Waves of Light: Justine Serebrin

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Justine Serebrin’s art is awash in light. Her work exudes light as a transformative feature, it glows inwardly and surges outwardly with a brightness of color as she creates images that evoke sunbeams, reflective water, and glass prisms casting rainbows.

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Working in spray paint and thickly textured swirls of water-based oil, Serebrin’s images dance with a mystical quality and draw viewers to her use of sacred geometry. While her paintings are narrative and distinctly of the sea, they are also spiritual, as she strives to draw viewers into a realm beyond or within our own intellectual comprehension. Many of her pieces include what the artist identifies as “towers of magic” that seem suspended in a lustrously dream-like state.

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Perhaps the dreamy serendipity infused in her work is no surprise. Serebrin begins her work with meditation, visualisation, and then a strong formulation of the images; many paintings seem to unfold as if in a visual trance. They seem tidal, flowing visually and inhabited with shapes that evoke comparisions to flowers and sea creatures, floating in the water of imagination.  Some of her works’ inner glow is through her use of startling, shifting colors. Like an ocean wave or a gemstone changeable in light, the works are multi-faceted and the palette shifts in a dance of water spray.

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Serebrin herself speaks of the “high vibrational energies” in her work; many pieces she says are created as “portals for meditation.” The invitation to visually enter a higher spiritual realm or meditative plane seems deeply personal both to artist and viewer. There’s a strong sense of engagement, as if Serebrin were personaly invivting viewers to set an intention, to use their own powers for beauty and a richer, more fulfilled life from within.

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Along with her paintings, Serebrin has also created what she terms a “portable support for divine guidance” in a richly visual Rainbow Warrior Activation Deck that helps users to process their spiritual energy; she is also the force and founder of Earth Altar Studio, where clients can receive tattoos, piercing, and lasers.

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Serebrin promises that Earth Altar’s work will bring an enhanced physical and spiritual self to the fore. The Eagle Rock studio invokes the idea of tattooing as an ancient spiritual process; Serebrin can channel a unique design symbolizing what a person wants to call into their lives.  With that in mind, Serebrin also offers supportive information from researchers, spiritual teachers, healers, and others through her Higher Vibe Living, presenting content that she feels will assist one’s state of well-being and improve daily life.

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In each of these endeavors and embedded in her artwork is the idea that Serebrin is not “only” an artist, but a transformative conduit of healing and spirituality. Her ocean images are related to her early SoCal years spend snorkling, when she first noticed troubling debris and decaying marine life on the shore. ​Seeking to honor what she calls the ocean’s “deep power” and supporting ocean awareness and stewardship are important aspects of her art. Having traveled the globe experiencing various beaches and seas, Serebrin incorporates sea creatures, water patterns and waves into her work.

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In her recent body of work, The Sacred Sea, she focused on raising the awareness of our oceans and their fragility, as well as the risk posed to them. The artist has exhibited in museums from Louisiana to Texas as well as holding exhibitions in the Los Angeles area. 

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Among the standouts in her recent work are pieces such as “Sacred Sea City,” with pearly bubbles rising against a backdrop of a magical, open-shell shape; and “Ocean Oracle,” a painting the vibrates with purples and deep pinks with a golden heart opening like a gift at the center of the work.

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Her images are both realistic and detailed, and yet amorphous in nature, taking viewers into uncharted spiritual waters filled with heightened color and light. Portal images create entrances into alternate realities as in “Lemuria Recativated,” below.

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Serebrin gives new meaning to the term “enlightened artist” with graceful work that both reveals her own personal levels of enlightenment and growth, and offers a look at the potential for an enlightened world to viewers.

  • Genie Davis; images courtesy of the artist and Shoebox PR.

 

 

 

 

Land, Air, Sea: Works by Mb Boissonnault, Bryan Ida, and Annie Seaton at Beyond Baroque

 

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Curated by Byran Ida, and featuring the works of Ida, Mb Boissonnault, and Annie Seaton, Littoral is a beautiful look toward the horizon line and the sea. Running through May 5th, the exhibition’s title refers to the “zone where the land, air, and sea come together” as the curator’s notes state, and the three different components of the earth meet.

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Photo above: Mike Street captures all three artists, left to right, Seaton, Ida, Boissonault

Littoral is limitless, filled with promise, edged with a poignancy at our inability to comprehend and three artists’ masterful attempts to shape their own comprehension.  It is an exhibition that grasps a moment of alchemy, where a sense of bliss meets the power, danger, and magnitute of nature. It’s an amorphous but profound moment, a transition of sorts, and the three artists here, in different but richly blended ways are seeking to convey it. Using color and composition, form, line, and texture, the artists depict the interaction of humans with natural wonder; even if that interaction is purely by casting our gaze upon it. As the late Tom Petty once sang, it’s “into the great wide open…under them skies of blue…” What will we find there? What do these artists find?

Ida’s work is always highly textured; here he is using tiny points, or dots, to depict air and water and figure, humming along a mystical line between the magical and the discernable.

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Above, “Prone.”

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“Ascension,” above, buries layers of color in shades subtle enough to almost but not quite hide the deep glowing light that seems ready to burst from the depths of the work, created in acrylic on panel.  

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Ida’s “Open” intersects water with air. The background specifically, he says, “plays with value and color.”

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With “Topside,” Ida captures infinite star-like molecules of water using what he describes as “hundreds of coats of semi-transparent paint to achieve a sense of depth.” Within this, he is giving us a veritable constellation of shapes, or as he terms it “you can see the beginning of some figuration.” In each of his works here, Ida takes us to a place beyond our knowing, yet almost within our reach, seething in and out like the relentless tides, almost carrying us away.

Seaton’s work takes us to a different sort of understanding, to a place where people have met the water and sand and air, and feel as if they know it; you can feel the ocean breezes ruffling their hair; you can sense the palpable joy and tension in the moment of communion with the life of the sea. Below, left,  “Double Indigo Surfer, Rockpiles, North Shore, HI;” to the right, “Indigo Surfer and fins, North Shore, HI.” Both are inkjet prints on washi paper, with indigo dye and linen thread.

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Above, she gives us surfers, riding, ready to ride, considering a ride. How we love imagining we are the masters of the mighty forces that draw us to the coast and beyond it, into its tide. There is something comforting in that, and in the quilted structure of this work.

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The powerful allure of the sea, and the illusion of taming it; with artist Seaton, above.

Seaton makes these images wonderfully filled with the texture of the sea, with the human desire to be in it, and with it, and of it, to conquor it, civilize it in a sense. Or perhaps what we really want, Seaton suggests, is to ingest some of the sea’s wildness.

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Above, “Rose Madder Quilt, Laguna Violet.” Below, “Indigo Surf Quilt: Waves and Boards.”

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Boissonault gives us a softer, almost impressionistic look at ocean colors, at catapulting waves, at those dancing horizon lines that lure sailors and give sirens their song. Her jewel like colors and lustrous textures wash over us like the water she depicts.

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The sea evokes the heavens as well as the deep. It can lift us up or swallow us whole. We are tiny fish to swim here. Working in oil, oil and synthetic, or oil and acrylic, Boissonault plumbs the depths and we can feel them take us, we are gloriously awash in the tumult.

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But we are also entrusted with the shimmering reflective jewels of the water and the way it splashes into the air we breathe, exhilerating us, as in “Find Myself a City to Live in (2),” above.

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Above, Boissonault with “Find Myself a City to Live in (3).” The hexagonal shapes that rise out of Boissonault’s waters, above, are mysterious and archetypal, like monoliths of our own construction pushing out from the ocean floor. Or are they citadels, rising, beaming us up through the atmosphere to another realm.

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Above, “Find Myself a City to Live in.” Boissonault’s depiction is ethereal here, aglow with promise.

Whether you count yourself as a lover of the sea or a more inland creature, take a swim over to Beyond Baroque in Venice and take in this visceral, vibrant show; dive in to its depths.

Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis; supplemental from Mike Street as indicated, and as provided by the artists.

SABROSO Craft Beer, Taco & Music Festival

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Described by the band Face to Face as “a backyard BBQ with thousands of people at the beach,” the annual SABROSO Craft Beer, Taco & Music Festival rocked out at Dana Point earlier this month.
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Generous performances were the order of the two-day fest, by bands including Flogging Molly, Bad Religion, Lagwagon, Strung Out, The Suicide Machines, Adolescents and D.I. on Saturday and The Offspring, Descendents, Black Flag, Face To Face, Plague Vendor, Red City Radio and Orange Blossom Special, on Sunday.
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It was the 6th annual festival, and drew 20,000 fans to the beach-front location at Doheny State Beach. Along with the music, there was craft beer sampling, gourmet tacos, Lucha Libre wrestling, and a taco-eating contest.  At the latter, world record holder Takeru Kobayashi won again, in a close contest with Molly Schuyler. He ate a stomach-churning 157 tacos in 10 minutes.
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Without consuming this many tasty tacos, attendees were able to indulge on the Sabroso Best Of Show winning taco from Pink Taco – poached octopus  with chorizo, potatoes, onion, and peppers, as well as vegan jack fruit tacos, Baja-style tacos, and the popular Fiesta Gourmet fried beer battered shrimp on pickled cabbage.
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All could be topped with Gringo Bandito – an award-winning hot sauce from Dexter Holland of The Offspring. To wash it all down, yes, there was beer. 150 craft brews in fact, served up each day until 4 p.m.
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Favorites included Russian River Brewing, locals  Artifex Brewing Company, Burgeon Beer Co., and Wild Barrel, and newcomers to the craft beer scene including he Shop Beer Co. and Papa Marce’s Cerveceria.
And there was cider…
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Among the musical highlights was a Saturday performance by Adolescents, with a tribute to founding member Steve Soto, who passed away last June at age 54.

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Opening band The Suicide Machines and lead singer Jason Navaro got the crowd going; fans body surfed to head-banging sounds from Strung Out and Lagwagon on Saturday; on Sunday,  Plague Vendor was a tough act to follow, but follow they did. The punk scene doesn’t tire easily.Punk is definitely alive and well…so what if there were enough grey hairs on stage to start a small retirement facility.

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Punk classic acts like The Offspring, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Descendants, and Flogging Molly proved their mettle, turning in strong sets, as the crowd on the packed lawn danced, cheered, and vibed long after dark.

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SABROSO Craft Beer, Taco & Music Festival is produced by music festival production company Synergy Global Entertainment, Inc. (SGE) and California’s craft beer festival producer Brew Ha Ha Productions. There was a charitable twist, too: a portion of the proceeds from the fest will be donated to the Doheny State Beach Interpretive Association (DSBIA), and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
By Lizzy Gonzalez
Genie Davis; general festival photos: Jack Burke; The Offspring band photos by Anthony Duty; photo above by Lizzy Gonzalez.

Betzi Stein – Artist as People Person

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From hands to faces, Betzi Stein creates incredibly vivid, wonderful depictions of people as a life form, their energy and emotion and purpose palpable in her vibrant work. Her contemporary realism shines with genuine love, a love that seems both hard fought and deeply won.

Asked what inspires her work, Betzi Stein keeps it simple “People… I am drawn to people of all shapes, sizes and colors. And if they are doing or wearing something interesting or quirky, I get a hit telling me to record the moment. Very often they are just folks living their lives, who happen to pass through my visual field and get caught, preferably unbeknownst to them, in the lens of my iPhone and potentially/eventually onto my canvas.”

 

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Above, Reflexting – the work captures a mundane moment and makes it sing and literally shine; it reflects not just in that car bumper but in the viewer’s mind.

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Stein relates that “I have come to realize over time that my art is all about ME. My desire—quest, really—is to learn to love and accept myself for who I am.  I have spent much of my life living through other people, comparing and judging myself against them as well as being equally judgmental of others. I assume that I’ve had such difficulty being able to articulate why I make my art because I’ve allowed others to judge my work.”

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Above, the artist with a painting of – herself.

She adds that with her current body of work, her own understanding and acceptance of self has deepened leading her to chose more carefully who she chooses as her subject, the “regular people who I celebrate as I celebrate myself.” She finds she’s more confident and willing to experiment with new ideas and materials.

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Stein began as a sculpture major in college, always working figuratively; later she found a calling as a massage therapist, which she says “felt completely natural to me, sculpting living bodies rather than creating them out of clay. The evolution from one to the other was cathartic and gave me a deep respect for what I could do with my hands. When I began to paint, it felt important to honor my hands and those of others with the Massage and Hands portraits.”

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These paintings are of a particularly poignant luster. “It’s not the paintings—but the spiritual connection they represent—that brought them into being and further affects what my work is about now.”

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Both of her current series, no surprise, involve paintings of people. They are each rich in detail, delightful, and fully realized stories that bring her subjects to a life that is not only easily recognizable but wonderfully rewarding for the viewer to explore.

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“The first, which I’ll call the Bold Series, can be people who I may or may not know, and who I’m inspired to paint for any number of reasons. Often single figures are shown against solid, brightly colored backgrounds. Bold colors are a defining characteristic of each painting.”

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The second is a new series on the art world, as with her above work, “Art Fair.” Stein explains “I am interested in the people who populate every aspect of that world, for which I have a love/hate relationship, and which, of course, includes me and my fellow artists, gallerists, critics, collectors, art lovers, auctioneers, art handlers, etc. So far, the few works that I’ve completed are set in an environment of some kind and I plan to continue in that vein.”

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Her narrative structure in her work is based on the fact that each subject seems to tell a story to the artist she says, before she creates the work.

“If I know the person(s) there is something compelling about them and their story that usually affects me on an emotional level. If I don’t know them, the reason I chose to paint them is revealed to me intuitively. Whatever the reason, I am not just painting bodies.”
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Indeed not – she is painting lives, or perhaps more to the point, making art come alive. The subjects are so involving, so perfectly rendered, as to be before the viewer, paused for a moment as if time stopped, then moving on to new adventures in viewers’ minds and hearts.

“I am a realist painter paying enormous attention to the formal elements that go into creating a work of art, and specifically include the aspects of my personality that make each piece my own: humor, snark when necessary, empathy, com(passion) and heart.”

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She asserts that “The people I paint are very personal to me, and it feels like I am inhabiting their being while I am painting them. Once the painting is finished, I disconnect. I equate it to how an actor immerses herself into the character she is playing until the project is completed.”

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Stein is not only a rather glorious artist, she’s just one of those people. People who love people. And she makes us love them all, too.

  • Genie Davis; Photos provided by the artist and Shoebox PR