Mokha Laget - Inclinations
September 7th - October 26th, 2024
HOUSTON, TX - Gallery Sonja Roesch is proud to present "Inclinations," the fifth solo exhibition of recent works by Mokha Laget.
Renowned for her signature shaped canvas paintings, Mokha Laget continues to explore hypothetical space and light through large, colorful geometric abstractions. Her complex arrangements of angled planes create perspectives that extend beyond the canvas into the gallery's architecture. Laget's works balance precision and ambiguity, challenging perception with spatial illusions that blur reality.
As a leading geometric abstract painter of her generation, Laget bridges the gap between the legacy of the Color School and contemporary art. Her shaped canvases follow a trajectory of historically referenced work, characterized by overlapping transparencies, multiple vanishing points, and implied motion through rotated, folded, and warped shapes. Inspired by the vibrant colors of her native North Africa and the American Southwest, she builds her surfaces using multiple glazes of vinyl emulsion paint, producing sensuous, highly saturated planes that are both matte and vibrant. The compelling sense of depth and movement in her compositions offers a fresh perspective in a historically male-dominated genre.
Born in Oran, Algeria, Mokha Laget's diverse background spans North Africa, France, and the USA. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design, where she studied under prominent Washington Color School painters. Laget has also pursued studies in philosophy and holds a degree in translation from Georgetown University. She is an independent curator, published writer, and poet.
A recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Award (2019) and the Hammersley Foundation Award (2024), Laget was also a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome (2023) and held residencies at Mass MoCA, Millay Arts, and the Golden Foundation. Her work has been featured in over 30 solo exhibitions and in prominent publications such as Art in America and The Washington Post. Her pieces are held in over a dozen museum collections, including the Palm Springs Art Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, as well as numerous public, private, and corporate collections. Laget lives and works in an off-grid studio in the mountains near Santa Fe, New Mexico.