Ochi is pleased to present River to river, a solo exhibition of new ceramic tile wall works by Los Angeles-based artist Emily Marchand. This is Marchand’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. River to River will be on view at Ochi, located at 119 Lewis Street in Ketchum, Idaho from May 8 through July 3, 2026.

Emily Marchand’s latest body of work turns inward while remaining rooted in the ecosystems that have long shaped her practice. Drawing from formative memories along the intersection of the Sacramento and American Rivers, Marchand revisits the natural landscapes of her youth as sites where joy, loss, and emotional awareness first intertwined. In River to River, the flowing bodies of water function as both real and symbolic spaces for refuge, reflection, and transformation. Now based in Los Angeles, Marchand extends this sensibility to the Arroyo Seco, where daily encounters with wildlife and seasonal cycles offer a quiet continuity between past and present.

Expanding upon her 2025 solo exhibition with Ochi, Marchand’s new works diffuse emotional energy across a broader ecology of beings. Large-scale ceramic tile vignettes depict flora and fauna imbued with the presence of those she has lost. Animals, birds, and insects become carriers of memory, their forms acting as quiet tributes to interconnected cycles of life and death. The surfaces themselves retain clear evidence of the artist’s hand, with impressions, irregularities, and subtle shifts in glaze that resist refinement in favor of immediacy, foregrounding an understanding of beauty rooted in impermanence and imperfection. It is through this human presence, gently embedded in each form, that the works accrue their emotional resonance. This exhibition signals an evolution of Marchand’s practice: grief is no longer anchored to one figure but instead metabolized through sustained attention to the natural world where it is dispersed, shared, and transformed into a generative force.

As time has passed, I tend to imbue all of the birds, animals, and bugs with the souls of my family, friends, and pets that are no longer on this earth. I wanted to take this time to make artworks that pay tribute to all of these creatures, plants, and flowers that give me so much respite in this world and hold the spirit of my beloveds.

(Emily Marchand)