Dani Dodge: Honored by Americans for the Arts

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Dani Dodge is a force to be reckoned with. A supplier of light in the dark, an exposer of souls in transition, of the heart in flight. Always greatly drawn to installation work, Dodge hits all the marks of excellence: a visceral, punch-to-the-gut emotional connection; creation of an immersive world; a profound intellectual delicacy; and last but certainly not least, visual pleasure.

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Her work forms a kind of poetry that arcs from the eye to the heart to the mind. Each piece spans an intricate web, linked strongly to place – something that has always inspired me in my own fiction – and to time.

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The artist’s perception of the connection between time and location is matched by her even stronger presentation of the link between human surface and the soul within. There is a reverence for life as we know it and the life within us, the eternal.

Manifested in her materials, such as eye glass lenses and video footage of time elapsed skies, Dodge takes viewers on a journey that only she can lead. Revel in it.

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Others are hit hard by her profundity, too. Dodge has recently been recognized by Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education, and has received Art Slant’s juried 2016 prizes for Round 3 and Round 5 in new media and installation, respectively.

Americans for the Arts honors 38 outstanding public arts projects created in 2015 through the Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review program, the only national program that recognizes the most compelling public art. The works were chosen from 260 entries across the country.

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Dodge’s win is for Confess, an installation presented in 2015 at West Hollywood, Calif.’s L.A. Pride. Dodge manned a 20-square-foot confession booth with walls on three sides covered by black fabric. Dodge typed participants’ confessions on gold paper and posted them anonymously on the walls of the room, making the walls that started out black Saturday morning glitter gold with confessions by the end of L.A. Pride on Sunday night.

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Like all great public art, Dodge’s work offered what Americans for the Arts CEO Robert L. Lynch describes as “the singular ability to make citizens going about everyday business stop, think, and through the power of art appreciate a moment, no matter how brief.”

Art Slant’s juried competition honored Dodge in Round 3 for her work in new media, three beautiful and compelling videos contained in DANI DODGE, LOSING PERSPECTIVE, 2016.

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Art Slant’s Round 5 awarded  DANI DODGE, NIGHT CLOUDS, 2016, an installation which explores the natural wonder of clouds, interpreted by Dodge through a stunningly delicate weave of fishing line and copper wire, containing not rain but prescription eyeglass lenses which serve to reflect the dancing, sparkling projected images of stars, and emotionally, the viewers perceptions of night, clouds, nature, life, and our own perceptions. This site specific piece is on view through August 13th at HB Punto Experimental in San Diego.

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Dodge, is a former journalist and war correspondent whose work reflects an exploration of time spent on the battlefield. Soon to be reviewed by this blog, Art Share LA’s Flight Patterns exhibition contains another exciting piece by Dodge. A solo show of Dodge’s work Afterfear will take place at HB Punto Experimental in San Diego running December 10 through February 11, 2017. Also in 2017: solo shows of Dodge’s work at New Museum Los Gatos in Los Gatos, Calif., Museum of Art and History: Cedar in Lancaster, Calif., and at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke, Kristine Schomaker/ShoeboxPR, and courtesy of the artist

 

Sonny Lipps: Self-Invented Style

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Flowers. Rock gardens. Invasive citrus seeds. Sonny Lipps paints these prosaic objects in a vividly colorful, modern style, his artistic philosophy in part developed twenty-plus years ago, inspired by working with Seattle muralist Keith Leaman and studies at Nashville’s Watkins Institute.

Lipps not only has a singular style, he has a unique approach. After prolific painting through 2002, he took a 12-year hiatus, picking up his craft again just two years ago.

Terming his style “playing with paint,” the artist makes each of his subjects into jewel-like images, with a goal to “create beauty as an end product.” With influences ranging from Monet and Van Gogh to Matisse, Miro, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O’Keefe, and Jackson Pollock, the artist has formed unique and otherworldly works with a distinct focus on nature.

Lipps’ educational background is in Earth Science, and this seeps into the pores of his rather miraculous work, depicting abstract images that recall the flora and fauna of the world. He describes his technique and subject as “organic, primitive, macro and micro styling, punctuated with themes of nature, reproductive sexuality, and science fiction,” all conjoined in the process of natural design.

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Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, Lipps’ color palette combines lush primary shades and softer hues, interconnected through sharp lines bent into fluid shapes. Lipps terms his work “conceptual design paintings,” but they are so much more than that, drawing us inward, into what could be cells under the microscope, budding flowers, voluptuously fertilized fruit. It is the stuff of life, of cellular division, fertilized plants, the seeds of a pearl. “Fanciful polymorphic fields of textures and rhythms interconnect,” the artist says of his work.

While Lipps’ work is abstract, it is also compellingly personal. Viewers are made to feel what he feels, see what he sees, as if he were holding our eyes to the lens of a microscope. And while that microscope provides startling and intimate detail, it also pulls us inside the microcosm, and spins us back out again into a colorfully-broadened universe.

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His “Rock Garden” is a strong case in point. Rocks, plants – or perhaps alive, kinetic, connected cells – twine along a path. The pink rocks appear to be as alive as the golden flowers and purple and green plants along the connected, almost amoeba-like walkway. Visually stunning, the path looks sinuous and mysterious, leading the viewer along its curving grid.

Graptoveria on Garden Wall

“Graptoveria on Garden Wall” offers a similar experience. The beautiful plant perched on a wall reaches out with tentacle-like branches that beckon the viewer into a deeper space. What appear to be tiny, floating yellow petals could also be eyes. Long, lush green stems drip downward, as if into the core of the earth.

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In “Arabesque,” a gorgeous mandala pattern takes the center of an incredibly detailed piece, with the delicate, almost feathered contours of a peacock feather, or a look into the center of a flower. Rich purples and green, vibrating pinks, and pale yellow form a color palette that sings with nature, but are wonderful and strange.

Blue Glass Papaya

The diptych “Blue Glass Papaya” is divided by iron frames that could represent the frame of a window, through the blue glass of which, a papaya is positioned on a plate. Sounds fairly simple, but the piece buzzes with intensity, as if the seeds in the center of the fruit were bees.

Bird and Fish

Another diptych, “Bird and Fish,” feature stylized images of both these creatures, bodies elongated, scales, wings, eyes – each containing its own riveting, magnetic appeal.

Throughout Lipps’ work, there is a powerful energy, a potent life-force that throbs within each piece. It’s the color, the shapes, the detail, and a strong sense of connection, of a reaching-out and a drawing-in. Viewing this artist’s work is like jumping inside a living creation, one that shifts with each glance, drawing the eye both into the subject and to a wider vision, the compelling wonder of the world. It’s an extraordinary dichotomy, and one well worth witnessing.

Real/Surreal: Robert Nelson

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7) A Brief History 2

Whether working in black and white or color, creating with graphite and charcoal, or graphite, white pencil and acrylic, Robert Nelson’s work mixes the hyper-realistic and the surreal. Likewise, his subjects combine the familiar with the unexpected. For Nelson, whose beautifully detailed images take elements of icons, classic art, and pop culture, it’s all about “images that are defined differently by each observer. An image where their experiences, prejudices and beliefs all combine into the final experience of the artwork.”

Nelson’s startlingly vivid images are strung together to create an entirely new perspective on iconic visual stories. “It comes down to one’s world view. Some are lucky enough to develop a world view through acquisition of unbiased knowledge, but the world view of many is pre-ordained by culture, or manipulated by institutions,” the artist says. Extremely aware that in today’s society, everyone is taking sides, he questions the status quo, the human ability to believe in personal good-heartedness in a world full of black and white, good vs. evil divides. “It’s fascinating how meanings can change depending on point of view,” he says. That fascination is on full display in Nelson’s art.

The San Diego-based artist combines images that are disturbing, amusing, and intellectually stimulating: in short, images that evoke a powerful response in the viewer. So many questions, so many works. Color pieces utilize a palette of bright, almost incandescent primary colors; black and white works are carefully nuanced and dimensional.

08- A Good Rabbit - The Robots Will Fix That

Nelson’s graphite and charcoal “A Good Rabbit: The Robots Will Fix That,” shows a large but daunted rabbit watching three robot figures. The startled rabbit appears to be not so sure the robots will fix things. Are we as undecided as the rabbit?

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In “Leda Redux,” white pencil, acrylic, and graphite on wood panel, the classic figure of Leda holds the hot pink skeletal remains of her swan, while skeletal fish swim in what could be a nuclear reactive aqua sea. Is Leda transfixed by her dead swan? Does she notice he is just bones? Do fish still swim and birds still fly when their corporeal substance dissipates?

Overall, Nelson’s paintings and drawings pose many questions and let the ambiguous answers come to each viewer on his or her own. Not only do the beings in each piece have a distinct and different point of view, so does each viewer when entering Nelson’s evocative world.

07- Insight - Outsight

“Insight/Outsight” features a blue-faced, purple-haired girl clad in mod late-60s era style, fingers over her eyes, peering out. Her arms are studded with carefully drawn flowers, more flowers are etched into the dark background, a cloud, or cloud of smoke rises behind her. As she peeks between her bright yellow hands, is she afraid of something out there in the world, or something in herself?

24- Young Robot in Love

“Young Robot in Love (Singularity’s Child)” is a rigidly gleeful robot with his metal heart exposed, and a radiant, icon-like halo around his head. What does love mean to a robot? Who are we to say robots can or cannot fall in love? Are we that robot?

Nelson upends our expectations and re-grounds them to an entirely different reality.

12- A Flutter in Time

In “A Flutter in Time,” Nelson stylistically uses a Victorian Valentine’s image of a heart surrounded by blue butterflies – but the heart is no Valentine, it’s a human heart. “Future Shock” places human lips on a blue cow skull. His “Sleepytime” shows a girl wearing bunny ears, angel wings, and a rather frightening clown mask, at her feet: a teddy bear. This is indeed the stuff of dreams you may not want to have during your “sleepy time.”

Nelson is about juxtaposition as well as expectation. He uses images that convey meaning on both an immediate and personal level, images that also seem to require the viewer to find a deeper meaning for themselves behind the themes and ideas that the artist explores. Both surreal and realistic at the same time, Nelson’s works are freighted with the weight of each viewer’s individual interpretation.

The artist has exhibited throughout California, including shows at The Gabba Gallery and Laura Schlesinger in Los Angeles. Currently, his work is on view at Gallery 825’s group show Non Sequitur, and at LA Artcore. He will be a part of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery’s Open Call in August. Get ready to go down the fascinating rabbit hole of Nelson’s art.

15 Cubic Years – Artwork of Robert Costanza

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Above, artist Robert Costanza

Robert Costanza has done an incredibly brave and beautiful thing. He’s laid out his life’s work in his artwork on the walls of the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silver Lake.  The show is closing this weekend, July 3rd, and it’s a don’t-miss event.

15 Cubic Years follows the artist’s spiritual, artistic, and life journey, intimately revealing his trials and tribulations, successes, and failures.

“Initially it was going to be called ‘From the Darkness to the Light,’ because of the new, more spiritual direction my work was taking. I was looking at art as a spiritual path. I was hoping it would inspire artists to be inspired into evolution,” Coastanza relates.

Settling on 15 Cubic Years as a title, the works are less an exhibition than a connected portal through time. It revels in ideas and themes about connectivity and power: human, electric, steam, new technology. His engineering and teaching skills are as much a part of Costanza’s work as is his artistic skill. Connected, indeed.

At the event’s opening June 18th, Costanza’s work was punctuated, much as his personal life is, by meditation and music. Below, the Om Shakti Family.

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Curated by Dulce Stein, this wildly exciting and highly kinetic exhibition traces 15 years of the artist’s life and art. Paintings, mixed-media, installations, and a video experience lead viewers around the ample gallery space to absorb Costantza’s witty, science-laced, and meditative works. The exhibition itself moves in a linear fashion, from Costanza’s early educational experiences to working in aerospace, a focus on meditation, an entering into the light of a more human and humane worldview.  Note: the works depicted here in this article are not presented chronologically.

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A fascination with science and the spiritual, not a dichotomy to Costanza, runs through the exhibit. Above, Costanza’s sculpture “Returning Jurassic.” This piece is also an attempt to create steam using heat generated from the heat of a jet engine. The assemblage used both gas and liquid fuel sources – but not in this exhibition. The piece stands on its own though, as a sculptural work even without the creation of “real” energy. The art’s energy speaks for itself.

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The artist’s fascination with the electrification of cities and homes carries throughout his work. He’s buried copper wire under layers of pigment, earth, and gesso and induced current through the wires, taking him 1.5 years to create a literally searing early work.  He’s utilized actual power poles for installations and stage sets. Above, this theme is carried in a hyper-realistic work edged with the abstract and surreal in both form and function.

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Above, a depiction of Costantza’s experience “moving from the vacuum of a nuclear family into the educational system.” Rote learning and the subjugation of the mind produced little of the energy that fascinates the artist. Rather it was a negative energy space from which his personal positivity later sprang.

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Wires, grids, power, energy. Connections.

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Below, a video detailing the process of “stream entry” using Vipassana meditation. Costanza learned to create videos on his Mac for a crowdfuding campaign, wherein he pledged to upload this second, enlightening video.

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Costanza has worked on and off in the aerospace industry for years. He has termed himself “mesmerized” by  the “visual aesthetics” of systems built and used.

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“The book that changed everything for me was mastering the core teachings of the Buddha through Theravada Buddhism. If done correctly there are four awakenings,” Costanza relates. Theravada Buddhism is one of two great schools of Buddhist doctrine, one which emphasizes personal salvation through one’s own efforts.

The dynamic of “repulsion and attraction” that the artist feels for the intellectual and literal power grid, is very evident below, as he’s dropped in and out of the industry.

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And the bliss continues. “I taught a class on meditation last summer to prepare people for a retreat. I can help people prepare and go deeper. I’m doing this show to get a direction forward. My older stuff is darker, my newer stuff lighter. I’m ready for a new transition, but it’s not crystal clear yet where it’s coming from. Maybe it’s a balance of the two extremes.”

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Costanza has started a company, Rocket Buddha, which creates artistic, meditative T-shirts. This may be a new direction.

But the heart of his work? “Assemblage,” the artist says.

And in a way, every piece in this show and every step Costanza takes is an assemblage – of varied techniques and moments that have come before, follow after, and exist only in the present, in viewers’ artistically electrified eyes.

Let’s continue the metaphor. Costanza’s work is electrifying.

Go get connected. Sunday’s closing runs from 5 to 10 pm. At 7:30, Costanza will create a performance that supports this quote: “Is it not an ethical imperative and challenge to create situations that mock, question, interrupt, undermine and subvert the continuum of progress that keeps (catastrophic) things going?” Victor Zamunio-Taylor

Neutra Institute Gallery & Museum is located at 2379 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90039

  • Genie Davis; All Photos: Jack Burke