Water Shed Twinkle

In the background, a muffled noise. It's the sound of water, flowing beneath the large oil paintings that surround the fountain made of glass, wood, and ceramic at the heart of the gallery. Like a melodic undercurrent, this wave seems to inspire the figures in canvases "Bird Noises Disappear Together With Satin Bowerbird, Wind Noises, Water Noises" and "Distance to a Certain Delicacy Disintegration" to join in the movement, musical instruments in hand or booms and microphones lying in wait. Cindy Phenix asks herself, “What would be the last sound heard on Earth?”

In the exhibition "Water Shed Twinkle," Phenix celebrates her first decade of art production (2015–25) with a new body of work that plays with the title's words and implied meanings. “Watershed” refers both to the geographical notion of the point where waters divide and to the idea of a pivotal moment in history. For Phenix, this decisive threshold is embodied in the climate crises and ecological grief that characterize our times. Most of the paintings in the show were in the midst of production in her studio in Los Angeles last January, when the city was ravaged by wildfires. A perspective that is eco-centric – that is, revolving around nature – thus runs through her most recent series, in which she imagines the new connections, communities, and actions required to conjure the times to come. This is precisely what the scintillation suggested by the title's “twinkle” is intended to open a breach through which hope and joy can flow.