Rabbit Hole

September 25–September 27, 2020 sunrise to sunset
September 28–October 31, 2020 by appointment Th-Su, 11am-5pm
Exhibition is viewable from an outdoor space, instructions will be provided.

Niche Gallery is pleased to present Rabbit Hole, an inaugural group exhibition featuring the work of Aline Cautis, Darya Diamond, Rema Ghuloum, Rochele Gomez, and Roni Shneior.

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On the whole, one rabbit hole or another is around every bend these days. A beguiling finger curls from every peripheral nook and cranny, inviting you into its spiraling mystery. Perhaps it starts as research—an opportunity to forge sharper outlines, to merge myriad amorphous curiosities. Maybe it’s a willful loss of control, a sweater pull to the point of exhaustion, utter boredom, something to do until more pressing distractions take over? This is, potentially, a place of warmth and security—a new cozy spot to lay down for the night, and let disparate ideas synthesize. It may turn deep and dark, dirty and disorienting. It can, in fact, be a whole new world. Falling, following, hopping, bopping, scurrying, digging, typing and clicking, one may land (again and again) in the hole.

And what beckons from this particular hole? A glass phone, its screen frozen with a private plaintive note, nearby a fabric stretched across a dry cleaner’s pliable wire hanger, then a  sanding and layering of paint across the surface of a small canvas,  and an ear with a tooth, a pump feeding the system, and a finger meets a face. Everything in between imagined. With a tantalizing gesture, like hands waving from a distance, each work invites us to come closer: we see just enough to want more, more, more—and so we dive in, hooked.  

Niche Gallery was formed in response to a small architectural detail in the home, a narrow inset display arch in the dining room, the kind of detail that one quickly becomes accustomed to, and perhaps stops noticing. We invite artists to respond to the form of the niche, and out of this little hole, create a world, a portal.

Initially conceived as an intimate, interior exhibition space, the niche will, for now, be seen through glass, and allow for safe physical distancing while viewing the work. 

Aline Cautis (b. 1975 New York, NY) lives and works in Los Angeles. She has an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University. She is a Fulbright recipient and has exhibited at Regards in Chicago, and Galleria Sabot in Cluj, RO.

Darya Diamond (b.1991, Richmond, CA.) lives and works in Los Angeles and London. She has an MFA from Goldsmiths University of London. She has exhibited at SB140 in Brussels, Leimin Space and GAS Gallery in Los Angeles, and Saatchi Gallery in London. Diamond is an object maker whose practice is rooted in methods of reproduction. Her work investigates the female body as a site for pleasure, power, and labor that has systematically upheld capitalist structures.

Rema Ghuloum currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from Cal State Long Beach in 2007 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2010. She was a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2018), Adolf and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Grant (2017), Esalen Pacifica Prize (2012), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2010), and was an artist in residence at the Joan  Mitchell Center in New Orleans in 2013 and 2018. Rema has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Et al. Gallery, Hawthorn Contemporary, the Cue Foundation, The Pit, UCLA’s New Wight Gallery, Five Car Garage, George Lawson Gallery, Torrance Art Museum, and Arka Gallery in Vladivostok, Russia.

Rochele Gomez (b. 1980, Los Angeles, CA. Sun Sign: Scorpio) earned a BFA from Cal State Long Beach and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. She has had solo exhibitions at mandujano_cell, Monte Vista Projects, and LAXART in Los Angeles, CA. Recent group exhibitions include National Museum, Berlin, Germany; Galleria Curro, Guadalajara, Mexico; and Spring Valley Branch Library, Spring Valley, CA. Gomez lives and works in Los Angeles with her dog Max.

Roni Shneior (b. 1980, Cabri, Israel; lives in Los Angeles) received an MFA from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Tel Aviv. Her work has been exhibited at Magenta Plains, New York; Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas; 356 Mission, Parker Gallery, Richard Telles, Chin’s Push, JOAN, and Night Gallery in Los Angeles; and Uri and Rami Nechushtan Museum and Hissin House in Israel, among others. Her work has been written about in Artforum, Carla, L.A. Weekly and Ha’aretz.