The Elijah Wheat Showroom presents ABRACADABRA, a painting show with three hard-working female painters that ‘create as they speak’. This term describes a powerful Aramaic/Hebrew incantation that brings to life that which may be an inanimate object, breathing words into form in order to construct a magical world where anything is possible.

Showcasing work that has been newly made in 2016, each artist displays examples of a breathtaking illustrative voice, found in a surreal world of light, time and space that speaks to a primal otherworldliness. The objects in the ether have been fabricated to a likeness that is both simultaneously familiar yet often unrecognizable. The viewer is placed into an atmosphere of a black hole, a loop, an unfamiliar place. Creeping out onto a shifting plane with vibrations of luminosity, beings of the night cast figures, and beckon an underworld.

With “The Minor Fall” and “Secret Chord” Aliza Morell displays oil paintings of glowing neon roses along with an image of a summoning palm. The “Secret Chord” portrays a conjuring salon hand, echoing with light and luring a viewer into the darkness. “The Minor Fall” projects the voyeur to the ceiling where they can see the bird’s eye display of fallen roses, strewn upon the ground. The works push the viewer towards the wall or up to the ceiling in a playful structure operating outside of two-dimensionality. 

In Monica Bernal’s body of drawings and paintings, she brings us to a topsy-turvy world meandering through active life forms inside a black hole. Energy is vibrant, plants are growing, aliens exist among nothingness and new life is born in a dark, seemingly hopeless setting. She is creating as her pen speaks; she is visualizing an existence beyond Earth, beyond known geography, beyond a space that is recognizable. 

Lauren Gregory’s stop-frame painted animations contain loops of physicality and sexuality exhibiting an ultimate force of creation. Her frolicking images with female wrestlers entitled “Tussle” roll with time like a well-traveled hitchhiker. A force of symbiotic meeting, of frustrated approaches, of nearing an ultimate destination, it’s here that a passenger creates as they whisper their final landing to the driver. The simple animated loop "Dickmatized" depicting a perfect male member, dangling, bobbing and enjoying freedom also gives form to a moment of Abracadabra: For enjoyment, for life, for a magic wand granting your wishes.