Found matter elicited a certain detachment from the object itself. It could be sold for a
song, traded, or given away but also could be returned to the streets, to the land, or to the
junk pile. Sometimes it was left to ripen, and sometimes it was just left.
—Kellie Jones, South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s (2017)

Over the course of several months, Acacia Marable gathered discarded objects and slowly
transformed them through assemblage, reconfiguration, and sculptural improvisation. This
process was at once devotional and absurdist: he cleaned, sealed, and, in oil, painted each item
red, white, and blue—the palette of nationalism, shared identity, and soft power. Ranging from
banana peels to a grand piano, the trash-objects were primarily gleaned from the streets between
Marable’s house and studio or generated by the artist himself. Across these sculptural paintings,
the American flag repeats: at times it is reproduced in full, at others it is fragmented, skewed, or
reduced to its basic compositional elements, rendered abstract.

trash flag builds on the Afro-Atlantic legacy of Yard Shows, intricate installations of scavenged
items created by Black Southerners primarily in the wake of the Civil Rights movement.
Through these exhibitions, objects deemed valueless or otherwise obsolescent were transfigured
into expansive assemblages with spiritual, subversive, and testimonial significance. Through the
repetitive, ritualistic acts of remaking and undoing the flag across the refuse of daily life,
Marable creates space for objects to belong in ways they were not intended to. Rupture is
visible—or possible—only in relation to pattern, to a recursive act. Here, broken, cast-off,
jettisoned, discarded matter is reclaimed in the form of a vast, all-over painting, its multifaceted
surface at turns coalescing and dissolving its primary loaded symbol.

Opening Reception, December 5 

· 6–9 PM

Artist Walkthrough & Cookout, December 14
• Walkthrough begins at 1 PM
• Cookout from 2 PM until closing

Gallery Hours
Wednesday–Sunday · 12–6 PM