The Supernatural and the Superwoman: Travis Louie and Sally Deng at KP Projects

Posted on by Diversions LA

f23c1827

In a super exhibit at KP Projects, artists Travis Louie and Sally Deng respectively present one exhibition that deals with the supernatural, Louie’s
“Views from a Netherworld,” and one that deals with the super strength of the female of the species, “Women Work.”

Travis Louie’s “Views from a Netherworld” presents a haunting exhibition inspired by collected 19th Century photography, German expressionist films, and noir, according to the artist.

f23c1830

 

“When I make these paintings, I am creating a world,” Louie explains. “We absorb information all our lives and it goes through filters and then comes out again. You can look at any of my work and see what it is that comes out there. I create characters based on what I have assimilated, and I try to imagine their lives. I love the idea of myth and the ideas of haunting things from a netherworld.”

The artist grew up watching a great deal of film noir. The cinema style affected him both in terms of it’s visual look and its inherent darkness.

f23c1829

The artist paints beautifully detailed monochromatic works highlighted by the slightest of color around the eyes of many subjects. Above is the artist’s “Miss Christina and Crow,” the idea for which came from the viewing of a 50s era film titled “Burn Witch Burn.”

His delicate, supernatural-tinged work has the glow of moonlight in a cemetery, an unnatural yet spiritual vibration emanates from his work along with its highly cinematic quality. 

f23c1833

The link between Louie and Sally Deng’s “Women Work” may well be the fact that both artists create stories in their work. Deng’s are far different than Louie, drawings that are close to naive in style, highly detailed, and folkloric. Like illustrations from a wonderful picture book, Deng draws the mythic tales of women working to create a busy and beautiful world.

f23c1832

Her figures, like Louie’s, but in a completely different fashion, create narratives that draw the viewer into their own memories, their own stories, their own visions.

f23c1836

Closing November 5th, view the diverse stories of these two artists at KP Projects located at 170 S. La Brea.

f23c1823

While there, be sure to also check out the vibrant abstracts on exhibit upstairs at LAUNCH.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke

Corey Helford Gallery – Hardly Archaic

Posted on by Diversions LA

corey-gallery-shot-ram

Closing Oct. 29th is another strong and thoroughly unique show at the Corey Helford Gallery, featuring three artists who present their own riveting views of the natural world both outside and within us.

corey-gallery-shot-whit-sculpture

New York-based artist Martin Wittfooth’s The Archaic Revival occupies the main gallery. These stunningly detailed oil paintings display a beautiful and varied use of brush treatments and palette knife to create images that evoke the past while contemplating the future. Also on hand are bronze sculptures, a new medium for Wittfooth.

corey-h-whit3

“The title of the show is borrowed from Terrence McKenna,” Wittfooth says, “it refers to our subjective culture. We have stepped far away from the connection to nature. We have created technological and industrial barriers between us and nature.”

corey-h-whit-4 corey-h-whit-2 corey-gallery-shot-whit-buffalo

Calling his works here a “visual homage” to McKenna, he views his paintings as a “first step” toward creating balance. The late philospher McKenna explored the idea that Western culture and society has become sick, and needs a healing process which can only be achieved by a reversion to archaic, or old-fashioned values. Wittfooth believes that only through a return to the past can man see himself as he truly is, a part of nature. That return is the subject of his work here. His lush color palette features complimentary colors as an approach to subjects he has explored over time, the artist notes.

corey-h-entrance

His sculptures, however, represent a new approach for the artist. “This is my first foray into bronze,” he relates. “The group at MetalPhysic Sculpture Studio in Tucson did a great job of translating my two dimensional works into three dimensions. It’s interesting to me to explore that relationship.” Wittfooth plans a continuation of this collaborative sculpture. “I have several of the guys from the foundry here tonight, looking at blueprints I’ve created for future work,” he told us at the show’s opening.

corey-h-whit-6 corey-gallery-shot-fox-whit

With paintings that are imbued with a golden light and a seemingly timeless synchronisity of color, and sculptures that have a monumental feel, this is an important show by an artist intent on relaying a timely message, connecting viewers to the natural world using techniques that compliment rather than deter from the subject. This is an elegy, a tribute, and a wake-up call, begging viewers to return, as he has through his artworks, to the ideals of nature and its healing process.

corey-h-general corey-h-general-2

Also on hand at Helford is Korin Faught’s Lost Days.  

corey-h-faught-2

“This show is basically about my time in bed, the time I’ve lost,” Faught says. “Every show I like to take my work to a slightly different concept, one that goes beyond a single piece. You really need to see the entire series at once, and I encourage people to see them in person.”

corey-h-faught-1

Although her work is markedly different that Wittfooth’s, she shares with him a traditional and highly detailed painterly style, and a sense of the elegaic. Faught describes her work as influenced by turn-of-the-century painters such as John Singer Sargent.

corey-h-faught-3

“The show is essentially five years of work postponed because of the timing of the birth of my first child,” she notes.

corey-h-faught-6

Using multiple poses from the same model, Faught describes her intention as both “self and omni referential.” Her figures, wrapped in sheets, resting and restless in bed, depict both transcendent and dream-like states and as she describes it, “a body in torment…an escape into the mind set ajar.”

corey-h-faught-4

Completing this significant show are the works of Hannah Yata in “Dancing in Delirium.”

corey-h-third-gallery-2

 

The other-worldly, vivid, sci-fi like images offer an entirely different take on the state of the mind and the natural world.  The artist views her paintings as their own kind of dance, using the female figure combined with animal parts to create hybrid creatures that are inspired by religion, literature, psychology, and her experiences as a woman.

corey-h-third-gallery-1

The Corey Helford Gallery is located at 571 S Anderson St. in DTLA.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis and courtesy of Corey Helford Gallery.

 

 

 

 

The Colors of Charisse Abellana

Posted on by Diversions LA

f23c1861

Charisse Abellana loves color. And flowers. With work that blossoms like the real thing, Abellana creates incandescent, fully realized floral depictions that are as delicately rendered as the work of Jan Brueghel the Elder, as thick and rich as the roses that Henri Fantin-Latour painted.

f23c1851

Abellana’s Colors, now at the Topanga Canyon Gallery through October 30th, includes her most recent body of work, 12 8 x 8 individual flowers, with paint so layered and tactile that the blooms seem to leap off the canvas. Along with these smaller pieces is a vast piece, My Poppies Twelve Years Hence, an exuberant bouquet whose vivid hues pop off a serene blue and white background.

f23c1898

Not only are the colors intense, but it is the thickness of Abellana’s paint that draws the eye, and creates the illusion of actual petals.  What drew Abellana to her art? While she has painted professionally since 2002,  it was only in the past six months that her art took on a fiery new dimension and purpose for her. According to the artist, it was a sea change in her personal life that renewed and expanded her passion.

f23c1905

“I ended an addictive relationship,” she attests. “And I contemplated what to do with my life. I decided to  work on my paintings. The pieces I created in this show are looser, the strokes are looser, because I felt freer to express myself.” Abellana believes that “an artist needs pain to create. I work with a palette knife, and with those knife strokes, you never know if the next stroke will make or break a painting. If I had not gone through a life changing experience, transcended the relationship I was in, I would not have been able to be so free or so bold.”

f23c1874

In this show, are other paintings with a tea-time theme, such as her large scale “High Tea with Andrea.” Unlike her current work, these pieces are more muted in color palette, more delicate in terms of the application of paint.  “Those pieces are softer, more romantic,” she notes.

f23c1855

At the time, she thought of the idea of a tea as a theme. “I was in a tea shop on Sherman Way in the Valley, and I picked up a mismatched tea cup and plate and put them together. They looked so beautiful. I realized you could mix and match these items, the flowers, and create something beautiful. I was so struck by the idea that for a time I started a tea party business, giving parties. Setting up the parties and exploring how the settings would look influenced me a great deal.”

f23c1908 f23c1909

While Abellana has always been a palette knife artist, her past works have not had the sweeping style and intensity of her Poppies series.

“I love working with the knife. Years ago, I was so moved by an artist whose work I saw while traveling in Peru who used these techniques, I knew that was the technique I wanted to employ.”  According to Abellana, palette knife paintings are “unexpected, almost irreverent…there is always that moment of emotional upheaval every time I put a stroke. The paint thus becomes a sculptural element on canvas.”

f23c1895 f23c1888

Along with her commitment to palette knife technique, Abellana is also focused on using oils rather than acrylic paint in her works on canvas.

f23c1906

“I like the richness and shine of oil. It’s rich in a way acrylic can’t be. I also like to paint wet on wet,” she states. “Acrylic dries right away, but with oil, it stays wet, and you can layer wet on wet, which creates a whole different feel to a painting. I had to master the ability to do it,” she says, “painting wet on wet is hard to master. But I love doing it. In Van Gogh paintings you see colors you do not think would be there, and when you step back it becomes all one, it becomes complete. That is a part of that wet on wet technique.”

f23c1850

While she has worked in other mediums, oil remains her first choice, captivated by what she calls the “thrilling element of surprise” in painting wet on wet. “I love painting layers and layers of paint that make it more exhilarating.  I love painting the sides of the thick canvas because viewing it from the side is also art in itself. Once I am done, the painting is a finished piece of art, with or without a frame,” she remarks.

f23c1944 f23c1902

Trained to mix her own colors, the artist believes she can imagine any color or combination of colors and put it on the canvas directly from her imagination to her knife.

f23c1872

What does the future hold for Abellana? “I want my art to show in all four corners of the world. I want it to inspire people. Art lifts us above the ugliness in the world, and I think creating art, that is my purpose in life, to elevate others, to inspire. I want to get to a place where I can truly reach that goal.”

f23c1935

Abellana’s work will be exhibited through October 30th at the Topanga Canyon Gallery 120 S Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Topanga.

f23c1901

  • Genie Davis; photos:  Jack Burke