Hashimoto Contemporary is pleased to present The Moon Underwater, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Madeleine Tonzi. The exhibition is an investigation into distortion and relationality. The landscape serves as a metaphor, speaking to the ways in which we relate to the world around us — each object placed within the composition provides meaning and context for the next. This body of work represents a formal and conceptual distillation of Tonzi’s established visual language—reducing it to its most elemental components which offer space for both subtle nuance and assertive form—a sense of clarity in a world growing more obscure and complex by the day.
The title evokes a visual metaphor: the moon reflected beneath the surface of water—distorted, yet contemplative. It is dreamlike and beautiful, but also disorienting—a mirror world that speaks to the ambiguous, often surreal nature of the present moment. Through visual reduction and compositional restraint, the work creates a space for contemplative engagement—inviting the viewer to to navigate the subtle thresholds between what is perceived and what is known.
"My previous series, Petrichor, examined our relationship to the natural world through organic, sensorial collaboration," Tonzi says. "In The Moon Under Water, that investigation continues, but turns inward— toward our perception of truth and reality, and the role distortion plays within those constructs."
