Lumin Wakoa

Nothing but a Vague Fever
February 27 - April 8, 2018

Deanna Evans Projects is excited to present its first solo exhibition featuring Brooklyn-based artist, Lumin Wakoa. Nothing but a Vague Fever is Wakoa’s first solo exhibition in New York and consists of small paintings that stretch from abstraction towards representation, with scumbled color and textured brushstrokes that bring forms into soft focus.

"'Conception' cannot precede 'execution.' Before expression, there is nothing but a vague fever, and only the work itself, completed and understood, will prove that there was something rather than nothing to be found there." - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Cézanne's Doubt (1945)

Wakoa uses specific memories as the starting point for each painting, but then sands or scrapes down, reworks and makes the images anew. Throughout the process, her initial memory becomes clearer as the painting arrives at its final form. Wakoa writes down her memories in the form of poetry or short prose and returns to the same writings again and again for different paintings. It is unimportant for the viewer to to have access to the initial memory, as the paintings are left purposely open ended with a mix of intention and invention.

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Lumin Wakoa received her BFA from the University of Florida and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has had recent solo and two person exhibitions at Present Company Gallery, Providence College, and Reynolds Gallery. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Taymour Grahne Gallery, Untitled Art Fair (Present Company booth), Lu Magnus, Classic Six Gallery, Sweatshop Studios, ACNY, and Field Projects, among other venues. She was selected for the 2010/11 VCUarts Fountainhead Arts Fellowship and received an MFA fellowship from the Dedalus Foundation in 2010. She is currently an adjunct professor in the Arts Department at Westchester Community College and Queensborough Community College.