Ehrlich Steinberg is pleased to present the solo exhibition From a Defoliated Monograph by LA-based American artist Jeffrey Stuker. The exhibition includes video, sound, slide projection, prints and a collaborative work made with artist Nour Mobarak.

Stuker’s meticulously 3D rendered video Wet Season, Dry Season reconstructs a display case of mimetic insects at the Hope Department of Etymology inside the Museum of Natural History in Oxford, UK. A virtual camera slowly pans over the vitrine housing preserved butterflies (Nymphalidae), praying mantises (Mantodea), and stick bugs (Phasmatodea). Closeups of the insects’ bodies demonstrate the mimetic approximation of the environments in which these specimens once lived. The insects’ appearance uncannily replicates dead leaves, spiderwebs, and tree bark. Equally, these extreme closeups become suggestive of pixel arrays that comprise digital screens. Across four speakers, ambient sounds recorded at the museum by the artist surround the gallery, featuring the murmured chatter of museum visitors.

In the back gallery, two Hasselblad PCP-80 slide projectors each rotate through eighty slides of digitally rendered examples of biological mimicry. A closeup of a Kallima inachus wing could easily be mistaken for a Himalayan oak leaf; a closeup of a Fulgora laternaria abdomen could easily be mistaken for lichens on a Guyanese tree branch.

In the upstairs gallery, two images from the slide series are reproduced as mounted archival pigment prints, alongside a collaborative work with Nour Mobarak. In the collaborative work, Stuker’s rendered image of a paperbark tree, placed against the interior face of a plexiglass box, slowly disintegrates as it is consumed by Mobarak’s mycelium. During the course of the exhibition, the image will continue to deteriorate as the mycelium grows, then stabilizes and hardens. To the left, an unaltered example of the same image is preserved within an identical plexiglass box.

The exhibition is accompanied by "Light-Likeness-Inachus", a new text by Lakshmi Luthra.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the gallery is hosting Mimicry ABC, a reading event in which Stuker and Jan Tumlir will read from their "Mimicry ABC", a glossary of terms developed around aesthetic phenomena that have emerged from technologies of simulation and their natural-historical analogues.

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Jeffrey Stuker (b. 1979; Fort Collins, CO, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Stuker received his MFA from Yale University, New Haven in 2005. Previous and forthcoming exhibitions include Pacific Standard Time at the Getty Museum/University of California, San Diego, CA (2024); Atavism for the Future at Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Next Year in Monte Carlo at Ben Hunter, London, UK; Solid Projections at Larder, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Objects of Desire at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2022); The International Biennial of Contemporary Photography at MOMuS, Thessaloniki Greece (2021) and Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2020). Most recently, works from Stuker’s installation at the Hammer and his solo show, Next Year in Monte Carlo at Ben Hunter were acquired by LACMA. He has written for art publications including Mousse, the White Review, Art Handler, and Effects Journal (where he also serves as a co-editor).

Nour Mobarak (b. 1985; Cairo, EG) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Her work has previously been shown at Rodeo Gallery, London, UK (2023 & 2017); Bureau, New York, NY (2023); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2022); Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York, NY (2021 & 2019); Hakuna Matata Sculpture Garden, Los Angeles, CA (2020), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2020) and Cubitt Gallery, London, UK (2019). Her performances have taken place at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL (2022); the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2020); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2019); LAXART, Los Angeles, CA (2019); Potts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2018) and Stadslimeit, Antwerp, NL (2016).


Jeffrey Stuker, Wet Season, Dry Season, 2024. 4K ProRes video, 5 minutes, looped, edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Jeffrey Stuker, Wet Season, Dry Season, 2024. 4K ProRes video, 5 minutes, looped, edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Jeffrey Stuker, Wet Season, Dry Season, 2024. 4K ProRes video, 5 minutes, looped, edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Jeffrey Stuker, Wet Season, Dry Season, 2024. 4K ProRes video, 5 minutes, looped, edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Detail. Jeffrey Stuker, Parks Road, OX1 3PW, August 4, 2022, 2024. Sound, four speakers, 10 minutes, looped, edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Detail. Jeffrey Stuker, Parks Road, OX1 3PW, August 4, 2022, 2024. Sound, four speakers, 10 minutes, looped, edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Installation view. From a Defoliated Monograph by Jeffrey Stuker, 2024.


Jeffrey Stuker, From a Defoliated Monograph I, 2024. 80 Kodak ektar transparencies, Hasselblad PCP-80 Slide Projector, dimensions variable.


Detail. Jeffrey Stuker, From a Defoliated Monograph I, 2024. 80 Kodak ektar transparencies, Hasselblad PCP-80 Slide Projector, dimensions variable.


Jeffrey Stuker, From a Defoliated Monograph II, 2024. 80 Kodak ektar transparencies, Hasselblad PCP-80 Slide Projector, dimensions variable.


Jeffrey Stuker, From a Defoliated Monograph II, 2024. 80 Kodak ektar transparencies, Hasselblad PCP-80 Slide Projector, dimensions variable.


Detail. Jeffrey Stuker, From a Defoliated Monograph II, 2024. 80 Kodak ektar transparencies, Hasselblad PCP-80 Slide Projector, dimensions variable.


Installation view. From a Defoliated Monograph by Jeffrey Stuker, 2024.


Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable.


Detail. Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable.


Detail. Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable.


Detail. Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable.


Installation view. From a Defoliated Monograph by Jeffrey Stuker, 2024.


Jeffrey Stuker, Kallima inachus (Dry Season), 2024. Archival pigment print, 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm), edition 1/3 + 2 AP.


Jeffrey Stuker, Deroplatys lobata, 2024. Archival pigment print, 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm), edition 1/3 + 2 AP.

Photos: Evan Walsh