Press Release 2025
Anna Zorina Gallery is pleased to announce Ammon Rost’s solo exhibition, Omakase Gardens. Born in Japan and raised in both Tokyo and California, Rost presents a medley of works influenced by his cultural practices of discipline, intuition, and attention to the zen philosophy of balance.
Omakase is a Japanese phrase that means “I leave it up to you.” It is a unique experience that relies on trust in the chef to lead a thoughtful journey through unexpected moments of discovery. Rost thinks of his time in the painting studio as Omakase. He refrains from enforcing a rigid set of rules upon his practice and instead allows for the spirit of the painting to guide his process. Rost is committed to bringing forth his best effort while engaging with his artistic media. Omakase is based on working within a high standard while understanding that the most compelling work results from an openness to play and improvisation.
The paintings serve as reflections of his hybrid upbringing split between Eastern and Western cultures. Japanese aesthetics are harmonized with echos of American Modernist style. Negative space plays an important role in Rost’s work. The bold lines and vigorous brushstrokes are balanced by fields of solid color. It is a delicate dance of allowing expression to hold space while simultaneously creating room for rest and visual equilibrium.
Representation is not a goal for Rost, however, iconography is scattered among the intuitive gestures. Each abstract work is tied to a personal memory and the symbols contribute a specific reminder of the story, capturing the feeling of a specific place and time.
In Omakase Gardens, the paintings are the flowers of his labor and dedication to this practice. If willing, he asks you now, ‘Leave it up to me.’
Press Release 2022
Loyal is pleased to announce Ammon Rost’s solo exhibition, Mother’s Eye. This is the Los Angeles artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery following the 2020 group exhibition The Hundredth Exhibition. A catalogue is be published for the exhibition.
It would be nice to have a mind clean of its debris. Something bright and polished as a spoon. Something sleek as an aerofoil. But our inner lives are invariably freckled, totally covered in crumbs. We are weighed down by the delicate wreckage of our thoughts. All we can do is admire it all, behold the intricacy of the dust on the mirrors of our minds. We can never wipe the dust away.
Sure, we can make some beautiful lines out of it. And the lines will look somewhat familiar. Some of them will look like extinct species of balloon string. Some of them will look like kisses from the empty room, silhouettes of threadbare evenings spent gathering the same seven pennies from your second-to-last pocket. Some of them could look like the signatures of conscientious ghosts, racing through their clerical chores.
Equally, we can make some beautiful blobs out of it. The blobs will be kind of serious. The seriousness of a piece of sushi, sitting there, looking at you, after the lunch rush, when the afternoon has confessed its disappointment. Or your mother’s gaze, which you only really, truly saw maybe eleven times.
But the mirror in the mind will never be completely clean. It will only reveal new smudges as we attempt to achieve its clarity. It will show us the blush-colored mood of everything that never happened. Or the moon-colored mood of every murmur given to someone close to us. We can only hope for the loveliest disarray available. The kind you see in the scatterbrained dunes collapsing towards the ocean, meeting the neat bright mess of the waves beyond.
Sasha Chapin, Los Angeles, 2022