Tyler Park Presents is pleased to present The Dawn Riders, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Los Angeles-based artist Cathy Akers. The exhibition will be on view from July 8 through August 19, 2023.

The concept of utopia has informed Akers’s practice over the last 17 years, particularly the interplay between fantasy and what has been attempted historically. As she understands it, utopia is an imaginary state that can never be achieved, although she is fascinated by the ways that people have tried. To explore the idea of utopia from different vantage points, Akers moves between fact and fiction, interpreting archival research and creating imaginary worlds inspired by this research. She is intrigued by both people’s lived experiences in utopian experiments, especially 1960’s communes, and the world of imagination and dreams that are part of the appeal of these experiments. Moving between these modes, Akers attempts to come to a more complete understanding of the utopian impulse, as well as reimagining typical commune power structures through a feminist lens.

For The Dawn Riders, Akers has created an immersive exhibition of ceramics, including figurines, sculptures, busts, vases, and wall reliefs. The striped green carpet, reminiscent of 16-bit video game representations of grass, is both functional and imaginative as it guides the viewer on a journey through the gallery. On this journey, the pathway takes the viewer through a landscape of varying scales and dimensions populated by hand-built, tactile, and generously glazed ceramics. Upon first stepping into the realm, dreamlike scenes from the artist's own imagination and others from historical research into the Morning Star and Wheeler’s Ranch communes of the 1960’s, along with representations of commune members in the form of figurative busts that highlight both the joy and pathos of their utopian strivings, line the walls. Dissatisfied with the world they had inherited and determined to create a better one, the depictions show off-grid living, relaxation, bodily acceptance, and fornication as the commune members attempt to become “at one with nature”. As the pathway banks left and right at the back of the gallery, figurative ceramic sculptures of women on horseback travel up the pedestal to confront the male guru/leader, providing a much-needed corrective to the typical commune power structure dominated by charismatic male leaders and recalling Akers’ previous investigations into Hertopia (2006-08), an imaginary all-female society she explored through series of dioramas.

Cathy Akers is a Los Angeles-based artist who holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Tufts University. Her work has been in solo exhibitions at venues such as Pitzer College, Claremont; Elephant, Los Angeles; Emma Gray Headquarters, Los Angeles; and Honor Fraser, Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at venues such as Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; The Brand Library and Art Center, Glendale; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica. Her work has been reviewed and included in publications such as Art in America, Los Angeles Times, Art and Cake, and LA Weekly.