The solo exhibition of George Porcari’s photographic collages opened last Saturday and runs through February 20th at West LA’s Haphazard. Porcari’s work covers fifty years of photography, a montage of Los Angeles images that conveys the feel, as much as the look, of the city.
Porcari, above, describes his approach to the exhibition as “non-conceptual. Rather than have a typical kind of exhibit that’s conceptual, I just wanted to have photos that let people look at the city that we all inhabit, that make you start thinking about your place in the city.”
Directly behind Porcari is a photograph taken in Redondo Beach in 1995. “I was using disposable cameras then, I was really into hard diagonals,” he explains. “Disposables really flatten things out. I took that in a gas station. I love taking pictures in gas stations. They’re classic LA places, pit stops, as it were, for people on the move. For five minutes, you have human contact, and you’re not alone on the street. People get out in these little oases before they move on. They’re good places to take photos, because people briefly let their guard down.”
From his massive collection, Porcari choose what he felt were good photos, and, as he puts it “a hybrid of my best work that said something about the city, that spoke to the city in some way.”
Many of Porcari’s images have a quality that freezes a moment in time, makes it immortal.
Evocative rather than explanatory, Porcari’s work is a must-see look at the City of Angels that once was, never was, and always will be.
Many of the artists created works especially for the show, whose theme, naturally enough, is birds. Contributing artists include:
Noah Saterstrom, Eve Wood, Lena Wolek, Joe Wolek, Anna Stump,Cherie Benner Davis, Cynthia Minet, Greg Rose, Siobhan McClure, Lena Moross, Becky Stafford, Collin Stafford, Bibi Davidson, Christian Kasperovitz, Lori Pond, Eva Ryan, Sam Smith, Malka Nedivi, Sylviana Gallini, and Sabina Rose Derick.
According to curator Mishelle Moross, the show’s inspiration came from artist Anna Stump. Stump relates “Artist Lena Moross saw my ‘Bird Terrarium’ paintings at the Brewery Artwalk last fall, which inspired her and curator Mishelle to produce a bird-themed exhibition at Muzeumm.” Stump’s work, above, creates a three-dimensional impression of birds barely contained, freedom and constraint, and a pull to motion.
Artist Malka Nedivi, above, gives viewers a wild and wonderful mythological bird. A painter, sculptor, and collage artist, Nedivi says that all of her work is inspired by her mother, and both her parents’ previously unknown past as Holocaust survivors. Nedivi’s work uses a great deal of wood and fabric.
Collin and Becky Stafford’s monumental bird costume above also appeared in a video installation accompanying it. See the video at: https://vimeo.com/album/3660210
The rich, warm colors of Bibi Davidson’s works, above heightened the whimsical, fairy-tale quality of the artist’s contributions to the show.
Born in Tel Aviv, Davidson creates not just compelling color, but an entire world with recurring characters, amusing narratives, and mysterious glimpses of the interlocking worlds of childhood wonder and adult insight.
Curator Mishelle Moross contributed her own piece to the exhibition, the towering gold Birdhouse, above.
Eva Ryan’s riveting and haunting pieces above are examples of the artist’s blissful obsession with birds. In many cases, birds appear as a stand-in for human longing, emotion, and self-recognition in Ryan’s work.
Below, Lena Wolek’s exquisitely detailed ceramic installation City Bird- in Life, can be disassembled for purchase, with each stunning cup a steal at $40 each.
Lena Moross created the pieces below solely for this exhibition, inspired by her own somewhat chaotic feelings about being a young grandmother as well as a wife, mother, and artist. “I sometimes feel like a headless burning chicken, so that is what I created in my art for this show.” She was also inspired by the twinned ideas of birds and rebirth from Russian folk tales and the writings of Vladimir Nabokov, she attests.
Below, curator Mishelle Moross with her mother, artist Lena Moross, looking not in the least like a headless chicken.
Lena Moross took us on a tour of her studio adjacent to the gallery, for a look at a new series of works. Here, the influence of bird imagery still stands – there is the feeling that the woman could, if only she had wings, fly from the wall.
Lena Moross with her vibrant birds.
A darker look at creatures of flight rises from Lori Pond’s photograph of a taxidermied bird. Pond uses both the camera itself and her post-processing tools to paint a full range of images and emotions through color, light, movement, and texture.
Above, Cynthia Minet’s soaring eagles dance. Below, the work of Noah Saterstrom, which creates its own avian mythology.
Artist Eve Wood, below, is an inveterate bird lover, and her birds appear to share space with their humans through grace.
Below, Cherie Benner Davis stands beside painting she created for the show. “It was nice to have someone give me an assignment and I could get creative with it,” Davis says. Primarily an oil painter who combines flat abstraction with highly representational imagery, Davis’s bright birds appear to be in conversation with the viewer. The show runs through January 31st, and 40% of the exhibition’s proceeds will be donated to the Audubon Society at Debs Park. Go to support flights of all kinds – from that of feathered friends to the flights of fancy and wonder depicted in this terrific gallery.
MuzeuMM is located at 4817 West Adams Blvd. in Los Angeles, and is open from 11-5 M/F or by appointment on the weekend. Contact Name: Mishelle Moross, curator at 323-979-3136. www.muzeumm.com
Genie Davis; ALL PHOTOS – Jack Burke; Anna Stump courtesy of ShoeboxPR
Daryl Bibicoff is always on the move. At least, his art is. All of his pieces focus on motion and what it means, both visually and figuratively. His “personal passion for speed” rushes at viewers, compelling them into emotional action. Bibicoff’s work evokes time, space, and the flowering of seconds into something eternal. As an artist, years of creating a variety of images in a wide range of media have coalesced into his current “In Motion” series.
“My passion for art began at early when I was 8 years old. When my family watched TV, I often opted to draw characters from my imagination. In junior high and high school most of my elective choices were visual art courses which included drawing, painting, cartooning, photography, and calligraphy,” the Los Angeles artist explains.
When Bibicoff reached his senior year of high school he was offered a chance to enter the commercial art world through a trade school for graphic design and illustration.
Since then, his art work has evolved considerably, as he’s explored both two and three dimensional mediums including abstract expressionistic oil paintings, assemblages, “Sam Gilliam type multi-layered paintings” with overlapping geometric and organic shapes, ceramic works, and textural mixed media paintings created with acrylics, plaster, gravel and gauze. “In Motion is a progression from these works.
A recent solo show at Antenna Studio in Eagle Rock as part of the Northeast Los Angeles Artwalk fully displayed Bibicoff’s focus on motion. “The series evolved from painting cyclists on the move and sculpting devastated rocks and the juxtaposition of their environments,” he explains.
“It all began because I was constantly aware that everything I did routinely was always at a high speed. And, there was my personal passion for speed and endurance as a former athlete, plus the challenges I continue to experience as an artist, educator, and family man. Each of these autobiographical areas make me feel like I am always in motion. It’s bittersweet,” he notes.
Bibicoff discusses the idea of motion affecting life through his art, sharing a vision of the impact of high speed in everything around us. He believes blend of the powerful business community and techies are at the forefront of an incredibly high speed world. And the artist feels that the speed is taking over, immersing everyone.
“I believe people’s lives are being displaced. I feel what many of us call home is being taken over by the supreme powers of big business, technology, and commercialism. I have tremendous concern for the artistic losses we may face,” he says.
Bibicoff says his ideas spring from deep-rooted values that cherish the quality of life. “I am and always will be a passionate supporter of human interest that is not about bigger, wealthier, and faster progress.”
Working in a large, high ceilinged visual arts classroom as his studio, Bibicoff admires the work of other current artists such as Sam Gilliam, Anish Kapoor, Kristine Schomaker, Chenhung Chen, Bryan Ida, and Jeff Iorillo.
Desicated rock
But his work is singularly his own, multi-media images that include motion-centered paintings, images of devastated rocks that represent both speed and neglect to the artist, motion digital images, and video.
His series expresses and expands the ideas of contemporary high speed. His vibrantly colored digital images evoke “warp speed” space travel images, stars, water, or light soaring beyond the possibility of human acknowledgment. They also evoke a spiritual quality, as if the motion he is depicting has pulled human viewers beyond their conventional existence. These images could be the patterns the soul makes as it is lifted from the body.
Other pieces are abstractions of outdoor scenes, a highway that the viewer hurtles along, an inspiration taken from a city-wide walk that shows DTLA’s South Spring Street, or bicyclists appearing to spin along the curvature of the earth. His riders wheel on, possibly oblivious to the human beings and grand scenery in a blur beside them. Abstract images of the view from a bike riders perspective “seduce viewers into seeing what I see while riding 25 miles an hour on my road bike,” Bibicoff says.
A photo taken while in line at the Saban Theater results in a white, exploding-star-like image, which the artist reveals reinforces his belief that even while waiting in line, life is moving too fast. Other kaleidoscopic images posit the same experience: there is great beauty in motion, there is a link perhaps through speed into someplace human beings have never traveled before. But the motion itself is a threat to our very existence and heritage.
Quick, before you hurtle off the planet, explore some of Bibicoff’s work. For more information see http://www.darylbibicoff.com/
Red. The color of flames, winter sunsets in LA, Valentine’s hearts, brake lights burning on the freeways at rush hour. And the ruby richness of artist Bibi Davidson, whose favorite color is red. Her entire palette is vibrant, pulling viewers into her intriguingly whimsical world.
Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Los Angeles artist Bibi Davidson creates not just compelling color, but an entire world with recurring characters, amusing narratives, and insightful if mysterious glimpses of the interlocking worlds of childhood wonder and adult insight. Davidson says she wants her viewers to see the humor in life, humor necessary to existence, or “we would all die of sorrow.” Her paintings absolutely provide amusing and charming views of the world, as if seen through the eyes of a supremely wise child, as sensitive as she is brilliant.
“I probably started my ‘career being an artist’ when I was 4 years old, looking at an illustration of a girl on a book cover and trying to draw it myself,” Davidson relates. “I was extremely shy and socially odd, and through my paintings I could tell my stories, express my opinions, and let my imagination go free.”
While her talent has grown exponentially since those days, her free-roaming imagination seems not to have changed. Also unchanged: her unique perspective on the mysteries, fears, and joys of youth, and her ability to portray them in paintings that are the visual equivalent of a graphic novel or an evocative poem.
“I really want to tell people how I feel and think, hurt and long, what happened to me in the past and what is happening now. I paint my stories as a writer tells his stories, and I would like to share my tales with people so they can relate them to their own life events,” she asserts. “We are all people, we go through similar feelings, we hurt and laugh the same.”
Not only does each painting tell a story, each painting is a metaphor for something deeper that grows from within the story, something primal, intimate, and pure.
“Growing up was not an easy task for me. I couldn’t wait to become an adult. My art was my only quiet place to hide,” she says. It was difficult for Davidson to keep her passion for creating art burning brightly. “As in many households, I was supposed to be practical, get married and have kids, and maybe be an accountant. But one is born to a certain talent or passion which is in his or her genes, past life, or the influences of the environment.” And for Davidson, that talent was her art.
She remained true to her gifts, focusing on her repeated character of “the girl,” who represents the artist herself. “For years I’d been doodling a character on every piece of paper I had. Suddenly I realized that this character was the subject of my art, and this became the ‘Stories of my Life’ series. She represents me, and sometimes she comes in other forms, like the bunny or a bird that shows up in my paintings,” Davidson notes. “My girl’s stories are my diaries, my dreams, my fears, my memories from the past and the future. Although a lot of my stories come from a painful place, I try to look at the heartaches and pains with a sense of humor.”
Along with representing the character of her girl, Davidson is drawn to color. Particularly the color red. “Colors always have been a strong stimulation for me, certain colors, like red, make me breathe easier and focus better. My hair is red, my house is red and the colors on the walls of my house are the colors that I use in my paintings,” she attests. “I love the color red.”
Currently, Davidson’s work is evolving, with her girl image and stories moving from 2D paintings into 3D sculptures and mixed media. “That’s the approach I am going to present in my solo show in October at The Los Angeles Art Association Gallery 825,” she reports. Davidson’s work will also be included in the group show coming up this Saturday and running through January 31st at MUZEUMM in downtown Los Angeles.
What else is Davidson up to? “I’d like to create my girl as a mural on a large building. I would like her to be a familiar face.”
Whether her character appears as a mural or not, certainly big things are ahead for the artist, who works out of a studio in the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood. She is also actively involved in the Ten Women Co-Op Gallery, as well as exhibiting throughout the Los Angeles area, from Pasadena to Long Beach.
“I love my studio, I love to be among the other artists there. My studio now is filled with paintings and mesh, wires and hardware and pieces of wood, it’s ready for a lot of creative adventures,” she notes.
Davidson paints in oil on gessoed and sanded wood panels, drawing-in her compositions, then applying bright base colors.
In “Me and Me,” two images of the artist’s red-haired girl hold hands, wading in a green sea. The duality of feeling that the twinned girls represent evoke the inner and outer images we project in life.
Her “What?” features an emerald eyed cat looking quite sanguine as the girl peers into a brick wall exposed beneath the plaster. A dozen or more eyes hover over her. What do they and she see? What is exposed, stripped away, revealed? The piece is a literal and figurative mystery of self-observation.
And in “Naughty Cat,” the girl holds the legs of a cat as big or bigger than she, while a fantasy of fish dance between them. The surrealistic landscape – perhaps reminiscent of Magritte – is one aspect of this piece, but as with many of Davidson’s works, it is also grounded in reality. The naughty cat could be a pet after goldfish, or it could be another aspect of the girl’s personality.
Along with her autobiographical and metaphorical “girl” paintings, Davidson is also an exceptionally accomplished contemporary portrait painter, each beautifully detailed portrait filled with the same vibrancy of color that is her signature.
For a taste of Davidson’s work, visit the group show starting Saturday, January 9th from 6 to 10 pm at MUZEUMM 4817 W. Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90016.
Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke and artist’s website
