be to communicate with each other. I like to share, but sometimes I don’t. I like when others share. Do you? I want you to hold these boxes and look inside of them. In these boxes, I’m having a conversation with you. I’m hoping you will have a conversation with someone else too. I wonder if you will have a conversation with yourself.

 

Sharing is an ongoing project that explores a customized psychological system. The tea boxes share hidden notes, confessions, and questions. They bring together disparate fragments of ideas and images. The boxes are meant to be touched, sifted through and investigated by the viewer in order to activate a series of questions and insights. Do you relate? How do you relate? How are you feeling? What did you eat for lunch? Did you eat lunch? Are you annoyed?

 

Each box exists as an isolated individual. But together, they generate relationships with each other and with whoever engages with them. A new network is established! You’re alone in the elevator and then you’re not. You’re waiting for the light to turn green and then you go. Walking on a crowded street? Cross the street! What happens? Where are you going? What shifts? My intention in making these boxes is to make people feel comforted, loved, and less alone.

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Marisa Takal (b. 1991, Montclair, New Jersey) received her B.F.A. from San Francisco Art Institute in 2013. Takal has shown in numerous solo, duo, and group shows at such venues as Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Jeffrey Stark, New York; Company Gallery, New York; Otis College of Art and Design Bolsky Gallery, Los Angeles; and Loyal Gallery, Stockholm. In 2016, she was named the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award and the Stanley Hollander Award. She lives and works in Los Angeles.