July 2, 2026
Ayin Es
Relative Strangers
Craig Krull Gallery
May 16 - July 4, 2026
Ayin Es
For Ayin Es, art and life are interconnected. In paintings, drawings and installations, they integrate and expand on aspects of their personal life. In the late 1990s, Es shifted from being a professional musician to becoming a full-time artist and since then, has shown their work extensively in galleries and museums in Southern California and beyond.
The paintings in Relative Strangers represent a new direction for Es. Using vintage family photographs as a point of departure, they look beneath the surface to challenge the depicted narratives. Es is open about their transition, disability and feelings about gender politics and through this series of works, they delve deeper into their own traumas with respect to family history. The works are unsettling compositions that illustrate estrangement within a 'family' dynamic. In a previous exhibition On the Mend at Compound in Yucca Valley, Es explored their gender-affirming surgery and struggles with mental illness through paintings and cartoon-like self-portraits with dog ears and a jagged red line across their chest, as well as hand-sewn illustrations of pill jars. They also created an 'ironic' sculpture made with smiling stuffed animals. Es's work, though serious and to the point, is not without humor.
Relative Strangers consists of loosely rendered quasi-realistic paintings on paper, panel and canvas. After their parents death, Es came upon a tattered suitcase at the back of a closet and used these old family photographs as source material. In the works, Es imagines what life might have been like if their 'trans' identity were represented in the pictures and how that might have impacted the family dynamic. What would those images look like? To provide context, Es includes an album with the snapshots for viewers to peruse.
Disorderly Conduct (2022) is a painting based on a 1975 photograph depicting Ayin with their mother and grandmother. In the photograph, the young "Ayin" is depicted holding up a garment of bright red taffeta fabric, smiling as she poses for the camera. Their mother and grandmother recline on a large bed in the background, paying little attention to the antics of the little girl. Painting changes from the photograph include bulging eyes and clown-like smiles on the mother and grandmother who now direct their gaze at the girl, as well as the transformation of the mother's hand into a large cartoony white glove that points at the young girl's chest revealing a long horizontal red scar.
In the watercolor Young Exemplaries (2025), Es uses a photograph from 1969 as a point of departure. This photograph depicts a family of four on a sidewalk standing on front of a large tree with a 60's era car and the hint of an apartment building in the background. This is an image of a so called 'traditional' family. Es is cradled in their mother's arms, while the father rests his hands on the older brother's shoulders. In the photograph, the boy appears to be happy and laughing, whereas in the painted image his expression more closely resembles fear or horror. The baby Es looks out at the viewer, rather than gaze into their mother's eyes as in the original photo. Es's painting challenges the complacency of the moment.
Many of the other paintings also present alternatives to the photographs they are based upon as Es reinterprets these snapshots as they would 'like' to remember them. In works including Sucker (2025), A Dangerous Frisbee Cake (2026) and Check the Pulse (2023), the young Es has blackened eyes and a distorted mouth. Check the Pulse features a teenaged Es and an older woman, presumably their grandmother, seated on a bed looking at official looking printed documents. Above the grandmother, who has an expression of shock on her face is a cloud that is pouring down rain. In contrast, a rainbow emerges out of Es' head. In this image, Es is depicted post 'top' surgery, with their chest covered by a long red scar. One eye is a blur of black and their mouth is a distorted red line. A Dangerous Frisbee Cake is also a disconcerting image. Here, thick goopy black tears cascade down from the young girl's eyes as she rests her head on her mother's shoulder. The two are seated on yellow chairs at a table in front of flowered wallpaper. Placed matter of factly on the table is a handgun alongside an uncut brown cake.
Es depicts their childhood as anguished and unsettling. The innocence and joy often seen in family photographs has been extracted from the images and replaced with darker scenarios that allude to Es's unhappiness and discomfort . The comfort of middle class Southern California is subverted and the figures are distorted — given multiple eyes, bleeding mouths and in the images of the young Es, they call attention to the forthcoming surgery. What injustices may have occurred are never explicitly detailed, however Es alludes to the fact that the moments captured within the photographs are not happy memories and through her painting, they seek out a history more aligned with contemporary reality.
Relative Strangers
Craig Krull Gallery
May 16 - July 4, 2026
Ayin Es
For Ayin Es, art and life are interconnected. In paintings, drawings and installations, they integrate and expand on aspects of their personal life. In the late 1990s, Es shifted from being a professional musician to becoming a full-time artist and since then, has shown their work extensively in galleries and museums in Southern California and beyond.
The paintings in Relative Strangers represent a new direction for Es. Using vintage family photographs as a point of departure, they look beneath the surface to challenge the depicted narratives. Es is open about their transition, disability and feelings about gender politics and through this series of works, they delve deeper into their own traumas with respect to family history. The works are unsettling compositions that illustrate estrangement within a 'family' dynamic. In a previous exhibition On the Mend at Compound in Yucca Valley, Es explored their gender-affirming surgery and struggles with mental illness through paintings and cartoon-like self-portraits with dog ears and a jagged red line across their chest, as well as hand-sewn illustrations of pill jars. They also created an 'ironic' sculpture made with smiling stuffed animals. Es's work, though serious and to the point, is not without humor.
Relative Strangers consists of loosely rendered quasi-realistic paintings on paper, panel and canvas. After their parents death, Es came upon a tattered suitcase at the back of a closet and used these old family photographs as source material. In the works, Es imagines what life might have been like if their 'trans' identity were represented in the pictures and how that might have impacted the family dynamic. What would those images look like? To provide context, Es includes an album with the snapshots for viewers to peruse.
Disorderly Conduct (2022) is a painting based on a 1975 photograph depicting Ayin with their mother and grandmother. In the photograph, the young "Ayin" is depicted holding up a garment of bright red taffeta fabric, smiling as she poses for the camera. Their mother and grandmother recline on a large bed in the background, paying little attention to the antics of the little girl. Painting changes from the photograph include bulging eyes and clown-like smiles on the mother and grandmother who now direct their gaze at the girl, as well as the transformation of the mother's hand into a large cartoony white glove that points at the young girl's chest revealing a long horizontal red scar.
In the watercolor Young Exemplaries (2025), Es uses a photograph from 1969 as a point of departure. This photograph depicts a family of four on a sidewalk standing on front of a large tree with a 60's era car and the hint of an apartment building in the background. This is an image of a so called 'traditional' family. Es is cradled in their mother's arms, while the father rests his hands on the older brother's shoulders. In the photograph, the boy appears to be happy and laughing, whereas in the painted image his expression more closely resembles fear or horror. The baby Es looks out at the viewer, rather than gaze into their mother's eyes as in the original photo. Es's painting challenges the complacency of the moment.
Many of the other paintings also present alternatives to the photographs they are based upon as Es reinterprets these snapshots as they would 'like' to remember them. In works including Sucker (2025), A Dangerous Frisbee Cake (2026) and Check the Pulse (2023), the young Es has blackened eyes and a distorted mouth. Check the Pulse features a teenaged Es and an older woman, presumably their grandmother, seated on a bed looking at official looking printed documents. Above the grandmother, who has an expression of shock on her face is a cloud that is pouring down rain. In contrast, a rainbow emerges out of Es' head. In this image, Es is depicted post 'top' surgery, with their chest covered by a long red scar. One eye is a blur of black and their mouth is a distorted red line. A Dangerous Frisbee Cake is also a disconcerting image. Here, thick goopy black tears cascade down from the young girl's eyes as she rests her head on her mother's shoulder. The two are seated on yellow chairs at a table in front of flowered wallpaper. Placed matter of factly on the table is a handgun alongside an uncut brown cake.
Es depicts their childhood as anguished and unsettling. The innocence and joy often seen in family photographs has been extracted from the images and replaced with darker scenarios that allude to Es's unhappiness and discomfort . The comfort of middle class Southern California is subverted and the figures are distorted — given multiple eyes, bleeding mouths and in the images of the young Es, they call attention to the forthcoming surgery. What injustices may have occurred are never explicitly detailed, however Es alludes to the fact that the moments captured within the photographs are not happy memories and through her painting, they seek out a history more aligned with contemporary reality.