New Garden Romance is a two person exhibit featuring husband and wife artists Meike Legler and Kottie Paloma. The title of the show represents their move from Berlin to LA last year and the planting of seeds in a new city. The building of new networks, friendships and day jobs, while keeping a close ear to the heart beat of the city which inspires their new works.

Meike Legler who comes from Berlin, Germany and is now based in Los Angeles works in textiles with a strong focus on design and abstraction. Her work which is constructed with only colored fabrics and at first glance resembles hard edge painted abstraction, while up close and in person, gives off a soft yet vibrant, cozy feel, allowing for sewn seems to depict drawn lines that compose her philosophical and poetic forms. Coming from a fashion design background, fabrics are to her is what paint is for a painter. She uses them to create works that are inspired by contradictions, challenging life situations, spirituality, societal beliefs, as well as her German and Italian heritage. Often she starts with the title of the piece that comes to mind by listening to the news, or to the people she is surrounded by. Through these observations, the title determines the shapes, the colors, and the compositions.

Los Angeles born Kottie Paloma’s new paintings are filled with muted colors and text inspired by daily life. These new works have a rough but poetic punk rock vibe to them. Composition is the driving element in the making of these paintings. Finding a balance between the form, text, and color is the challenge Kottie is motivated by. The text comes from a number of influences which include, music, podcasts, horoscopes, and overheard conversations, all manipulated into a context fitting to an aspect of the artist daily life. Each painting can be viewed as a chapter in a book representing a day in the life of a person trying to understand existence in the chaotic world of Earth.

Though Legler and Paloma’s work on the surface may look like yin and yang, Legler, who champions the clean and precision of a line, while Paloma, favors the dirty rough edge, the other side of the tracks, sort of speak, it is at this point when once one understands how similar their thought process is in the beginnings of the execution of their works, one will see how closely tied the two are in their appreciation for how the conversation of daily life shapes the content of their art works.