Linda Stelling doesn’t paint what she sees: instead she paints what she knows, “from my childhood, from my life. Nature first; the garden, the weather, water, atmosphere, seasonal change, environmental shifts…I absorb it from experiencing it and noticing.”
She describes color as a “physical necessity for me: color is my food.” And she washes that down with a deep perception, she says.
“I’m fascinated by how differently we each see and experience the same thing.”
Stelling’s work is also steeped in memory, dreams, and the subconscious, and she lets her work lead her brush. “I respond to how the painting wants me to go. Inspiration for me can come from anywhere. I think I’m constantly collecting things without
realizing I’m doing it at all.”
While the artist began making art at a young age, supported by a family that included those who were artists herself, her art creation has shifted and grown over the years. “Style has alway been difficult to identify from the inside. I’m highly responsive to my surroundings and experiences and these leaves residues which stick to my emotional cavity, affecting my choices…but I don’t think I am always aware of that.”
She notes that change is ineveitable for her, because she is always absorbing her art work. “I can’t remain the same. For me it would be horribly boring.”
Her art has an alchemic energy, whether she is creating landscapes with full moons or blazing suns, calming ocean waves, or bouquets of clouds. She creates abstract, hot pink and orange striations as seemingly effortlessly as she shapes figurative cloud and seascapes and flowers and a wide range of landscapes and emotional scales between the two.
“Place was a big change for me,” she says. Originally living in Wisconsin, coming to Los Angeles was exciting and challenging for her, she notes. “Sensitivity and experience gave me a different way of seeing. What changed in me is what changed the work. I think what has changed most is not necessarily how I create but how much more life I bring with me when I go to the studio.”
She adds that becoming a mother changed her “internal compass. Time became more real. Time eventually asks us to choose. Wandering has given me material. I’ve taken detours, changed environments, taught, retired, and kept making work. Time is funny thing.”
Stelling works in a wide range of mediums from painting, weaving, and wearable art, to ceramic sculpture, stained glass, and the creations of large scale installations. Her undergraduate degere in ceramic sculpture helped give her “form and dimensionality,” but painting has become her “most immediate language.”
Currently, the artist has a solo exhibition at Diversions Fine Arts in Manhattan Beach, and a near-future goal in mind, to “develop a two or multi- women show at a large space.”
In the meantime, nature is her manifestor. “[It] is sensory for me. The changing light, a sudden warm current of air that can change all movement. I notice everything…Sound, smell , vibrations, all produce a reaction and a resonance.”
Color is a big component of that manifestation. ” It’s what drives me, excites me, feeds me on so many levels. My emotional brain goes on overload. Color is how nature reaches me. The studio which is like a giant tree house that provides me with a bird’s eye view of blue water, green trees, pink and red flowers, the bluejays flying by ( stopping for the peanuts I feed them). Color is sustenance for me.” She attests that “Painting is mark making but color says what marks cannot.”
It is also an invitation from Stelling. “It pulls the viewer toward the painting and then asks them to enter it. Once inside, I’m not asking them to understand anything, just allow a memory or recognition. If I’m lucky, the viewer might leave with a sensation or a pleasure.
Diversions Fine Arts is located at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd. in Manhattan Beach. The exhibition runs through October 4th; there will be a curatorial walk through at 3 p.m. on October 3rd; on October 4th, an artist talk and closing reception will run from 1-3 p.m.
Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist and by Diversions Fine Arts
Dataland is literally something else as far as an art experience. Fiercely, even reverentially experiential, it is an immersive adventure into “living” AI. It is in a way a combination of familiar things rendered into something entirely different.
For me it was one part IMAX viewing experience; one part the traveling Van Gogh exhibition Immersive Van Gogh with its 360-degree, floor-to-ceiling animated digital video projections; and one part reminiscent of Images in Space and Time, an international collection of fine art holographs which originally came to Los Angeles in the 1990s via the California Museum of Science and Industry. The latter was semi-permanently located in the concourse galleries close to where Dataland is now.
The bottom line with Dataland is that it is entirely unique and a lot of fun, a spectacle of light and color and moving images.
The experience begins by listening to an introduction to the experience, and then donning a neck-wrap device the emits scents related to the visuals, and a wristband not dissimilar to a Fitbit, which measures your own personal metrics, which are then monitored by the AI.
Descending a mirrored escalator to a cavernous room where shifting light projections cover the walls and floor, over the course of about 40 minutes, there are flowers and trees and what look like living, surging seas and colorful beads and swarming colors and even moments that illuminate one’s own metrics in blue and white circles on the floor. A soundtrack merges with the scents that support the scene from forest to flower to sea breeze. This gallery is the Latent Forest.
It’s galvanizing and absolutely embraces the vision by the installation’s cofounders Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç with their inaugural Machine Dreams: Rainforest exhibition. The AI itself was trained on and based upon datasets about nature; culling information from diverse sources such as the Natural History Museum in London and the Smithsonian.
According to museum literature, the commitment to nature includes sustainability as to use, with the system operating on primarily carbon-free and renewable energy.
While that exhibition is the main, and longest experience at Dataland, it is not the only one. Upon exiting, Latent Forest, there is the interactive adventure of the Latent Gallery in which three separate kiosks allow hands on projections of various flowers,sea, and forest images that visitors can explore and learn about, such as orchids, mushrooms, specific trees.
In this area there was also a small stand where visitors could select, or have AI select based on its reading of ones’ personal metric, one of four flavors of chocolates. While my AI chose milk chocolate with mushrooms (and it is true, I do like Hershey bars to this day), I selected my own, the orange bitters and dark chocolate with cardamon.
There were two, timed, separate limited admission gallery experiences, the quite lovely and haunting “The Dream of Ruwe Pinu,” a journey through the Amazon rainforest led by a translucent hummingbird, and “The Sanctuary.”
The latter makes use of visitors’ own biometric information collected via their wristbands, and is vaguer in intent, consisting of patterns of writhing colorful, sand-art-style beads, blooming and snaky florals, and mysterious near-landscapes that materialize on the dimensional screen. It ends however, with the lovely sound of a bird now extinct, issuing its call to a non-existent mate. One could feel deeply elegaic about that birdsong. The bird is gone, and here we are, sitting in an air conditioned sanctuary enjoying its last poignant hope.
However, hopefulness, rather than a last, forlorn lost hope is really the intent of these exhibitions. One of the visitors came with an 18-month-old, who vividly enjoyed crawling around these smaller galleries, interacting with the patterns cost reflectively on the shining floors, and clearly as immersed in experience as one could possibly be.
The child was feeling joy in the sound, colors, scents, and lights. That is the true crux of this experience: its joyful, playful, and also resolute in its depiction of AI as our artistic friend or at least our artistic spectacle creator. While shaping our own memories it is also preserving existing ones, or dreamscapes that involve memories of nature’s rainbow.
Dataland is more art experience than museum or gallery, so with that in mind, go and experience it and all its scents, sounds, and motions.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art floats low on the Los Angeles skyline, hovering close to the ground, both cloud-like, as its architect Ma Yansong has described the 300,000-square-foot building, and not-dissimilar to a spaceship. The latter of course is most appropriate to the museum’s founder, George Lucas, who has brought joy and fun to all the Star Wars fans out there for decades. The museum is equally guided by Lucas’ wife, Mellody Hobson.
Now he has turned his attention from movie making to museum making. The result may not please everyone: his sole purpose is to portray narrative art, in other words, storytelling as visual art. He does not mind mixing genres, and he has very singular taste in which a Frida Kahlo is not that far from a Shepard Fairey or an R. Crumb or a Norman Rockwell.
The building, or rather two interconnected buildings with an oculus in the center and a massive greenspace spread behind it, is stunningly beautiful, and not entirely dissimilar from the higher physical profile of the new Geffen Gallery at LACMA. Both offer a circular navigation through galleries that curve rotationally in and out.
The elevators are glass capsules infused with light; the oculus offers a shiny beam at the center. There are long windows along the 4th floor main gallery space that offer city views and garden views, some more spectacular than others, with the east-facing windows showing the back of the Coliseum being the least appealing, and the garden view with its sculptures and varied levels of green, as well as rows of palms to the south, the best.
The museum’s focus is on making art of all kinds accessible and inspiring, and that idea is fully realized throughout the museum, including the first-floor gallery that adjoins the two large theater spaces. Titled The History of Narrative Art: Heroes • Myths • The Sacred, this gallery leads visitors through a wide world of visual storytelling. Visitors enter through a vibrantly illuminated photographic image of the Cave of Altamira in Spain, moving through other photographic recreations, some in 3-D rotation (as with The Goddess of Willendorf) to meticulously rendered physical recreations of famous works. Many of the reproductions were created by the museum in collaboration with institutions, sites and governments around the world, including Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia for the Aztec Sun Stone.
Among the photographic images and detailed recreations are some incredible original works, such as the predella panel from Tommaso Bernabei’s “Scenes from the Life of the Virgin,” and Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s “The Alchemist. ”
While some will take umbrage at the fact that there are genuine-article artworks intermixed with glowing photographic reproductions and recreations of originals, that is really the point. It is especially resonant for those of us who have ever worked in or been full fans of filmmaking: there are props that recreate an object; there are faux backgrounds that could be real but are not; there are real locations, and there are stage sets. And it is all storytelling. It all creates a masterful whole that draws the eye and stimulates the senses. This is the same basic approach that Lucas is taking here with high-resolution images and 3-D scans of original objects intermixed with original works.
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
As to the jewel-box-perfect 299-seat Robert Flaherty Theater and Slavko Vorkapich Theater, these are designed to be continuous, gallery experiences in their own right, showing films ranging from a few minutes to 90 minutes, running a variety of film programming during the museum’s open hours. According to Lucas, visitors can drop in to screen as much or as little as they want, viewing old favorites or exploring cinematic images previously unknown.
The museum has five floors: on the second is a gorgeous, curving educational library with appealing reading tables and a view straight out to the 13 acres of public garden designed by landscape architect Mia Lehrer.
That garden includes a collection of varied sculptures, including the commissioned Princess Leia Frees Herself from Jabba the Hutt by Mark Newman & Giovanni Nakpil which is the centerpiece of the upper garden level closest to the museum.
The third floor is administrative offices.
The fourth houses the main gallery space, along with a major section of the 5th floor which contains large-scale murals, with a specific emphasis on works by Banksy which were recreated by the artist himself for and at the museum. Also on the rooftop floor of the Lucas is the Skywalker Grill, which was not open at press time; the bottom floor houses a cafeteria-style café with an array of choices including a range of pizzas, noodle dishes, and even soft serve ice cream and churros. There is also a Starbucks.
If the café offers a wide variety of tastes, then the main galleries on the 4th level provides a great many more flavors of art. There are illustrations of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, luridly lovely pulp fiction and horror, political poster art, and the works of Maurice Sendak. There are original ink renderings of Garfield and Far Side cartoons, photography, and sculpture.
The latter category alone is varied and crowd-pleasing, including commissioned bronze pieces such as one of Indiana Jones, as well as brightly colored manga characters, Yinka Shonibare’s dazzling “Boy on Globe,” and Banksy’s ornamental lions “with added parts” indicating the demise of a trainer whose legacy is his discarded whip and top hat.
Of course there are a plethora of paintings, including galleries specifically devoted to Maxwell Parrish, Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, and Jessie Wilcox Smith.
Other fabulous and famous works are intermixed by theme with close-to-complete-unknowns, a Renoir there, and the somewhat infamous painting of dogs playing poker there. Fernand Léger’s “Woman with a Cat” surprises as does a brilliant work by LA artist Narciso Martínez of Latino field workers.
Kadir Nelson’s sprawling, hyper-realistic canvases are on view as are works by Thomas Hart Benton and Diego Rivera, along with Warhol’s “Howdy Doody” and Robert Colescott’s trenchant “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook.”
Then there are costumes (the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz steals this category from Batman), and whetting the appetite of millions of Lucas fans, a gallery devoted to Star Wars props, costumes, vehicles, miniatures, and beloved characters including figures of Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Darth Maul, and of course R2D2 and CP30. There is even General Grevious’s life-size Wheel Bike from 2005’s Revenge of the Sith.
This gallery will undoubtedly be a magnet to the public; many press attendees were gathered there, eager for the eye candy, while my associate and I were often alone in many of the other galleries.
There are 30 in all, broken primarily into themes, while others are devoted to specific artists. The themed galleries include those devoted to fantasy, romance, adventure, manga, history, cinema, family, work, motherhood, comics, graphic stories, love, community, school, play, sports, and photography.
On the 5th floor, the category is murals—from Banksy, JR, Diego Rivera, and Judith F. Baca’s “The History of California,” the latter presented as a riveting video installation that flows, appropriately enough, over an installation whose base is water.
The museum is inclusive and egalitarian in nature. Lucas and Hobson have made access free to those in the local zip code, making this a special place for lower income families in the neighborhood. The library, like the garden, is free to enter. Any child over the age of 12, with or without a museum ticket, is welcome in the library.
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
In opening remarks, both Lucas and Hobson noted that the museum was initially conceptualized in Chicago and in San Francisco prior to its incarnation in Los Angeles, and Lucas acknowledged some controversy over his vision, calling himself a “contrarian.” Be that as it may, and regardless of how others may critique the mix of genres and the predominance of several artists in the couples’ voluminous collection, like Lucas’s movies before it, the museum is designed to bring pleasure to everyone. The storytelling focus is truly the basis of Lucas’s own auteur/collector’s vision: he is a storyteller, so naturally he is drawn to art that tells narrative stories, stories that are accessible and personally meaningful.
“The artists in this collection didn’t just create images, they connected our modern imaginations with our ancient emotions, with common beliefs creating community. Their work spans genres, media, and time,” Lucas says. “They deserve to be in a museum.”
Hobson adds that “We wanted a museum unlike any other — one that brings people from every walk of life through the same doors. That’s why this collection holds so many different kinds of stories: so that more people can walk in and, somewhere in these galleries, see themselves…”
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
They will also enjoy themselves, learn to recognize art in many forms, and smile at many of the juxtapositions, at the cultural icons from Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman to the sweet watercolor animals of Beatrix Potter, a winter scene by Grandma Moses, or a photograph of The Beatles crossing Abbey Road or the stunning, renowned image of a young Arab girl.
Museum goers will see a poignant 1960s drive-in in the rain, a charming ‘”first day of school” farewell, as well as a resonant pairing of Rockwell’s bucolic 1958 “The Runaway” with its friendly policeman speaking to a small runaway white boy, with Richard Williams’ 2014 update of the painting’s theme, “The Militarization of the Police Department” in which a cop clad in riot gear leans over a young black child.
As author and journalist Mitch Albom said, “There’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face.” Or as Rod Stewart once sang, “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”
And when we share those stories, we share our humanity, our hopes, and create emotional connection, building and sharing understanding, empathy, and—enjoyment.
And isn’t enjoyment what art is really all about? Even Michelangelo created the Sistine Chapel for his joy and that of the viewer, not for analysis as to whether each of its parts made a critically reviewed perfect whole.
Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis, except as credited to the Lucas Museum
Claudia Kazachinsky primarily works in watercolor, painting delicately nuanced beauty inspired by everyday life. Everything this prolific and passionate artist sees becomes an image she cherishes and often paints.
She says “from a flower I photograph on one of my walks to an interesting face or scene I happen to notice in a restaurant, museum, or while traveling… I think artists are always observing the world around them, and I’m no exception. I am an avid urban sketcher and almost always carry a sketchbook, a pen, and a small watercolor palette with me because I never know when I’ll come across something I want to capture. I consider myself primarily an observational artist, painting what I see, but I also love to let my imagination take over. ”
According to Kazachinsky, she often adds “whimsical elements, rich textures, expressive backgrounds, and handmade printed paper collages that bring another layer of interest and storytelling to my work. While my paintings begin with real-life observations, they often evolve into something that reflects not just what I saw, but how I experienced the moment.”
She began painting when she was a small child and never stopped. “Art has always been a part of my life,” she attests. “I can honestly say that my style has continually involved.”
When she began to paint regularly ten years ago, she relates that she worked “almost entirely from observation,” describing herself as more timid with her art. While today she still begins her work by painting what she sees, now she is more willing to “let my imagination take over” and introduce “unexpected elements, textures, and patterns that make each painting uniquely my own.”
The artist describes herself as a “fast, loose painter” and notes that her current challenge is learning to “slow down and pay closer attention to detail. I especially love painting portraits and the human figure, although it took me a long time to become confident with them. As the saying goes, it’s ‘all about the miles on the brush. Every painting has taught me something.”
While she says that her first love is and always will be watercolor, she also enjoys working in mixed media. In regard to watercolor, she explains that “Most people don’t realize that it’s actually one of the most difficult mediums to master. I love its
spontaneity, its fluidity, and the luminosity of its colors. There is something magical about watching the paint move across the paper, creating effects that can’t be completely controlled.”
When it comes to mixed media she says that she jokes about throwing “everything at the canvas but the kitchen sink. I enjoy experimenting with texture, collage, handmade printed papers, and anything else that adds depth and interest to the work.”
Kazachinsky has even returned to a past love of oil painting, rediscovering her enjoyment of the medium. ” Unlike watercolor, oil forces me to slow down. The longer drying time gives me the opportunity to step back, rethink, and refine my paintings,
something that has been an important part of my growth as an artist.”
Over the years, her work has changed most dramatically in terms of thematic focus, having initially spent many years painting portraits. “In 2019, while visiting Washington, D.C., we happened to stumble upon the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Standing in those galleries, I made a promise to myself that one day I would submit my own work to the competition…it has motivated me to keep learning, growing, and becoming a better portrait painter with every brushstroke.”
That said, Kazachinsky creates dynamic floral works and delightful images of animals as well. And while she describes portraiture as her “greatest passion” she also enjoys plein air painting that allows her to “observe light, atmosphere, and color in a way that continues to influence all of my work.”
Her current exhibition at Diversions Fine Arts Gallery in Manhattan Beach represents “the largest body of work I have had
the opportunity to showcase,” but the artist continues to be an integral part of multiple group exhibitions around greater Los Angeles.
Kazachinksy spent nearly 35 years as an interior designer while continuing to paint throughout her career. That experience gave her “a unique perspective on how art transforms a space and how the right piece can completely change the feeling of a home.”
She loves to assist collectors and designers in sourcing artwork and placing it. “Choosing art isn’t simply about finding something that matches the sofa—it’s about selecting pieces that speak to you emotionally while also considering scale, proportion, placement, and how the artwork interacts with the architecture and furnishings around it.”
She feels that some people are intimated by the act of buying original art simply because they don’t know enough about it. “My goal is to make that process enjoyable and approachable. Art should move you first and foremost, but when it is thoughtfully
chosen and beautifully displayed, it has the power to elevate not only a room but the way you experience your home every day.”
Viewers can let Kazachinsky’s art elevate their lives at Diversions Fine Arts Gallery through August 30th. The gallery is located at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd. in Manhattan Beach. A gallery hop with other area galleries will take place August 22nd 12-3; the exhibition will have a closing reception and artist talk on the 30th from 1-3 p.m. along with fellow exhibiting artists Jeffrey Sklan and Angelica Sotiriou.
Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist and by Davis
