’Superfecta’ Sadie Barnette @ Charlie James Gallery [LOS ANGELES/USA]

Fresh off her year as artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, artist Sadie Barnette, based in LA and New York City, presents Superfecta, a solo show at Charlie James Gallery opening January 9th, 2016. In Superfecta, Sadie Barnette investigates the racetrack as a place where rules, codes, and highly specific vernacular mingle with fantasy, escapism, and chance—underpinned by childhood memories of tagging along on payday to Hollywood Park.

Drawings of racehorse names such as “Candy Ride” and “Hunger” are meticulously rendered in graphite on large expanses of white. Isolating these names—at times fanciful and and flirtatious and at other times moody, lush and commanding—from their context calls attention to the poetics at play.

Another series of drawings, done on newsprint pages from the daily racing forms and other ephemera sold at racetracks, tackle the numbers game of the track. These multiple sets of drawings of digits 1-9 point to the number assigned to each horse, as well as the dizzying amount of statistics used in betting and “handicapping” to calculate advantage. The metallic-looking surface of the graphite covers almost entire pages, revealing in the negative space elements of the racing form—tiny american flags, stacks of dollars, coins, and little horses jumping off the page.

A constellation of works on paper introduces small pops of neon color, a slight buzz of glitter, and—in contrast to Barnette’s controlled application of graphite—wild, yet elegant, spray paint gestures. Barnette’s photographic pieces activate the narrative behind the numbers. There are stories behind every dollar won or lost at the track. The artist’s memories of being Dad’s good luck charm at the races, always picking the horses with the prettiest names, serve as subtext to the collages and photographs. A lightboxed photograph shows a surreal image of a horse and rider in the middle of a Southern California residential street. Taken outside of the artist’s house during a family party, the photograph is evidence of the little known equestrian culture of Compton and its urban cowboys.

Sadie Barnette (b.1984) is from Oakland, California. She received her BFA from CalArts and her Masters in Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, in 2012. Barnette was a 2014-15 Artist-in-Residence at Studio Museum in Harlem. She has shown her work in venues including The Mistake Room, Self Help Graphics, Charlie James, and Papillion in Los Angeles, Ever Gold Gallery in San Francisco, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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