GOTH DUMPLING

You are cordially invited to the opening of Goth Dumpling, a scrumptious and scintillating Aurie Ramirez solo exhibition. Join us Thursday, October 26th to revel in all things Aurie, eat piping hot dumplings and get adorned in glam rock makeup. Wear your finest Victorian, goth or KISS look. Remember, Aurie will be watching!

In Aurie Ramirez’s painted world, naked women and perfectly poached eggs have the same makeup artist. Their style is – always – Harlequin clown chic, where KISS meets Raggedy Ann. Blushing moons and bacon tomato sandwiches meet your gaze with identical, coquettish half-smiles. It’s like having a psychedelic experience at a diner, looking into the rotating cake display while listening to vaudevillian circus tunes, we imagine.

Born in Sangley Point, Philippines in 1962, Aurie has worked since 1997 at Creative Growth, a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California that advances the inclusion of artists with developmental disabilities in contemporary art. She’s easily recognizable by the glam rock makeup, goth attire, and adorned nails she rocks on the daily. Her studio space features a mix of watercolors and acrylics along with pencil, paper, and a container filled to the tippy top with water.

Aurie works intuitively and quickly, sketching a vision in pencil (and hardly ever erasing) before outlining it in a delicate layer of black acrylic, then watercoloring in the details. She takes breaks for chamomile tea with milk, Stevia, and two ice cubes, as well as Elvira videos and bags of chips. Sometimes, at Creative Growth, Aurie lounges on the couches for most of the day, exhausted from an all nighter spent painting at home. This twilight setting yields appropriately dreamlike paintings, which resemble a game of dressing up paper dolls suddenly careening into BDSM territory.

Teacups, dumplings, pregnant ladies, and tall glasses of milk frequent Aurie’s creative imagination, always smiling innocently as if to whisper, “eat me.” The occasional explicit interruption – a penis adorned with a cocktail weenie, for instance –  injects some spice into the sugar pot. Sometimes Aurie incorporates her own indecipherable secret language into her pieces, coded scripture full of S’s and backwards letters, meant not to communicate with others but to record something personal to herself alone.

Hybrids of virtue and sin, like a busty baby lamb, occupy a jarring middle ground. The theme of painted masks runs throughout, adorning ramen bowls and fornicating couples alike, suggesting that for Aurie, everything is an equally ripe canvas for play, make-believe, erotic encounter, and indulgent consumption.

A very special thanks to Jean-Guillaume Buckel and Brina Thurston for this