Nazarian / Curcio
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • ARTISTS
  • EXHIBITIONS
  • ART FAIRS
  • NEWS
  • PRESS
  • VIDEO
  • ABOUT
  • SHOP
Cart
0 items $
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu

Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon

Past exhibition
13 November 2021 - 8 January 2022
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Videos
Overview
Installation view of Daniel Gibson's exhibition, Valley of the Moon, at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

Shulamit Nazarian is pleased to present Valley of the Moon, a solo exhibition of paintings by Los Angeles-based Daniel Gibson. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

 

Gibson's paintings explore a lexicon of symbols that relate to his familial past and his identity as a Mexican-American. The new works in Valley of the Moon are set between the desert and the ocean, employing references to the natural world while speaking to hardships, resilience, and freedom.

 

Growing up in California, along the border with Mexico, Gibson bore witness to migrants who crossed the desert, risking their lives as they desperately sought a better future. Confronted by the harsh realities of the world at an early age, he turned to his imagination, often reshaping reality with fantasy. As a painter, Gibson brings to life the surreal narratives that captivated him as a child, reimagining memories and family stories from the point of view of his earliest years.  

 

Shifting between the genres of portraiture, landscape, and still life, Gibson's surrealistic scenes demonstrate an adoration for nature. Desert landscapes are populated with generously painted lush flowers that often take on an anthropomorphized quality. The ocean is prominently featured in many of his family stories and creates a stark contrast with the arid desert landscape of his childhood. Abundantly filled vases serve as a celebration of life, referencing the imagery of ofrendas, urns, and wombs. Gibson revitalizes the world around him in painting, reverently returning to familiar symbols such as flowers, butterflies, figures, desert mountains, beaches, and seas.

 

Oversized butterflies feature prominently in several works in Valley of the Moon. Beyond a symbol of migration, the insects conjure a childhood memory of the artist desperately trying to understand how a person could safely make their way across the desert border with little sustenance. In the mind of a young Gibson, giant butterflies relieved these individuals from their grueling journey by carrying them safely to distant lands. Rendering this imagined scene in a painting, the artist employs a child-like imaginary, one filled with curiosity and wonder, in an effort to face a bleak reality. This youthful frame of reference also impacts the very construction of a landscape for Gibson. Many of his paintings build around a blunt horizon, succinctly dividing the Earth from the sky. Looming above is a pregnant sun, endowed with the power both to sustain life and to take it away, a brutal reality for anyone crossing this terrain. 

 

Giving prominence to nature, Gibson in turn depicts the man-made world diminutively, a perspective that is in stark contrast with his earliest years. He grew up in Plaster City, CA, just outside a massive gypsum factory that employed his father. This larger-than-life structure grumbled with power and spit white dust, leaving an indelible impression on the artist as a child. As seen in Plaster City East, 2021, Gibson has rendered this immense structure as a miniature form obscured by the vast natural world. In equal measure, the presence of the border wall can be seen in the same painting as a structure reduced to near abstraction, quietly fading in the distance. This gesture pays homage to the natural world over the man-made and monumentalizes the natural forces that dominate us.

 

Gibson is largely a self-taught artist and has developed his visual language and painting process through intuition and imagination. Under pink, purple, and near-black skies, everything—flowers, butterflies, figures, mountains, beaches, and seas—appears drenched in sunlight. Vibrant colors illustrate each canvas, illuminating his penchant for realizing a rich memory. For the artist, his works are as much autobiographical as they are collective stories that document moments of struggle and celebration that would otherwise be lost to time. 

 


 

Daniel Gibson (b. 1977 Yuma, AZ) has had solo and two-person exhibitions at Almine Rech, New York, NY; New Image Art, Los Angeles, CA; Ochi Projects, Los Angeles, CA; LAX Art, Los Angeles, CA; and Mexicali Rose, Baja, Mexico. Recent group exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, CA; The Pit, Los Angeles, CA; Bozo Mag, Los Angeles, CA; and BBQLA, Los Angeles, CA. His works have been written about by WideWalls, Juxtapoz, and Brooklyn Rail.

Works
  • Daniel Gibson On the Yaqui Shoreline , 2021 Oil on linen 64 x 73 in
    Daniel Gibson
    On the Yaqui Shoreline , 2021
    Oil on linen
    64 x 73 in
  • Daniel Gibson Plaster City East, 2021 Oil on linen 73 x 64 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Plaster City East, 2021
    Oil on linen
    73 x 64 in
  • Daniel Gibson Butterfly #14 (In the Valley of the Moon), 2021 Oil on linen 78 x 90 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Butterfly #14 (In the Valley of the Moon), 2021
    Oil on linen
    78 x 90 in
  • Daniel Gibson Two Lovers, 2021 Oil on linen 72 x 72 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Two Lovers, 2021
    Oil on linen
    72 x 72 in
  • Daniel Gibson Mother with Three Flowers, 2021 Oil on linen 60 x 56 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Mother with Three Flowers, 2021
    Oil on linen
    60 x 56 in
  • Daniel Gibson Butterfly #13, 2021 Oil on linen 73 x 64 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Butterfly #13, 2021
    Oil on linen
    73 x 64 in
  • Daniel Gibson, It's All Around Us, 2021
    Daniel Gibson, It's All Around Us, 2021
  • Daniel Gibson The Lovers, 2021 Oil on linen 20 x 25 in
    Daniel Gibson
    The Lovers, 2021
    Oil on linen
    20 x 25 in
  • Daniel Gibson Butterfly #12 (Across the Sea), 2021 Oil on linen 73 x 64 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Butterfly #12 (Across the Sea), 2021
    Oil on linen
    73 x 64 in
  • Daniel Gibson Pretending to Be Flowers, 2021 Oil on linen 73 x 64 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Pretending to Be Flowers, 2021
    Oil on linen
    73 x 64 in
  • Daniel Gibson, Painted Gorge, 2021
    Daniel Gibson, Painted Gorge, 2021
  • Daniel Gibson Vase with Sand Dollar 1978, 2021 Oil on linen 60 x 56 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Vase with Sand Dollar 1978, 2021
    Oil on linen
    60 x 56 in
  • Daniel Gibson Vase with Sand Dollar (Flower Moon), 2021 Oil on linen 60 x 56 in
    Daniel Gibson
    Vase with Sand Dollar (Flower Moon), 2021
    Oil on linen
    60 x 56 in
Installation Views
  • Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

    Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

  • Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

    Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

  • Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

    Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

  • Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

    Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

  • Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

    Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

  • Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

    Installation view, Daniel Gibson: Valley of the Moon, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, November 13, 2021 – January 8, 2022.

Videos
  • Daniel Gibson painting in his studio with a play button in the lower left corner

    In the Studio: Daniel Gibson

    Read more

Related artist

  • Daniel Gibson

    Daniel Gibson

Back to exhibitions

Nazarian / Curcio

616 N La Brea Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90036

info@nazariancurcio.com

310.281.0961

Walk-ins welcome

Regular Hours: Tuesday – Saturday: 10 am – 6 pm

Member of the Art Dealers Association of America, New Art Dealers Alliance, and Gallery Association Los Angeles

.          

Subscribe to our newsletter

Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Vimeo, opens in a new tab.
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Nazarian / Curcio
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences