Maysha Mohamedi yesterday I was a tiny tube of toothpaste Past Sep 6 – Oct 16, 2024 Tokyo EXHIBITION DETAILSMaysha Mohamediyesterday I was a tiny tube of toothpasteSep 6 – Oct 16, 2024GALLERY1F; Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza-A5-8-1 Toranomon, Minato-kuTokyoPRESSPress Release (ENG)Press Release (JP)CONNECT (opens in a new window) @pacegalleryAbove: Maysha Mohamedi with sketchbook and corresponding painting (Bait, 2023) at her Los Angeles studio. Photo by Megan Cerminaro © Maysha Mohamedi Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of new, never-before-exhibited paintings by American artist Maysha Mohamedi to mark the grand opening of its Tokyo gallery in the city’s Azabudai Hills. On view from September 6 to October 16, the show, titled Maysha Mohamedi: yesterday I was a tiny tube of toothpaste, will showcase the artist’s ability to use color and calligraphic abstraction as means for storytelling. To accompany this exhibition, Pace Publishing will produce a facsimile of the studio sketchbook she used for the works in her Tokyo show, featuring a new text by writer Brian Dillon.Mohamedi—whose work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami—is a self-taught artist raised in San Luis Obispo, California, who trained as a neuroscientist before pursuing a career as a painter. Now based in Los Angeles, she is known for her atmospheric abstractions that reflect her own thinking about universal ideas and experiences. In her paintings populated with idiosyncratic, spirited forms that unfold, unspool, and reveal themselves over time, she explores relationships between color, shape, language, matter. Invention and discovery lie at the center the artist’s approach to mark making, and her paintings are invested in a kind of excavation, in which she carves out space around and through contour. A subtle mystery resides in the core of each of her works—for Mohamedi, this essence is what guides her towards different forms in her painting process, leading her to a sort of untouchable, sacred truth that defies easy articulation and rationalization.Functioning as maps of cognition and experience, Mohamedi’s compositions are made up of her uncannily crisp brushstrokes and painterly flourishes, which she builds up intuitively and contemplatively. Moments of rupture and embrace can be traced across her abstractions, forged through collisions of her own hand and body with the surfaces of her canvases. Using memories, ideas, words, and feelings as origins for her painted abstractions, she draws from a personal lexicon of geometric shapes to express details and anecdotes from her own life in ineffable, intangible, and universal terms. Mohamedi’s approach to color also grounds her works in her own world—‘collecting’ and archiving colors for her paintings as part of her daily experiences and observations, her chromatic storytelling animates her canvases with a sense of vitality and harmony.Mohamedi’s first solo show in Japan and all of Asia, this presentation spotlights paintings produced in 2023 and 2024. For these works, she drew inspiration from her diary chronicling her brief time working in Japan two decades ago. In creating her new paintings—half of which are named for people and places that she encountered and wrote about in her journal during that trip—the artist reentered and reactivated the psychic space of her 20s, weaving together coincidences and serendipitous situations from her formative experience abroad and the present circumstances of her life. In this way, the works on view in Tokyo will shed light on one of the hallmarks of Mohamedi’s practice: her use of abstraction to forge a patchwork of stories and scenes from her daily life and interpersonal relationships.Maysha Mohamedi: yesterday I was a tiny tube of toothpaste will mark the official grand opening of Pace’s new Tokyo gallery, which is welcoming visitors to its preview—a salon-style, rotating presentation of works by artists across its program—through August 17. On the opening day of Mohamedi's exhibition, Pace Live will present “Dip, Draw, Drag," a conversation between the artist, Yasuhide Shimbata, who is Curator of Tokyo’s Artizon Museum, and Pace CEO Marc Glimcher—to RSVP, reach out to pacetokyo@pacegallery.com. Read More FilmsBrian Dillon on Maysha Mohamedi's Painting Process, Narrated by Edoardo BalleriniThis lively footage captures Maysha Mohamedi’s process, from the precise to the poetic: writing in and flipping through her sketchbooks, mixing pigments, and applying paint to canvas. Here, we invite you into the artist’s world of colors, forms, shapes, and language, where mysteries abound and discoveries await. Pace PublishingMaysha Mohamediyesterday I was a tiny tube of toothpasteLearn More & Shop Featured Works Maysha Mohamedi, Pseudonym, 2024, oil on canvas, 73" × 101" (185.4 cm × 256.5 cm) Learn More Close modal Maysha Mohamedi Pseudonym 2024 oil on canvas 73" × 101" (185.4 cm × 256.5 cm) Inquire How can we reach you? First Name* Last Name* Email* Phone Inquiry Message Have you purchased from Pace before?* Yes No Submit Inquiry Or go back Maysha Mohamedi, Paperback Writer, 2024, oil on canvas, 83" × 73" (210.8 cm × 185.4 cm) Learn More Close modal Maysha Mohamedi Paperback Writer 2024 oil on canvas 83" × 73" (210.8 cm × 185.4 cm) Inquire How can we reach you? First Name* Last Name* Email* Phone Inquiry Message Have you purchased from Pace before?* Yes No Submit Inquiry Or go back Maysha Mohamedi, The Horse that Predicts the Divorce, 2024, oil on canvas, 63" × 51" (160 cm × 129.5 cm) Learn More Close modal Maysha Mohamedi The Horse that Predicts the Divorce 2024 oil on canvas 63" × 51" (160 cm × 129.5 cm) Inquire How can we reach you? First Name* Last Name* Email* Phone Inquiry Message Have you purchased from Pace before?* Yes No Submit Inquiry Or go back Maysha Mohamedi, Bait, 2023, oil on canvas, 33" × 28" × 1-1/2" (83.8 cm × 71.1 cm × 3.8 cm) Learn More Close modal Maysha Mohamedi Bait 2023 oil on canvas 33" × 28" × 1-1/2" (83.8 cm × 71.1 cm × 3.8 cm) Inquire How can we reach you? First Name* Last Name* Email* Phone Inquiry Message Have you purchased from Pace before?* Yes No Submit Inquiry Or go back Maysha Mohamedi, A Woman from Wacko City, 2024, oil on canvas, 33" × 28" (83.8 cm × 71.1 cm) Learn More Close modal Maysha Mohamedi A Woman from Wacko City 2024 oil on canvas 33" × 28" (83.8 cm × 71.1 cm) Inquire How can we reach you? First Name* Last Name* Email* Phone Inquiry Message Have you purchased from Pace before?* Yes No Submit Inquiry Or go back Maysha Mohamedi, Full Stop, 2024, oil on canvas, 15" (38.1 cm), diameter Learn More Close modal Maysha Mohamedi Full Stop 2024 oil on canvas 15" (38.1 cm), diameter Inquire How can we reach you? First Name* Last Name* Email* Phone Inquiry Message Have you purchased from Pace before?* Yes No Submit Inquiry Or go back Installation Views 1/10 2/10 3/10 4/10 5/10 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 10/10 Carousel slide 0 Carousel slide 1 Carousel slide 2 Carousel slide 3 Carousel slide 4 Carousel slide 5 Carousel slide 6 Carousel slide 7 Carousel slide 8 Carousel slide 9 Photo: Steven Taylor About the ArtistVibrant and playful, Maysha Mohamedi’s innovative practice points toward a new mode of atmospheric abstraction that registers certain conditions specific to Los Angeles—and American life as a whole—in the early 21st century. Reflecting her personal history, everyday experiences, and key constellations in her own cultural matrix, her palette is both purely abstract and directly connected to the patchwork of landscapes, objects, and environments that comprise her life.Learn More Journal View All Pace Live Maysha Mohamedi, Yasuhide Shimbata, and Marc Glimcher in Conversation Oct 04, 2024 Essays The responsibility of forms, by Brian Dillon Sep 17, 2024 Films Brian Dillon on Maysha Mohamedi's Painting Process, Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini Aug 30, 2024 Pace Publishing Maysha Mohamedi: yesterday I was a tiny tube of toothpaste Aug 05, 2024 Overview Exhibition Film Publication Featured Works Installation Views About the Artist Journal