Lauren Younge. Courtesy of the artist.
Visitors to COCA's Millstone Gallery are encouraged to take a moment to be mindful, be grateful, and, above all, take a moment to breathe as part of a new exhibition from artist Lauren Younge.
Breathe, on view January 20 through March 15, is a collection of large-scale abstract paintings accompanied by interactive elements such as a "corner of mindfulness" and a collaborative journaling experience. Ahead of the opening, we sat down with Younge and COCA curator in residence Karla Aguilar Velasquez to discuss goals for the gallery, the artistic process, and creating an art space where everyone feels comfortable.
Can you start by telling me about your goals for the Millstone Gallery as a whole?
Karla Aguilar Velasquez: For me, the experience in the museum has always been interacting with people and seeing the different reactions to the pieces. And even before I went into working in different museums, I had this idea that touring a museum is kind of a class—you were going to go and receive facts and the bio of the artists and what the artists intended. But working as a museum educator told me that that's not the case at all, and that there's actually a lot of activities and a lot of engagement techniques that you can do to make people feel included. So when I accepted the role as curator, I didn't see it as in opposition to my role as an educator. And that's why working at COCA was kind of like the ideal place for me. COCA is, in a sense, mostly a school. So my goal is to make the Millstone Gallery a place that is accessible for everyone, so it doesn't feel like you need to know about art or you need to follow the art world to enter into the gallery. It's a place where artists can go, kids can go, families can go, and they can learn from the pieces. We are trying to make all of these exhibitions as interactive as possible. I do really think about the idea of experience. What does it feel to visit a gallery? I want everyone to feel like the galleries are a safe place for them to explore not only their relationship with the pieces, but the relationship with art in general. And that's what we're trying to do, or what I'm planning to do with the exhibitions I'm curating right now and the exhibitions that come in the future.
And tell me about the newest Millstone Gallery exhibition, Breathe.
Lauren Younge: So I'm an abstract painter. I've always been drawn to abstract work. I can't really let go of how freeing creating abstract art is. I make my own rules. I decide when a painting's done. And I'd say that dates back to like late high school. That just has always felt good. Breathe will have a variation of sizes of abstract paintings. The idea for Breathe kind of came to me in 2022—just this whole concept that it's very easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life. You know, we all have lots of things keeping us busy, and I've found that when I allow myself to be present in a moment, when I allow myself to focus on or take a few minutes of my day to focus on things that I'm grateful for, my mindset changes. So that's essentially the overarching theme of Breathe, if you will.There is an interactive piece to it, which is new for me, where I have some of my journal entries included. This is probably the most vulnerable I've been with an audience, so I'm excited to see what viewers think. Those entries are five to 10 things that I'm grateful for, and they are dated from while I was working on this work.The hope is that people take a moment to read my journal entries and find a little moment to breathe. I'm hoping that when viewers see my work, they are filled with joy, that they have warm feelings. I'm always just trying to spread joy with my work.So my hope is they'll see the journal entries, they'll find paintings that are comforting to them that they really like, and then take a moment to write their moments of gratitude. We’ll even have a space where they can sit if they'd like to take their moment.
What was the process like creating these works?
LY: Part of my process—and I guess another tidbit as to why I like abstract art—is that I do feel better after painting. With the work I'm hoping I have created like an experience where [visitors] are kind of seeing a part of my creative process where you come and view the art, and now you hopefully feel a little better. Some of the works have a very clear connection to the title of my show, Breathe. I think I have four specifically that are in cool color tones, deep blues and purples, which in my mind, when I close my eyes and envision the word “breathe,” those are the colors I'm picturing. I know sometimes cool tones can be connected to sadness, but for my show, they are not connected with sadness. So there are a few paintings on the walls that, for the viewer, will be easier to make the connection with the show title. Some of them I’ve created to represent what I think of if you were to take a breath and put it into the atmosphere. Other paintings show my style of lots of color, lots of patterns, and don't necessarily have as clear of a connection. But hopefully they inspire joy. So you’ll kind of see a few variations of my style.
KAV: We were talking at the beginning about the importance of connection, interaction, and then we are going to have an abstract painting exhibition.I know that there's a lot of assumptions about the difficulties of interacting with abstract paintings, right? Like, “I don't understand what that means.” “I don't find concrete space in this painting that I can relate with.” But I think one of the things that Lauren emphasized during the entire process of designing the the exhibition was that the success of this entire show depends on people actually finding their own interpretations of the patterns, their own interpretations of the colors. It’s, if you think about it, really anti-abstraction movement, because most abstract painters think that what is important about their compositions is the purity of them. How do you feel about color? How do you feel about texture? How do you feel about movement? Not about not thinking about concrete stuff, but about the process of making the piece. So for me, it was really interesting hearing Lauren’s thoughts, because it's kind of counterintuitive with everything that you learn about abstraction, which is don't try to make sense of it. But Lauren wants people to make sense of it, wants people to find figures, to find their memories. So I think that the challenge that she's opening up is really great. And it's something that might help people that feel intimidated about abstraction to go into the gallery.
"You are heard, you are seen." Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.
You're prompting viewers to think about how these works make them feel. What did you learn about your work or yourself over the course of creating these paintings?
LY: What have I learned…I'm an emotional person. I'm working on being more confident in what I want to put on a canvas. And I hope this doesn't sound silly, but the thought of having my journal entries up on a wall for people to see, that was new for me. And while I felt confident in the idea for my show, I did have to continue working on this idea that, yes, this will be good. I haven't had a solo show in a few years, so this was an exciting challenge. I'm an emotional person, and I think that does affect my art in the best way possible. I'm working on being vulnerable as an artist. As my career is kind of shaping and growing, I need to be open to be more vulnerable as an artist.
Tell me about some of the interactive elements in the space.
KAV: There's this idea that I'm kind of obsessed with, which is how to make a collective place like the gallery, which is always open because it's free, a place where you feel vulnerable enough to breathe. That combination of being together, but also being by yourself in the gallery, is something that we also wanted to do. There's an actual space inside the gallery that we are going to differentiate from the rest. There’s going to be a room separator made of tiles and there’s going to be a pillow, and a piece called “Together.” It’s a corner of the gallery that is separated from the rest, and I remember when we were deciding which painting we were going to select for this space. We wanted a painting that conveyed the idea of breathing and movement, because a lot of the paintings had these kinds of patterns and movement that make you think of the different kinds of breathing that exist. But we also wanted a painting that was hard enough for people to take time to try to understand it. It’s give and take. Lauren is giving something of herself, something really private, but she also is asking the people to take their time and actually breathe in this space that we're creating. It’s going to be interesting to see what people think of that—if they’re going to feel confident enough to sit in that place and spend 10–15 minutes just watching one painting and breathing through it.
You’ve both been getting at it a bit, but what are you hoping that visitors get out of this experience? What do you hope are the takeaways from this?
LY: I'm hoping that viewers are encouraged to find their moment to take their breathe and partake in our little interactive activity. I'm hoping viewers find paintings that either remind them of memories they have that are happy or good feelings, or maybe they just find the painting they really like the color of. That compliment always works for me. I personally like the color palettes I choose to work with, so if that’s the main thing that a viewer can find, that works for me as well. But the kind of give and take that we created with this exhibit, I am hoping that viewers will be open to finding that time, that moment to focus on what they're glad to have. I think, no matter our backgrounds, we can all agree that there are things we're glad that we have in our life. That's one thing I hope people are able to walk away with, because I know it helps me change my mindset. If I do it in the morning, I feel like I have a little better, calmer morning. So I am hoping the viewers are willing to take that step with us.
KAV: We also are having educational programming that is related to the exhibition. One of them is a couple of workshops. Lauren is going to be teaching one of them: an introduction to abstraction. But we are also going to have the beginning of what I hope is a constant, which is “Reading in the Gallery.” So we're going to have some kind of reading group inside the gallery and find connections between what we read and the paintings. What we chose for this first session is a book called Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto. And just in terms of what we hope for the audience, in my case, it’s that they can realize that rest also needs to be a collective activity. I think when we think about resting, we think about resting on our own. It’s a really individualistic process. Rest is sleeping, rest is going on a vacation with my closest family, but it's not something that you do outside on the street. Can we rest together? I think that’s something that's really important for me, that idea that in the process of letting your imagination flow, letting your fears go away, you can rest. But that is happening at the same time when other visitors are doing the same. I hope that people can think about that idea that we're going to enter this place of rest together.
It feels like a lot of this exhibition is built around making people feel safe and comfortable inside a gallery space, which is not always the case for everyone.
KAV: And it shouldn't be like that, right? I'm always really mad about the idea of why going to a gallery is so inaccessible. And I think there's a lot of components to it. One of them is the idea of policing bodies inside of the gallery, right? What can you touch? Why don't we touch? How do you move? And those are ideas that we are trying to fight back against in the exhibitions. For our last exhibition we had sculptures, and we consciously decided not to have cases for the sculptures. We need to motivate people to feel closer to the paintings. And I think maybe something that we haven't mentioned is that these paintings are quite big. It's large paintings. So I think there's also an opportunity for people to get closer, and I want that.
"Hello Joy," acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.
I was peeking at some of the pieces on your Instagram, and in addition to the large scale of the works, it looks like there’s also a couple different formats people will see, for example the round paintings.
LY: Yes, the round canvases! That was new for me as well. And those were a lot of fun. I love when I get the chance to work big. It takes more brain power I think. It was my goal to work kind of large cause it's such a nice space. I definitely wanted to have some big pieces.
Is there anything else that you want folks to know, either about this work specifically or about the gallery as a whole?
KAV: I’d like to say that we are really working on accessibility for the gallery. It's something that is really important for us that wheelchair users and blind visitors feel that they belong in the space. So, for instance, one of the things that visitors might notice is when they enter, there's three vertical pieces that are sitting up on a diagonal, and they're really low. And my art handler was like, “This is really low.” But for wheelchair users or just for kids or for shorter people, if you put it at the standard height, they're gonna be like [craning their necks to see.] That's not accessible. For the last exhibition, we had audio descriptions of all the pieces. So people who were blind or had low vision could listen to a description of every piece. And it's something I'm intending to do with this exhibition, too. Just in terms of some of the things that make going to a gallery intimidating, I think the idea that you don't have any good space to move is something that might be an obstacle. And we are trying to challenge that at COCA.
