Nazarian / Curcio is happy to current Jacaranda June, JJ Manford’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. In Jacaranda June, Manford continues his exploration of imagined home interiors and landscapes, weaving collectively artwork historic references, private reminiscence, and standard tradition—all set in opposition to the backdrop of iconic Los Angeles structure. Drawing inspiration from John Lautner’s Garcia Home on Mulholland Drive and Stevens Home in Malibu, Frank Gehry’s Wosk Residence, and houses by Rudolph Schindler, Charles and Ray Eames, and Ray Kappe, Manford faucets into the legacy of mid-century modernism that formed a lot of Southern California’s architectural id. These properties—emblematic of an period that championed innovation and seamless integration between inside and exterior—signify greater than buildings; they embody a cultural second that continues to form architectural discourse at the moment.
Working with oil stick, oil pastel, and Flashe on burlap, Manford creates richly textured surfaces that radiate with colour and ambiance. Every composition is a fastidiously orchestrated atmosphere, the place architectural varieties, artworks, and decorative particulars converge in quiet, uncanny concord. His areas, although meticulously constructed, stay fluid and dreamlike—half remembered, half imagined.
Although absent of human figures, the work are saturated with human presence. On a regular basis objects and iconic furnishings seem alongside artworks by Isamu Noguchi, Viola Frey, Ed Paschke, Betty Woodman, and Kenneth Worth, amongst others. Every merchandise capabilities as a marker of inside life, reworking home settings into portraits of their would-be inhabitants and turning documented areas into imagined narratives. In some ways, the properties Manford references evoke a collective eager for the optimism and openness of mid-century modernism in Los Angeles—a time when structure promised new potentialities by mixing the pure atmosphere with the constructed world.
Manford’s follow explores the thresholds between inside and out of doors, previous and current, actuality and creativeness. Whereas his work draw from actual architectural landmarks, they aren’t literal recreations however emotional areas that mirror the essence of Los Angeles modernism—the place the road between inside and exterior is commonly blurred. These properties, with their open plans, glass partitions, and seamless relationship to nature, symbolize a spirit of innovation and idealism that continues to resonate.
Within the wake of the 2025 fires that erased a number of key landmarks throughout Los Angeles, Manford’s work stand as each a tribute to town’s architectural legacy and a hopeful assertion of what would possibly nonetheless be preserved, whilst local weather change casts a rising shadow over its future. Via luminous depictions of sunshine, house, and type, his work evokes a imaginative and prescient of domesticity that feels optimistic, intimate, and uncanny, capturing a way of quiet risk. Just like the sluggish bloom of a jacaranda in June, that means in Manford’s work emerges step by step, inviting reflection on what endures amid change.
