Zodiac Pictures is pleased to present Déjà vu, a group exhibition featuring the works of Sydney Acosta, Miles Jopling, Reynaldo Rivera, and Juliette Teste, accompanied by a text by Gracie Hadland. The exhibition explores themes of nostalgia, memory, and ephemerality, as these artists engage with fleeting moments that connect personal and collective histories. 

Sydney Acosta’s paintings often emerge from her drawing practice, where she reflects on daily experiences, literature, music, dreams, conversations, and nature. Inspired by James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, Acosta's painting “I scarcely know how to describe that room” (2024) examines the intersections of eros, desire, violence, and disruption. A large window frame divides the canvas as Acosta imagines peering into Giovanni’s room. The ethereal seascape outside symbolizing fantasy and longing is contrasted with a dim, murky interior that conveys turbulence and impenetrability. This juxtaposition highlights the interplay between passion and chaos. At the bottom edge of the painting, a figure—the dreamer, the lover— reclines against a palette marked by coldness, shrouded in smoke, suggesting a relationship fraught with emotional complexity.

Expanding on the theme of impermanence, Miles Jopling’s Trashed Flowers series depicts florals taken from discarded bouquets. In these small, jewel-toned paintings, Jopling reanimates the wilting blooms with a seemingly naïve yet delicate hand, employing spontaneous, improvised gestures. The compositions pulse with light and color, creating an atmosphere of frenzied excitement. A contemporary take on the tradition of still life painting, Jopling captures the florals in their final moment, revealing their transient beauty amidst decay.

Reynaldo Rivera’s work embodies a profound understanding of time and its fragility. Renowned for his black-and-white photographs of LA’s Latino drag bars, queer clubs, and house parties from the late 1980s and early ’90s, his impulse to document reflects a desire to preserve moments in defiance of erasure. Featured in Déjà vu are two photographs from Rivera’s BLUE series—works never intended for exhibition. These untitled, undated images, some printed from negatives damaged by fire, serve as personal records of the entangled lives and loves of a small group of friends. In these intimate scenes, Rivera’s subjects reveal themselves candidly, showcasing a deep sense of trust and connection. This openness emphasizes Rivera's ability to create space for genuine expression.

Drawing on a diverse array of historical references, styles, genres, and periods, Juliette Teste’s ceramics explore the relationship between objects and the passage of time. Her forms evoke notions of rites, celebration, and occasion. Preferring idiosyncrasies over perfection, Teste’s work features intuitive designs and painterly glazes. The pieces included in Déjà vu portray lilies and fireflies while alluding to Vesuvian festivities and the last night in Pompeii. The exchange between Teste's ephemeral subjects and enduring materiality creates a dynamic tension, imbuing her work with a spectral quality that reflects the transitory nature of memory and the inseparability of past and present.

As the title Déjà vu conjures the idea of something "already seen"—the illusion of memory—the works in this exhibition underscore how echoes of the past resonate in the present and connect individual experiences with collective narratives. Through acts of looking again, retracing, remembering, and reimagining, these artists demonstrate how our memories shape our perceptions of identity and the world around us.

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Sydney Acosta (b. 1987, Yanaguana, aka San Antonio, Texas) lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BA from California State University, Sacramento in 2015 and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2021. Recent exhibitions include It Never Entered my Mind at Galeria Mascota, Mexico City; There is Feeling at Night Gallery, Lavinia at Hannah Hoffman, The Gift of Strawberries at South Willard, Filled with Song at Kristina Kite, When Stones Clash, Michael Benevento, The Death of Beauty, Sargent’s Daughters, of the world (with Luz Carabaño), at CASTLE, Los Angeles, CA. She has been supported by the MacDowell Fellowship, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the LA Lakers Emerging Artist Grant and the American Austrian Foundation.

Miles Jopling (b. 1982, Pasadena, California) lives and works in Los Angeles. Jopling is completing his BA of Fine Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles (Fall 2024). Recent exhibitions include Undergraduate Juried Exhibition, UCLA New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, (2024); Juried Exhibition, UCLA New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, (2023); Staffordshire Dogs, Mrs. Wong’s, Los Angeles, (2019).

Reynaldo Rivera (b. 1964, Mexicali, Mexico) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include Fistful of Love/También la belleza, MOMA PS1, New York (2024); Ya no me quieres, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Los Angeles (2023); and Kiss Me Deadly, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2021). He has participated in group exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2023), the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta (2023), and the Princeton University Art Museum (2022). His work was featured in Made in L.A. 2020: A version at the Hammer Museum and the Huntington Library, Los Angeles.

Juliette Teste (b. 1986, France) lives and works in Paris. Teste studied applied arts at École Duperré, Paris, France. Recent exhibitions include Treehouse, Lindon Gallery, London (2024); Salone del Mobile, Glas Italia, Milan (2024); Objects without thoughts never to heaven go, 491 projects, Paris (2023); 100 years, Rue de la Glacière, Paris (2023); Distant though near, Francis Gallery, Bath, England (2023).