WHAT WE REACH FOR
TEXT BY ALISON GREEN
PHOTOS BY YONI GOLDBERG
Nowhere are the contradictions of California, a land of exile and expectation, embodied more concretely than in the high desert. where the wide-open landscape-studded with humbling rock formations and the Seussian trees that lend Joshua Tree National Park its name-unfolds with otherworldly immensity. There, time feels untethered r.o anything but the whims of nature. Surrendering to some combination of losing. finding. or reinventing oneself seems all but inevitable.
For artist and writer Alex Maceda, who left a Stanford MBA-shaped career in tech and moved to Joshua Tree to pursue painting in late 2020, the area held an irresistible pull. "[It] was different from anywhere I'd ever been, but it felt so familiar in a way," she remembers. Her plan had been to split time between the desert and Los Angeles, but "I blinked, and four years later, the majority of my time as a working artist has been spent in Joshua Tree. It's hard to pull [this] landscape apart from my artistic journey."
In the desert, Maceda found both a new way of living - rising with the sun; adapting her schedule to the change of the seasons-and a new way of painting. She transitioned from airy acrylic abstracts to earthy oil paintings imbued with sensual figures, molten movement, and a glowing, dreamlike energy. She found endless inspiration not only in the desert itself-its lush yet grounded color palette; its shimmering expanse of horizon, its slow cadence-but also in the way that place can infiltrate the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
karma is a place," 2024 oil, acrylic and beeswax on canvas, 30 x 40
"IN THE DESERT, THERE'S THIS FEELING THAT YOU'RE TOUCHING SOMETHING BIGGER. THAT'S THE FEELING I'M TRYING TO CAPTURE IN MY PAINTINGS."
"It became a larger journey about identity and how I related to this place that in many ways I 'shouldn't have been in;" she says. "I had this dissonance between being a dark-skinned Asian woman living in a primarily white community, and at the same time having such a deep experience [there]:'
Maceda sees the desert as "both crucible and cocoon;' by turns hardening and holding its inhabitants. "[The landscape] is so open;' she says, "Which means that you can see everything, but also that you can't hide. The experience is like a stripping-away, before you get to the core truth of the thing you're looking for."
I ask Maceda if there is some idea she finds herself trying to get to the center of through her work. "At the end of the day, it's about belonging, feeling merged with something," she says. "That would be the spiritual answer-to feel merged with the divine-but the desire for that merge, and the idea of reaching for something, is ultimately about a sense of place. In the desert, there's this feeling that you're touching something bigger. That's the feeling I'm trying to capture in my paintings:”
This idea comes to the forefront ofMaceda's most recent solo exhibition, The Desert Will Hold You, which took place from September 24th to November 5th, 2024 at The Graham Residence, a mid-century modern home and contextual art space ensconced by the rugged boulders and fragrant piiion pines of Yucca Valley, near Joshua Tree National Park (see "A Living, Breathing Gallery;' p.145). The pristine space and its surrounding 20 acres ofland served as a backdrop for Maceda's 18 featured works, painted over the span of six months. Each one reads as an energetic embodiment of the desert itself, exuding the "reaching" sensation Maceda describes.
Alex Maceda at the Graham Residence
The last three paintings Maceda created for the show-a breathless triptych that centers on the titular painting-were made after learning she'd be leaving the desert. She considers "the desert will hold you" a self portrait: "It's an image of me being held by the desert. It includes some very specific things that I love about this place: Goat Mountain in Landers, which is my favorite hike; an apricot mallow, my favorite wildflower. They're all over The Graham Residence in the spring. The figure in the painting is me, but it can also be read as the spirit of the desert. In a way, the whole show is a personification of the desert."
The final piece in the triptych, "i wished for this atop goat mountain;' pays homage not only to the quiet power of desire but also to Maceda's own creativity and the artistic journey she created for herself alone under the wide desert sky. "I had this whole ritual. [Goat Mountain is] where I would wish for things; that was where I would try to make things happen. It references my whole life-I wished for a show like this, I wished for this experience; I wished for all of this coming to fruition. Letting that be the final painting, with that title about that place, felt very special."
For Maceda, who prescribes to a Shamanic view of the world, artmaking is a spiritual practice. "Ninety percent of my process is the direct experience of being in the landscape, thinking, meditating;' she says. "The actual time that brush is on canvas is a lot shorter. I almost have the full image in my head by the time I start. If the desert had something to say, if there was a message she wanted to put out, what would that be? That's how I think about painting sometimes. How does this identity or this spirit want to be depicted, and how can I be the hands for that process?"
An intuitive thread runs through Maceda's body of work-the relationship between identity and place, woman and earth. 'Tm interested in the feminine experience and in the natural world;' she says. "These abstract forms that look both like bodies and like landscapes are present in almost all of my paintings." Yet she remains open to-and delights in-unexpected inspiration: "I've painted a whole painting from a text message I got. I once named a show after a meme I liked."
"the desert will hold you," 2024 oil and beeswax on canvas, 48 x 73"
"NINETY PERCENT OF MY PROCESS IS THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF BEING IN THE LANDSCAPE, THINI<ING, MEDITATING. THE ACTUAL TIME THAT BRUSH IS ON CANVAS
IS A LOT SHORTER. I ALMOST HAVE THE FULL IMAGE IN MY HEAD BY THE TIME I START."
Alex Maceda at the Graham Residence, surrounded by some of the paintings in her solo exhibition, "The Desert Will Hold You," 2024
Like her paintings, Maceda balances intensity with a joyful levity. Late in our conversation, we talk about the boldness of leaving a corporate career to pursue art and writing alone in the desert. "I sometimes look back and I'm like, 'That was so audacious!"' she says. "But my best quality is that I'm a little delusional. It all comes back to this: am I listening? Am I making the work that is the truest work I can make? Am I constantly showing up for my practice and trusting that some sort of magic is going to happen? I don't need to know what's going to happen ten years from now, I just need to take the next step. The next step is all you need to see."
For the past few months, Maceda has been living in New York City, immersing herself in a new landscape, this one made from concrete. In Joshua Tree, she remembers watching the sun rise on one side of her house and set behind the mountains on the other, casting long shadows. In New York, she feels lucky
if she can glimpse the moon between the buildings. When I ask if she thinks she'll return to the desert,
she says yes without hesitation, her tone both definitive and dreamy. In the meantime, she says, she will
carry that place with her, returning to the truths she found at the center of it.