Art and design are often presented as distinct disciplines, separated by conventions of medium, function, and context. In lived spaces, however, these boundaries are far less fixed. Paintings and sculpture exist alongside furniture, ceramics, textiles and decorative objects, creating relationships that are intuitive, personal and continually shifting. Fernberger at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery, organized by Emma Fernberger of the Los Angeles contemporary art gallery Fernberger, embraces this interplay, bringing together contemporary artworks with historical furniture, design and decorative objects from Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery.
Works by Anne Wehrley Björk, Elana Bowsher, Ernesto Burgos, Vicky Colombet, Phil Davis, Federico De Francesco, Nik Gelormino, Alina Perkins, Stephen Truax, Greta Waller and Nicole Wittenberg engage a wide range of approaches to material, image, surface and form. Presented alongside objects spanning different eras, regions and aesthetic traditions, unexpected affinities emerge through color, gesture, material, and composition. Rather than establishing hierarchies between art and design, historical and contemporary, or functional and expressive, the exhibition allows these distinctions to remain fluid. Guided by a shared sensibility of beauty and irreverence, Fernberger at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery proposes that objects need not share a period, provenance, or purpose to meaningfully coexist; their proximity can instead offer new ways of looking at and understanding one another.