Dallas Invitational

Bel Ami at Dallas Invitational 2026
Room 114, Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek
April 16 – 18, 2026

“All visions of escape and perfectibility are haunted by the worldly realities they pretend to transfigure.” — T.J. Clark, Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come

In this exhibition of paintings at the Dallas Invitational, Ben Sakoguchi and Olivia Hill use symbols of lofty aspiration—airplanes, angels, and stepped-pyramids—in works that depict very human attempts at transcendence. For both artists living in Pasadena, the California landscape is a bountiful resource, offering endless subject matter for paintings that wryly parody paradise.

Ben Sakoguchi is best known for his ongoing series of Orange Crate Label paintings, which package the artist’s commentary on culture in the language of advertising for fresh produce. Sakoguchi’s unique satirical style springs from a lifelong sense of being outside the spectacle of capitalism. In 1942, when Sakoguchi was three years old, he and his family were ordered from their San Bernardino home and grocery store, and sent to a WWII internment camp in Poston, Arizona. Though he went on to receive an MFA from UCLA and exhibit his work in galleries and institutions while teaching art at Pasadena City College, the imprisonment inflected Sakoguchi’s worldview. In the 1970s, Sakoguchi developed a painting composition reprising the designs of vintage crate labels to position his experience and endeavor as an artist; each painting was the same size with a roughhewn pine frame, including a brand name, an image of an orange, and the mention of a place in California. With this groundwork laid, a wide variety of other topics and concerns could enter in, resulting in vibrant, graphically complex works with layers of meaning. In the expansive series, Sakoguchi freely addresses anything and everything under the sun. His underlying fascination is in how historical and contemporary events take hold as stories, move hearts and minds, and are sometimes tragically forgotten.

This display of fifteen Orange Crate Label works from 1994 – 2015 reveals the artist’s deep interest in aviation. Sakoguchi represents aircrafts as objects of wonder, fantasy, and connection, extrapolating diverse imagery from the history of aeronautics. We find quirky innovations and novel inventions: Aerocar Brand (2011) and Flying Flapjack Brand (2011). Though flying remains a male dominated profession, Sakoguchi reminds us that since the beginning of human flight, women such as Bessie Coleman (Starling Brand, 2011) have accomplished astonishing aerial feats. Other works, such as Korean Aces Brand (2015), recognize the bravery, skill, and determination of Asian American fighter pilots. In some cases, Sakoguchi adds nuance to our perception of well-known figures: Monetize and Weaponize Brand (2015) points out how a plane designed by Orville and Wilbur Wright was used by the U.S. Army to test dropping bombs in 1911. Po’ Boy Brand (2015) imparts the story of African American baseball player Satchel Paige, whose private plane became a symbol of his exceptional athletic talent and success. In Sakoguchi’s hands, the airplane becomes a vehicle for telling stories about the risks, failures, and hard-won accomplishments of real people.

Olivia Hill’s paintings, on the other hand, are unpopulated, yet in all her works there are traces of humans trying to improve the landscape, whether they are making fake snow or building castles from sand. We observe evidence of hubristic engineering of waterways, but we also feel the severity of the sun and the harshness of life in a dry desert. In Eaton Canyon Reservoir, 34°10’08.6″N 118°05’25.9″W (2026), an empty reservoir bed is surrounded by scorched mountains. A bloom of poppies in the foreground signifies spring growth, but the bursts of orange are also haunting reminders of the recent wildfires that cost many in Los Angeles their homes and livelihoods. Often setting her scenes in recreational beaches and parks, Hill paints with a playful approach, splattering and pouring paint, and creating imprints from real flower petals and grasses on the canvas. However, her quick gestures also indicate that sometimes nature is dramatic; seismic events move ancient bedrock instantaneously. Our control over or enjoyment of a certain patch of land is only temporary. In Small Angel (2026), a classical symbol rendered in oil paint is also just an impression made by the artist’s five-year-old daughter in the sand, soon to be washed away. Hill pokes fun at Silicon Valley’s dreams for a techno-utopia in The (Great) Tower of Babel at Low Tide (2026). Even so, in Hill’s envisioning she shows reverence for an imperfect world.

Olivia Hill (b. 1985, Hinsdale, IL) lives and works in Los Angeles. She received an MFA from the University of California, Riverside (2019), and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (2006). Solo exhibitions include Terraform, Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2024) and Strike-Slip, Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2022). Recent group exhibitions include Post-Fire 1, Des Artistes, Los Angeles (2026); Almost Famous, La Loma at Vielmetter, Los Angeles (2026); One Hundred Percent, 619 N Western Avenue, Los Angeles (curated by Aram Moshayedi, 2025); Water & Flower, Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); About Painting III, Rolando Anselmi, Rome (2023); A Particular Kind of Heaven, parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles (curated by Ali Dipp, 2023); and Storm Before the Calm, Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles (2022).

Ben Sakoguchi (b. 1938, San Bernardino, CA) lives and works in Pasadena. He received his BFA and MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and taught in the Art Department at Pasadena City College from 1964 until his retirement in 1997. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles (2025); Gasworks, London (2025); Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2024); STANDARD (OSLO) (2024); Ortuzar, New York (2023); Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris (2023); Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2021); Ortuzar, New York (2020); POTTS, Alhambra (2018); Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles (2016); The Alternative Museum, New York (1992); and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1980). His work has been featured in institutional surveys and group exhibitions including Get in the Game, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2024), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2025 – 2026); Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2024); Water & Flower, Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); No Prior Art: Illustrations of Inventions, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Library Foundation of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Public Library (2024 – 2025); ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues, The California Museum, Sacramento (2024); Advance of the Rear Guard: Ceeje Gallery in the 1960s, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena (curated by Michael Duncan, 2023 – 2024); footnotes and headlines, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2021); Landscape, Derosia, New York (2021); L.A. RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles, 1945–1980, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, Pasadena Museum of California Art (2012); Sub-Pop, Cardwell Jimmerson Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2011); Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900–2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2000); and The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s, The New Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, and The Studio Museum, New York (1990). Sakoguchi has twice been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts.