Sovern Presents
rooted
A two-person exhibition featuring Daeton Oclaray and Zoë Solis
In Rooted, Daeton Oclaray and Zoë Solis share their works produced in Sovern LA’s 2025 Youth Artist in Residency program. The body of work shares the artists’ visual explorations of home as an anchor to navigate personal and collective histories. At the same time, Rooted reflects a shared commitment to their artistic practices strengthened by a foundation of support.
This exhibition is the culmination of the three-month program during which Daeton and Zoë received mentorship from artist and Brockman Gallery co-founder, Dale Brockman Davis, Band of Vices founder and creative director, Terrell Tilford, and Sovern LA co-founder and artistic director, Nicole Shostak-Sabourian.
This exhibition is the culmination of the three-month program during which Daeton and Zoë received mentorship from artist and Brockman Gallery co-founder, Dale Brockman Davis, Band of Vices founder and creative director, Terrell Tilford, and Sovern LA co-founder and artistic director, Nicole Shostak-Sabourian.
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Daeton Abalos Oclaray is an interdisciplinary artist born in Hawai’i and raised between West O’ahu and Seattle, currently based in Los Angeles. His practice spans oil painting, charcoal drawings, and archival video, often extending into installation and material experimentation with surfaces such as raw canvas, linen, and found textiles. Drawing from his Filipino and Black American heritage, Oclaray’s work reflects on his family’s layered histories of migration, labor, and belonging. Through recurring imagery of domestic interiors and exteriors, floral motifs, and familiar objects, he explores how environments shape identity and memory, blurring the boundaries between figure, landscape, and pattern. Oclaray received his BA in Studio Art from UCLA in 2025, where he was also active in cultural programming and community organizing through the Cultural Affairs Commission.
In his current body of work Evidence of Dreams (in Living Rooms), Oclaray reimagines the living room as a landscape of migration and memory; into a space where fragments of family archives, labor histories, and collective dreams of “paradise” and progress converge. Across his practice, he seeks to construct visual languages and folklore-like scenes that reflect the fluid and in-between states that define the contemporary diasporic and post-colonial experience. These constructions are embodied through figurative, collage-inspired, and slightly playful charcoal drawings of relatives, close-friends, and self portraits on textiles that weave these experiences together. |
Pass the Cola
charcoal on textile
9” x 12”
2025
$500
“This work reinterprets a still from the Coca-Cola and Pearl of the Orient, paired with a fencing motif. The work offers a pairing of commercial imagery and domestic patterning to investigate how these two forces interact with each other when stripped down to charcoal on raw textile.”
charcoal on textile
9” x 12”
2025
$500
“This work reinterprets a still from the Coca-Cola and Pearl of the Orient, paired with a fencing motif. The work offers a pairing of commercial imagery and domestic patterning to investigate how these two forces interact with each other when stripped down to charcoal on raw textile.”
Sitting, Waiting
charcoal and mixed media on textile
24” x 24”
2025
$950
“This drawing offers a cropped portrait of a family member, taken from a film photograph in a home setting. The work follows the trail of familial stories and fragments of dreams that are left along the path of migration.”
charcoal and mixed media on textile
24” x 24”
2025
$950
“This drawing offers a cropped portrait of a family member, taken from a film photograph in a home setting. The work follows the trail of familial stories and fragments of dreams that are left along the path of migration.”
Go Ask Your Mom
charcoal and oil on textile
20” x 24”
2025
$900
“This work draws from a film photograph of my grandmother holding her grandchild. The charcoal and oil shift between figure, dress pattern, and imposing plant imagery, while the cut fringe across the top emphasizes the raw textile surface. The work brings together memory and material in a straightforward way, letting the tenderness of the original image sit alongside the physicality of the canvas itself."
charcoal and oil on textile
20” x 24”
2025
$900
“This work draws from a film photograph of my grandmother holding her grandchild. The charcoal and oil shift between figure, dress pattern, and imposing plant imagery, while the cut fringe across the top emphasizes the raw textile surface. The work brings together memory and material in a straightforward way, letting the tenderness of the original image sit alongside the physicality of the canvas itself."
Power Ranger, Princess
Charcoal and ink on textile
24” x 24”
$950
“Drawn from a film photograph that traces my family’s migration and the dreams made in these spaces. The artwork depicts two children in costumes posing for a picture with domestic ornamentation from the Philippines imposed onto it."
Charcoal and ink on textile
24” x 24”
$950
“Drawn from a film photograph that traces my family’s migration and the dreams made in these spaces. The artwork depicts two children in costumes posing for a picture with domestic ornamentation from the Philippines imposed onto it."
Untitled
Mixed media on textile
50” x 70”
2025
$2,200
“A self portrait work inspired by a collage made by Noah Davis."
Mixed media on textile
50” x 70”
2025
$2,200
“A self portrait work inspired by a collage made by Noah Davis."
Somewhere West and Sunny
charcoal and oil on textile
48” x 60”
2025
$2,200
“This work offers a weaving together of analog photographs from my family archive with fragments of media that shaped the spaces I grew up in. A portrait of a father and son sit alongside a snapshot from a vintage basketball broadcast, surrounded by palm-like motifs, patterned fabrics, and domestic objects. These elements overlap on raw textile, letting the living room become a site where memory, inherited images, and everyday symbols interact with one another.”
charcoal and oil on textile
48” x 60”
2025
$2,200
“This work offers a weaving together of analog photographs from my family archive with fragments of media that shaped the spaces I grew up in. A portrait of a father and son sit alongside a snapshot from a vintage basketball broadcast, surrounded by palm-like motifs, patterned fabrics, and domestic objects. These elements overlap on raw textile, letting the living room become a site where memory, inherited images, and everyday symbols interact with one another.”
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Zoë Solis (b. 2001, Fontana, CA) is a Mexican-American interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, CA, whose practice reflects a curiosity of home- and the people, places, and things that she identifies with the concept. Using painting, pastels, and ceramics, Solís’s work explores figures, still lifes, and landscapes in which there is a visceral connection for her. While the foundation of her practice rests upon her work with oil pastels, she has translated the skills from this medium into large scale oil works that reflect themes of love and loss. In 2024, Solís graduated with a BA in Art History from UCLA, where she first began exploring oil pastels in her work. Zoë is also currently experimenting with air dry clay sculptures into which she incorporates other materials such as acrylic paint and resin — tools that ensure the archiveability of the structures.
Beyond the theme of home, Zoë's current body of work explores the artist’s natural attraction to elements she knows she can never build a home with. Utilizing oil, acrylic and spray paint, colored pencil, charcoal, cigarette ash, and pastel on canvas, her images examine entanglements with toxic vices the artist has learned have no place in her future. Many of the motifs and aesthetic influences in the work are inspired by murals, album covers, and old American classic tattoos. The combination of layers in her work create dynamic compositions that navigate knowing something isn’t good for you yet loving it anyway. |
Selfie
oil pastel on oil paper
22” x 30”
2025
$1500
“Selfie depicts a self portrait of the artist as a toddler. This portrait is based on a real photograph taken in front of her grandmother’s house. Growing up, the artist’s family always commented on the nature of her pose. She looked confrontational, confident, and “ready.” As people would say, too “ready” for her age. This spirit of being upfront and honest, is what Zoë has defined her sense of self with; both as a child and currently as an adult.”
oil pastel on oil paper
22” x 30”
2025
$1500
“Selfie depicts a self portrait of the artist as a toddler. This portrait is based on a real photograph taken in front of her grandmother’s house. Growing up, the artist’s family always commented on the nature of her pose. She looked confrontational, confident, and “ready.” As people would say, too “ready” for her age. This spirit of being upfront and honest, is what Zoë has defined her sense of self with; both as a child and currently as an adult.”
Casita II
Oil pastel on paper
22” x 30”
2025
$1500
“I grew up in two different cities when I was younger. The first was known for its orange juice factory which filled my old neighborhood with an unmistakable citrus aroma. Leaving this city after 14 years was devastating, but I was a little less hurt when I realized my new house had an orange tree in the backyard. It’s funny how something can function as a bridge between two different life chapters. This piece celebrates the orange tree as a personal symbol of culture, family, and home- all perpetual items that transcend just one physical location.”
Oil pastel on paper
22” x 30”
2025
$1500
“I grew up in two different cities when I was younger. The first was known for its orange juice factory which filled my old neighborhood with an unmistakable citrus aroma. Leaving this city after 14 years was devastating, but I was a little less hurt when I realized my new house had an orange tree in the backyard. It’s funny how something can function as a bridge between two different life chapters. This piece celebrates the orange tree as a personal symbol of culture, family, and home- all perpetual items that transcend just one physical location.”
Just Another Day
oil pastel on oil paper
22” x 30”
2025
$1500
“Making this piece, I was thinking about items that symbolize my reality as a Mexican-American. Included in this still life composition are items that reflect on my family’s descendence from Zacatecas, México and transition into the United States. These depictions of foods and material things represent the lived traditions, heritage, and daily routine of my subjective latine experience.”
oil pastel on oil paper
22” x 30”
2025
$1500
“Making this piece, I was thinking about items that symbolize my reality as a Mexican-American. Included in this still life composition are items that reflect on my family’s descendence from Zacatecas, México and transition into the United States. These depictions of foods and material things represent the lived traditions, heritage, and daily routine of my subjective latine experience.”
El Cora
air dry clay, acrylic paint, resin
3” x 5”
2025
Not for sale
“I made this sculpture in the form of a heart because this collection feels like a visceral lens into what makes me “tick” in this life. I am learning to follow my instincts more and allow my emotions to guide my decision making. This work reminds me that the best compass is the one inside. It encourages me to acknowledge what it is I desire and have faith that what is for me will be mine.”
air dry clay, acrylic paint, resin
3” x 5”
2025
Not for sale
“I made this sculpture in the form of a heart because this collection feels like a visceral lens into what makes me “tick” in this life. I am learning to follow my instincts more and allow my emotions to guide my decision making. This work reminds me that the best compass is the one inside. It encourages me to acknowledge what it is I desire and have faith that what is for me will be mine.”
Untitled #1
oil, acrylic, charcoal, soft pastel, cigarette ash, colored pencil
48” x 60”
2025
Not for sale
“I am the type of person that likes things of longevity. Because I’ve known myself the longest, designing compositions in a self-portrait format, just naturally occurs in my practice. As the subject in this piece, I reflect on who I am and who I have been in the past and present. Using this concept, I reflect on my history of having a vice and questioning whether I am the one consuming it- or is it consuming me?”
oil, acrylic, charcoal, soft pastel, cigarette ash, colored pencil
48” x 60”
2025
Not for sale
“I am the type of person that likes things of longevity. Because I’ve known myself the longest, designing compositions in a self-portrait format, just naturally occurs in my practice. As the subject in this piece, I reflect on who I am and who I have been in the past and present. Using this concept, I reflect on my history of having a vice and questioning whether I am the one consuming it- or is it consuming me?”
Untitled #2
oil, acrylic, spray paint, burlap, charcoal, colored pencil
48” x 60”
2025
Not for sale
“In this work, I explore the burden of discovering a mold someone else has made for me in order to hold value in their life. ‘To fill, or not to fill the mold in exchange for acceptance?’”
oil, acrylic, spray paint, burlap, charcoal, colored pencil
48” x 60”
2025
Not for sale
“In this work, I explore the burden of discovering a mold someone else has made for me in order to hold value in their life. ‘To fill, or not to fill the mold in exchange for acceptance?’”
