Above Shoebox projects premiered their residency series with a work by Jennifer Gunlock and Susan Feldman Tucker.
Shoebox Projects began hosting a new artist residency in November, offering space for emerging and mid-career artists to present work ranging from encompassing installations to more traditional gallery shows. Founder Kristine Schomaker, an artist herself and owner of Shoebox PR, an artist marketing agency, created the space located in DTLA’s Brewery lofts, to provide a venue for artists to experiment and expand.
Above, Schomaker with Gunlock and Feldman.
The first exhibition in the new space concluded with a reception just before Thanksgiving from artists Jennifer Gunlock and Susan Feldman. It was Schomaker’s idea that this very different artistic pair work together.
The reception allowed viewers to intimately explore a single, encompassing installation, one that involved both Gunlock’s drawings with collage and gesso-transfer and Feldman’s wood and found materials sculptures. The end result is a tree house fantasy, a wildly creative mix of fairy-tale house, wilderness shack, and surrealistic living space.
“We don’t want to project too much of an agenda on it, but a few inspirations, words and phrases we bounced around about it were Disneyland’s Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, abandoned privies, secret hiding places, a ladder to nowhere, and a jungle gym,” Gunlock says.
Above, details from Feldman-Tucker’s sculptural work, wood, rope, and other found pieces coalesced into an expansive structure.
Whimsical and packed with creative elements that allowed viewers to discover nooks and crannies, swings and secret sleeping spots, the work was delightful, a free-form world-building experience that encouraged viewer participation.
Above, a detail from Gunlock’s work, which evokes images of New Orleans style in the structure of a tree house.
Shoebox Projects is fully booked for the coming year with their monthly series of residencies, each of which will end with a solo show. Viewers are encouraged to attend not just the concluding reception, but to engage with artists and their work throughout the month long process.
The next artist in residence will be Susan Amorde, followed by Emily Wiseman, and Karrie Ross, above left.
Shoebox Projects is located at the Brewery, 660 South Avenue 21 #3 in Los Angeles.
- Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis, Kristine Schomaker