Project Room | Angelo Vasta: To Hold Myself

Rebecca Camacho Presents is pleased to announce the opening of Will Gabaldón: Leave all the windows open and Angelo Vasta: To Hold Myself. These exhibitions mark the San Francisco debuts of both artists and the first presentations of their work at Rebecca Camacho Presents.

To Hold Myself features a suite of oil pastel works on paper by Brooklyn-based artist, Angelo Vasta. His vibrant drawings portray moments of intimacy and domesticity and his compositions are marked by a vivid palette, simplified forms and gestures, and figuration. Exploring movement, and quotidian moments from life, memories, and the artist's own queer biography, Vasta’s self-taught drawing practice is directly informed by strategies deployed by modern painters such as Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin with bright colors and a flattened, refined structure. Over the last decade, Vasta has built a successful videography career documenting performances of ballet and modern dance for companies such as the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and Ballet Hispánico and his pastel compositions draw upon the energetic and fluid movements he has observed. Several works in To Hold Myself depict figures engaged in duets – with the participants captured mid-movement or in intricately choreographed lifts with legs akimbo. Other works rely on biographical details from Vasta’s life and are punctuated by both tender and titillating moments – a tattooed man flexes for the viewer; the artist’s dining room table is morphed into a still-life with eye-catching pink flowers and a sketchbook filled with drawings of male figures; friends converse over coffee; and couples gather in the street.

Opening reception Thursday 6 March, 6 to 8pm