Clint Bargers & Ellen Khansefid
June 27 - August 15, 2026
3002A Commerce St. Dallas, TX 75226
Gallery Hours: Thursday - Saturday, 12-5pm & by appt
Nature of Things is pleased to present Earthlicker, featuring paintings by LA-based Ellen Khansefid and sculptural wall works by Dallas-area-based Clint Bargers, on view from June 27 – August 15, 2026, located at 3002A Commerce St. Dallas, TX 75226.
This exhibition explores a fetishistic gaze through Khansefid’s interest in celebrity, erotica, and internet sub-cultures, while Bargers’ sculptures engage with body modification—through use of ear gauge eyelets, tribal tattoo design, and hollowed-out forms—they can be seen through or only from the sides.
The title of the exhibition comes from Ellen Khansefid’s painting, Earthlicker, a vibrant red, green and black painting of a woman kneeling down and licking the ground. The act is at once of submission and dominance, or of vulgarity and beauty, a tension enhanced with the use of the complementary colors. The four larger paintings by Khansefid in this exhibition all have connecting titles, ending with the suffix “-er”—Earthlicker, Treehugger, Cavedweller, Skinshedder—each featuring a singular female form engaged in an act of reciprocal voyeurism (we are watching, and we are being watched).
Clint Bargers’ sculptures resemble both future artifacts and ancient relics, engaging with the human form in a science fiction alternate reality. The recurring holes in many of Bargers’ works in this exhibition are either formed by or around eyelets—a metal ring typically used for ear gauges. Many of Bargers’ sculptures in this exhibition reference a tribal tattoo shape, either in the surface pattern of the ceramic Tearplate series or the silhouette of the larger work’s orifices. The ability to see through the works invites the viewers to inspect the work from all angles and also gives the work an uncanny bodily quality without resembling any figuration.
Interspersed throughout the exhibition are Khansefid’s small portraits of various female celebrities, closeups in a hazard-sign-like yellow and black. The works function on the one hand as a visual nod to Pop Art screenprint halftones and celebrity worship. And on the other, Khansefid titled the series of this recurring color duo Bile—a reference to our own digestive properties (an acid of utmost utility in consumption or bitter malfunction). Form and color commands the viewer to both look (!) and look away (!).
Inversely, the creatures in Bargers’ works are faceless, crouching in wait, walking along collared and slavishly, or seemingly engaging in conversation, both recognizable in human-like form, but mysterious in their lack of expression. We are peering at them but cannot tell if they may be looking back at us.
Bargers and Khansefid are worldbuilders, engaged with elements of form, color, and perception that portends ancient cycles of human nature. The Artbody, the newest ancient form of erotica on Earth! We command you to look. And look away. The sacred/profane peep show.
Clint Bargers (b. 1984, Colorado Springs, CO) lives and works in Irving, Texas. In 2007 he received his BA in Visual Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Bargers received an MFA in Sculpture in 2021 from TCU in FT. Worth, Texas. Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas awarded Bargers their 2024 artist grant. In 2021 Bargers received the Mercedes Benz emerging artist grant. In 2019 his work was shown in New York’s Proto Gomez gallery in the show Fresh Blood. His work has been shown in Illinois, California, New York, Texas, England and Italy.
Ellen Khansefid (b. 1992, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Working primarily in drawing and painting, Khansefid’s focus resides in figuration, pulling themes from art history and personal experience. She draws reference from printed media and pop culture. She earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014.
UPCOMING
Jardín
2608 Dunlavy St, Houston, TX 77098
Presented by Nature of Things
Opening Thursday, July 2, 2026 from 6-8pm