Ms. Chroma’s Latest Show at Hairpin and Strop
From The Gallery:
“We are thrilled to show the latest series from Ms. Chroma, Infinite Sweetness. These large scale works feature glittering donuts flying through the cosmos, inviting reflection on the nature of pleasure and desire. Ethereal, amusing, and erotic, this series is a visual wink and nod, bringing an element of absurdist joy to our troubled times. Do you want to take a bite? We sure do.
Known for her bold use of color, Infinite Sweetness is the latest in Ms. Chroma’s oeuvre. We are also showcasing several works from her ongoing series, Darkbloom. Started in 2020 during the pandemic, this series reflects on how feelings — especially opposing emotions such as happiness and pain — rarely take turns, but rather, come at us all at once, amplifying each other to create beauty during uncertain times.
All paintings available for purchase!
Each original work is 4x5ft on museum profile canvas. $2,500 each, unless otherwise marked.
To purchase, come by the shop and scan the Venmo code. You can also check out www.mschroma.com or contact the artist @ms.chroma on Instagram for details.
Join us for the reception on August 9th from 6-10pm! Meet cool people in Hairpin and Strop Community and raise a glass to the artist. We promise a good time and many donuts :)”
On Darkbloom - Words from the Artist
When I’m painting, I’m often thinking about dualities –- complexity and simplicity, beauty and darkness, expectation and reality, existence and the void. I have synesthesia, so I process complexity visually. To make sense of it all, I like to build up wild fields of color by working the canvases on the floor, and then come back later to impose structure with inky black lines. I often make a crazy mess and then employ “rules” that I see through to completion. I like to create chaos and then create order again; I like to create and break expectation.
I get a special satisfaction from building on the long tradition of female painters capturing the fragile, ecstatic beauty of florals, and I’ve been drawn back to them again and again. I love how flowers create tidy patterns and then abruptly disrupt themselves — it feels like an apt metaphor for, well, everything.
You make plans, and then life happens.
The Darkbloom Series is a meditation on modern times. It’s about reconciling joy and gratitude with oppression, horror, and pain. I see today’s dualities as gestalt, not zero sum, so this series is about how one intensifies rather than dilutes the other. Darkbloom is me trying to hold all this beauty and darkness at the same time, and then share it with you. It aims to create a superposition between all the dichotomies I see and, in doing so, generate a sense of peace. Like a lens coming in to focus.
Meet Ms. Chroma
Ms. Chroma, aka Allie Gates, is a dreamer based in Berkeley. A proud Californian and self-taught painter, she studied International Development at UCLA and completed graduate studies in Fine Art at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes (UNA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Allie has created and sold art in half a dozen countries, drawing inspiration from her ongoing work in social and economic development. She likes to philosophize about what it means to live a good life and spoil her springer spaniel, Gooseberry.
She (thankfully) does not usually refer to herself in the third person.
