Mrs. is honored to present You’ll Understand Soon, a solo exhibition by California-based artist Lily Ramírez. This intimate collection of oil stick drawings on kozo paper invites a deeply moving exploration of the human experience. Through her evocative works, Ramírez delves into the complexities of family, friendship, loss, and abandonment, while revealing the quiet, often unnoticed loneliness that shapes our daily lives.
Ramírez’s gestural mark-making acts as a private codex, an almost secret language embedded within her art. The energy and rhythm of her drawings echo the emotional undercurrents of her narratives, with subtle messages that only the most curious viewers may uncover. The exhibition’s central themes—loss, love, and the connections we form with others—are inspired by a life-changing road trip Ramírez took with her father, from Montana to Los Angeles. Before setting out, she asked him why they were making the journey, to which he simply replied, "You’ll understand soon." At the end of their trip, her father revealed that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This phrase not only lends its name to the exhibition but also informs the titles of the works, serving as an emotional touchstone throughout the show.
Each piece in You’ll Understand Soon encapsulates a deep sense of intimacy, offering a visual representation of Ramírez’s internal world. Language—both poetic and prose—intertwines with her visual vocabulary, creating a cohesive expression of familial bonds, memories, and unspoken emotions. Sentences, fragments of songs, and whispered phrases hum beneath the surface of her drawings, weaving together the complex dynamics of family, love, and the shared experience of grief.
You’ll Understand Soon is an invitation to reflect on the transformative journeys we take together. It is a celebration of familial love, a meditation on the pain of loss, and an exploration of the unspoken connections that tie us all. Through her work, Ramírez offers a window into the complexities of life, love, and legacy, urging us to look deeper and understand what lies beneath the surface.
