Written by: Oliver Heffron

Although theoretically communal, art galleries aren’t usually the coziest places in the world. Openings tend to feel like a tasteful house party cramped into acceptable spaces around the white walls and framed decadence. 

In contrast, the opening for “Mirror Show” made nearly 500 guests feel at home by surrounding the crowd with a diverse collection that displayed the warm feeling of a furniture show while still displaying masterful artwork on the walls. The artistic confrontation with the mirror unifies a wide array of techniques and approaches into a cohesive exhibition that’s strangely comforting. 

Curated by longtime friend of Nuance Mia Scarpa and hosted by Los Angeles art gallery Spy Projects, “Mirror Show” synthesizes the work and vision of 29 artists into one dynamic space that combines the comfort of personal craftsmanship with the artistic precision found in the classic gallery space.
The celebration of home decoration centralizes reflective surfaces in one expression or another, creating moments when the viewer sees themselves in a myriad of shapes and sizes. They may accidentally catch their own expression of curiosity as they inspect the wood muraled world clock (Sleepy time clock by Anya Gupta) or be taken aback by a shattered reflection ground in the bottom of a paint tray (Untitled (crushed mirror) by Brendan Lynch). 

While most pieces appear on the dark green walls conventionally, others rest on the floor between large boulders and purely decorative flourishing, giving a space a lived-in feeling and naturalistic finish. Circular highway mirrors hide in the corners of the ceiling, while the entryway’s large mirror was covered in guest graffiti by the night’s end. 

Sitting within its compact booth, Tasha Romano’s Void creates a haunting, endless miniature office space through an infinite mirror, expressing the haunting, corporatized existential dread reminiscent of the show Severance.

To be clear, this wasn’t a tasteful house of mirrors, with much of the gallery forgoing reflective material to confront the concept with various materials. Zane Kaufman’s mixed medium work frames the experience of holding on to random mementos for obscure sentimental reasons, Satchel McCarthy’s Bar Mirror, Copy after Manet paints over a combination of fabrics, while the ceramic cow of Karla Ekatherine Canseco’s Deep with milky cavities, I find you even holds a well of motor oil. 

While much of the work and material evokes nostalgia by its rugged, naturalistic feeling and utilization of analog technology, such as the circuit boards and audio cables in Brian Oakes’ Mimesis System, it also celebrates the contemporary trend of artisanal aesthetics and personal craft propelled by the success of online marketplaces like Etsy, uplifting unassuming material and household objects into artistic expression. 

“Mirror Show” blurs the line between craftsmen and artists, reflecting the diverse roles artists play nowadays, trying to make a living by making things with their hands and selling them on the obscured online abyss. 

“Mirror Show” will run until March 3 at Spy Projects, open 11:00-6:00 pm, Wednesday - Sunday at 3709 W Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016.