Edwin Arzeta at Zodiac Pictures

Edwin Arzeta’s new body of work on view at Zodiac Pictures (a new light-filled, Santa-Monica-Beach-adjacent gallery) has a quiet poetry to it. His drawings are unassuming—in each, delicate pencil marks make up the soft layers of a stacked birthday cake. Flowers or bows bedazzle each layer while the candles that top the confection are hazy and smudged as if in the process of being blown out. This soft ephemerality carries through a handful of sculptural works—lamps that are wrapped in thin paper that is contoured to their beveled bases. The lamps are plugged in at the gallery, but the light that shines through their translucent wrap is temporary, lasting only until each bulb dies. Afterward, each will live on as a sculptural relic, devoid of its original function. In this way, the work seems to speak to loss as much as tender celebration—like a helium-filled balloon slowly drifting towards the floor during the afterglow of a party. 

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Photo: Edwin Arzeta: Summer Letter at Zodiac Pictures (installation view). Image courtesy of the artist and Zodiac Pictures.