“Aesthetically, it may just come across as toys and objects, but if you really get into it, it’s on a whole new level. If you read the titles and look at the pieces, the stories are just being told over and over,” said photographer Tasya van Ree minutes before the opening of her one-night exhibition at the Chateau Marmont on Thursday, October 9. As the full moon rose, the artist reflected on her newest body of work, A State of Mind & The Affairs of its Games. This time, she’s trained her lenses on brightly colored playthings used in children’s games. Van Ree spent months scouring Southern California’s antique stores for vintage toys to later juxtapose against one another to properly create her narrative. Van Ree notes that the idea of the images is to “try to translate visually the state of the human mind in our era, from all of the exposure it has had throughout history—to society, politics—and all of that context.”

The cozy setting of the hotel’s penthouse served as an excellent salon for speculation about the Technicolor array of trinkets depicted by van Ree. Previously noted for her black-and-white portraiture, the Hawaiian-born Los Angeles resident’s new abstract approach may be an abrupt shift from her earlier work, but there’s not much about van Ree that’s monochrome—except for her Patti Smith-esque ensemble for the evening (a sleek three-piece ivory suit). The multi-hyphenate creative who has also designed T-shirts and was featured in a Louis Vuitton x The Coveteur web series says she’s open to more peripheral projects. A documentary crew was hot on her heels for the duration of the party so expect to see more footage of the photographer soon. “To be an artist in 2014, it’s not just the act of doing art,” said van Ree. “It’s this whole kind of world you have to be involved in and control.”

by Brenna Egan

 

Pictured: Tasya van Ree
Photo By: David Crotty for Patrick McMullan

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