I’m Starting to Forget

ExhibitionPast

Feb 9

Danie Cansino
I’m Starting to Forget

969 Chung King Road
FEBRUARY 19 - April 9, 2022

SHOW CATALOG (PDF)
PRESS RELEASE (PDF)

Charlie James Gallery is delighted to present the gallery debut solo show of Los Angeles-based artist Danie Cansino titled I'm Starting to Forget, opening February 19th at the gallery from 6-9pm. This show follows Cansino’s outstanding MFA thesis show Sangre at USC Roski in 2021, and her participation at the Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles also in 2021.

Danie Cansino’s work manifests in bold chiaroscuro oil paintings on wood and vividly rendered drawings in ball point on loose-leaf paper, mounted to panel. The subject territory of her drawings and paintings originates from herself, her family members and close friends, and the geography of their shared surroundings - their homes, their neighborhoods, their city. The axis of time is ever present, and it inhabits every piece, every scene, every subject. The geographies of the work all stand in evidence of long-standing inhabitation by generations of Cansino’s people as they grow up, move forward, and pass on. The work is an assertion of presence, a declared union of people and place, and a meditation on growth and progress within a family and community.

The show’s centerpiece From 3rd to 5th Street depicts a mother and her children gathered in front of an ice cream truck in the evening. The painting is executed in Cansino’s signature Tenebrist style, with the cold florescent light of the truck illuminating the scene. The figures in the piece are Cansino’s sister and her five children, and the scene recalls the occasion of the eldest son’s first tattoo, which Cansino herself administered. This painting is flanked by an expansive landscape scene at sunset, depicting the hills and neighborhoods seen from Cansino’s living room window to the southeast, with the mausoleum of the New Calvary Cemetery clearly visible in the background at right. Generations of Cansino’s family rest in the cemetery, and its presence resounds throughout the show like a chorus; the site appears in two paintings and in one drawing. Each piece tugs on an expansive personal history all connected to Cansino and to her family. I’m Allowed to Change My Mind is a portrait of Criss, a woman sitting pensively in front of the same living room window from which New Calvary appears in the distance. Her story is one of liberation, as she ponders exiting a long standing marriage. As Cansino remarks, the works in I’m Starting to Forget are a love letter to her family, city, and culture, and a remembrance of the suffrage of the Chicanx and Latinx people of Los Angeles.

Danie Cansino (b. 1986, Los Angeles) attended Rio Hondo College shortly after her first apprenticeship for tattooing in 2013. In 2017, Danielle graduated from Laguna College of Art and Design where She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting, with an Emphasis in Sculpture. After graduation in 2018, Danielle began tattooing full-time as a resident artist at Mi Familia Tattoo Studio, specializing in color and black and grey realism. In 2021, Cansino completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Southern California. Cansino’s work has been featured in exhibitions with Artforum Magazine, the SUR Biennial, UCLA, AMOCA, UTA Artists Space, Felix Art Fair, Human Resources Gallery, Humble Arts Foundation, USC Roski, Prjct LA and Charlie James Gallery. Danie lives and works in Los Angeles and is represented by Charlie James Gallery.