Gallery IV:
PRISCILLA S. FLORES
‘Where the Spirit Meets the Skin’
Opening Reception:
Saturday, September 2 from 6-10pm
On view September 2 – September 23, 2023
‘Where the Spirit meets the Skin’ is the first solo show of Long Beach based painter Priscilla S. Flores. By drawing from memory and personal experiences with sensuality, Flores converges reality and fantasy of external and internal relationships she has with the world around her. The expression ‘the spirit meets the skin’ is borrowed from the song ‘Living Room’ by ambient band Grouper. Flores associates the expression to connecting the physical body to its spirit as presented in her work. She modified the lyric by adding the word “Where” to specify her relationship to the space the body inhabits. That space is often depicted through a bedroom setting or oceanic landscape. The bird (a symbol for time and flight) takes the viewer to the next memory. Through various paintings and a few small graphite drawings, Flores allows the viewer to gaze into her world.
About Priscilla S. Flores:
Priscilla S. Flores (b. 1993) is a first generation Mexican-American painter. She was born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. At an early age, she gained interest in narrative as she felt close to her family’s stories of their southern Mexican life. Her work, often presented through self-portraiture, draws from her relationship to the body and sensuality, while embracing her Mexican upbringing and American living. Flores’ current work embraces all ranges of emotions, joy, confusion and humorous aspects of these relationships. She creates narratives based on memory and mementos representing these experiences of identity, sexuality and of the past. Her multi use of vibrant and limited palettes along with her mix of both bold and thin paint strokes, are what create these personal stories. Flores’ interest in narrative painting is inspired by painters: Larry Madrigal, Jennifer Packer, Naudline Cluvie Pierre, among many others.
Priscilla received a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Cal State Long Beach in 2019.