Ages of Ages

The Ranch is pleased to present Ages of Ages, a solo exhibition of the Los Angeles based mage and artist L. An opening reception will be held on March 18, 2022 in observance of the full moon.

L has structurally utilized the temple-like architecture of The Ranch’s West Barn to cultivate a journey from the surrounding idyllic and memory-laden landscape, through a threshold of folk magic, and into a space of limitless being—an omniverse composed of worlds without end.

Benevolent charms, ritual accouterments, deflective superpositioned talismans, divinations, and offerings to the sacred land have been embedded by L into the wood clad floors and walls of the barn’s outer halls. They are constructed primarily from materials and objects found by L on the property and around Montauk: a deceased seagull’s foot, a washed up lobster trap entangled with sea debris, shoes from The Ranch’s horses, rubbish.

The barn’s inner chamber, the center gallery, contains nine vessel spells cast by L with intentions that call forth interior and exterior transmutations and revelations—simultaneously effecting the individual and the collective. Spell for Interconnectedness with Terra (2022) harnesses elemental matter from the local environment, encapsulated in vessels within the vessel: earth, stone, air, fire-charred wood, metal, ocean water from the nearest beach, the encompassing aetherial essence. Other spells in the exhibition propel the initiate into witnessing their inherent divinity, shifting our shared consciousness away from the perpetually regressive trap of external-material unfulfillment and obliterating bounded ontological illusions.

Three airbrushed paintings of cosmic phenomena float above and around the spells. In the process of their creation, L first entered states of body and mind that aligned with the envisioned fields through extensive periods of meditation and ceremony. The works then made themselves, as the formless forms crystalized upon the surface. Each painting synesthetically synchronizes with specific dimensions L embodies: the unnamable; the original state; the convergence of particles; the named; unity consciousness; structures of the self and all things; the transcendent divine being. Yet the works are not simply depictions of these realms, they function as activation devices and portals for the witness into the incalculable omniverse, where all things exist. One reverberation of experiencing this grand vision is a realization of our unique realities and a deep compassion for ourselves and the multitude.

In creating the spells, talismans, and wormholes in the exhibition, L draws upon knowledge obtained from a lifelong practice of folk ritual, ceremonial magic, and occultism.

L (1984, Salt Lake City, Utah) has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Marlborough, New York, NY; Stems Gallery, Brussels, Belgium; JOAN, Los Angeles, CA; Center for Land Use Interpretation, Wendover, NV; Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT. Select group exhibitions including L’s work have been held at The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA; Jeffrey Deitch + Nicodim, Los Angeles, CA; Kerry Schuss, New York, NY; CAPITAL, San Francisco, CA; WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong, China; Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv, Bulgaria; The Ghetto Biennale, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, among many others. L will participate in Documenta 2022 with the Atis Rezistans | Ghetto Biennale community.

L’s work has been reviewed in Frieze Magazine, Artforum, The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Spike Quarterly, among others. L is featured in Taschen’s forthcoming publication, Witchcraft. The Library of Esoterica (2022).