The Future Perfect announces its forthcoming solo exhibition of works by ceramic artist Eric Roinestad, opening September 16th and on view through the end of October 2021 at Casa Perfect in New York. Taking its name from Roinestad’s Los Angeles neighborhood, Arroyo Seco pays homage to the distinct beauty of the Southern California landscape, which served as the setting for the creation of this new body of work in the year leading up to and during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns.

The expansive series celebrates the lush, natural world in Roinestad’s corner of Los Angeles, as well as the intimacy of the domestic interior. Employing the artist’s signature minimalist, graphic forms, Arroyo Seco features approximately 30 new works, including ceramic lighting fixtures, masks, standing sculptures, and vessels adorned with figures inspired by regional flora and fauna. Large-scale sculptures and chalices echo the aloe, cacti, and California poppies in Roinestad’s garden, while statuettes and embossed details abstract the coyotes, snakes, and urban wildlife inhabiting Arroyo Seco’s parks and foothills.

“Eric’s work belies a passionate and meticulous process marked by the reworking of pieces over and over until they reach perfection,” said Laura Young, Gallery Director. “This process has given rise to a seminal, and romantic, body of work that will forever mark this particular moment in time. Roinestad’s aesthetic vocabulary in Arroyo Seco ranges from personal references to architectural and art historical infatuations. His new series explores the history of LA’s northeast Arroyo Seco neighborhood, a cultural hub once home to many California Impressionists as well as a way station on Route 66. The artist himself has called the area home for decades, pulling from the sights and sounds of Arroyo Seco’s public spaces in his spartan designs. In particular, the neighborhood’s wildlife takes a prominent role in the washed-out world of Arroyo Seco. Blending the familiar and the functional, Roinestad’s animal figures and symbols nod to the work of French design duo Les Lalannes, whose surreal sculpture brought the wild into everyday interiors.

“When you think of Los Angeles, you don’t usually think of nature,” Roinestad says. “I wanted to bring that element of the city, as well as my neighborhood’s unique history, into this body of work. Arroyo Seco is a love story about LA, populated by its plants and animals, and an exploration of place during a time when travel was impossible.”