A-Softly Pounding

Nov 10 - Dec 8, 2011
Tosha Albor

A-Softly Pounding began as a series of small experimental drawings serving as a visual stream of consciousness—an exercise on the primitivism of mark-making and its free flowing narratives. The goal was to let the drawings take me wherever they wanted to go, resulting in brightly colored and densely populated compositions of dreamy archetypes and anomalous marks.
 
The larger scale paintings followed a similar course shifting from one dreamscape to another, building layers of personal sign systems with psychological undercurrents. Of course, experience and environment play a fundamental part in creating these visual networks. Since moving to San Francisco in 2009, I have been greatly influenced by its unique confluence of street and graphic art, illustration and the surrounding urban decay. The resulting aesthetic: abstract clusters of organic matter; biomorphic and geometric forms; linear symmetry; and at times, what feels like an unresolved flatness that speaks more to the decorative elements of Art Deco, which I attribute to the "(New) Mission School" artists of San Francisco.
 
Working on a permaculture farm in Hawaii and a visit to the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador this past year (where many of these drawings were made) also had a profound effect on my painting process. Taking from nature is at the crux of this particular body of work. Evidence of this could be found in the ambiguous renderings of undergrowth, root systems and plant structures.  
 
Avoiding a premeditated approach to drawing and painting, the work took a life of its own--free to indulge in an intuition that reflects a subconscious negotiation with the natural world that I embraced. I consider this work as “proof” of an experimental transition—a personal project of mine to teeter away from the familiar and into far riskier terrain. It is my attempt to visually echo the natural algorithm of life that is a-softly pounding everywhere.

- Tosha Albor

Tosha is a visual artist born in Manila and based in San Francisco.She completed a BTEC in Fine Art at the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury, UK. She is currently studying Graphic Design at UC Berkeley Extension. 

A-Softly Pounding is her third solo exhibition.