Begin 2024 with Epic Art Exhibitions from 2023

Posted on by Diversions LA

Hurry this weekend to see the closing of the lush landscapes and dream-like, pristine views created by master artist Hung Viet Nguyen at Lois Lambert Gallery in Bergamot Station.

Likely the last iteration of Nguyen’s Sacred Landscape Series V — the artist plans new projects for the year ahead – Pilgrimage is lush, mysterious, magical, and of course, spiritual. Explore large scale works like “Sacred Landscape V #57,” in which a volcano is added to the lagoon-scape; or a vertical take on a similar scene replete with volcanoes, crater and waterfall, in “Sacred Landscape V #36.” Relatively new for Nguyen is his inclusion of small human figures in the vast and embracing landscapes. Some swim, some take selfies. There are flowers, arches, jewel-like stones.

Presenting portals, gateways, stars, and incandescent skies,  this series includes elements of gold leaf among the rich, rivetingly textured oil-on-canvas works. A smaller series within this body of work contains six perfect 12 x 12 more diminuitive landscapes, as well as eleven images sized 14 x 11.  These stunning smaller treasures would make a stellar start to New Year’s collecting resolutions.

But take note – the exhibition is only up through the 6th of January, so plan your weekend accordingly.

Above, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, curtor with artist Curtis Stage

You have more time to head south to the Irvine Arts Center, where the vibrant palette and complex sculptures, paintings, and assemblages of Revision are up through February 3rd.

Well worth the drive are the fascinating limestone and granite dominant scultpures from Naim Kurani…

dense, excitingly motion-packed oil on canvas and oil with wax and gold leaf on canvas works from the vivid brush of Hagop Najarian…

and multi-media abstract works than sing with bold excitement from Max Prexneill.

Also on display are a series of archival print’s documenting a live-art installation created by Stephanie Sherwood on site at the exhibition’s November 8th opening, the created installation is also on display…

you’ll also find mixed media assemblages from John Sollom that are deeply dimensional and serve as fascinating treasure hunts for the eye…

Curtis Stage creates illusionary world through his archival giclee prints on artist paper,  vibrating with black and white patterns,  and Surge Witron creates abstract acrylic and spray paint works that are equally powered by movement and light.

On display through collabortion with art collective Durden and Ray with curatorial support from Carlos Beltran Arechiga, this is a powerful exhibition featuring hybrid forms and exploratory juxtapositions. Above all, this varied exhibition sings with color, movement, and compelling shapes.

Above, artists Carolyn Mason and Dani Dodge

In an adjoining gallery, Into the Garden is a two-person exhibition that creates the titular Edenic space by pairing delicate, ephermeral fabric works by Dani Dodge with the mysterious and alien expandable foam sculptures of Carolyn Mason.

Viewers are invited to wander between the hanging, sheer fabric works from Dodge, alive with desert creatures, other flora and fauna, and shining from lustrous sewn-on jewels and beading. Viewers will feel as if they are walking through a soft, floating Mojave landscape that shifts, dreamlike, with evey step.

Mason’s fascinating mixed media sculptures are otherwordly and wondrous, creating a terrific contrast of form and shape that when combined transports the viewer beyond the gallery walls. This exhibition is also curated with Durden and Ray and Carlos Beltran Arechiga.

Up ’til February 3rd, there will be an artist talk the last weekend in January – again, don’t miss. 

Lastly – also through February 3rd, Icelandic artist Jónsi presents sound, light, and if you’re lucky, even a taste of Icelandic moonshine, in an entirely unique exhibition at Tanya Bonkadar Gallery in mid-city.

The artist and musician has created a sound-centric immersive environment, as well as color shifting, hypnotic LED light screens, sensorial-heightening herbacious scents of freshly cut grass and flowers, and the wave vibrations of a sculpture comprised of 100 speakers. It’s an entirely unique sculptural experience.

What are you waiting for? Go out and get arting before January slips away in post-holiday fog!

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

We Need Mirrors To See Ourselves – Nikolas Soren Goodich Reflects Our Lives

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Nikolas Soren Goodich’s We Need Mirrors To See Ourselves is an excellent way to close the old year or start the new. On view through January 11th at Santa Monica’s Gallery 169, the exhibition of 18 different works is a luminous and transformative one, weaving a vivid palette with literally light-fused glass and plexiglass on canvas and panel.

Some works are designed for indoor/outdoor exhibition, others are wall art, but both are filled with a figurative and actual glow that fuses dream and reality. There are the large scale works of “Luminous Mysteries/Human Symmetries Ground One and Ground Two” are two-sided works that use kiln-fired glass paint on tempered glass and acrylic on plexiglass encased in a weatherproof aluminum frame. These works feature embedded LED lights and transformer, and are as vivid as neon works, using ambers and gold that exemplify sunlight and shadow.

Acrylic paint on plexiglass and canvas, there are dyptichs such as “To Bathe in the Luminous Orange Love Glow of the Sun King/Sun Queen,” deep gold works that are like rays of light given human form.

Other works are entirely figurative, such as the twinned red faces in “Untitled New Psychedelic Diptych” and “Humananimal 1.” These works speak to the human condition, as does “Doppelganger,” an acrylic on plexiglass work with LED lights embedded in the frame.

The works are twinned images that combine Goodich’s painting and printmaking. Working with plexi and kiln-fired glass, the artist has developed a unique process that he describes as “meticulously crafted to honor the materials, distinct surface densities, interaction with light, and their inherent reflectivity and transparency.”

The result is fiercely beautiful, dynamic works which utilize bold and translucent colors. His process involves carefully “pouring or brushing these mixtures onto the surface of glass panels laid flat on a table, transitioning to hand mono-printing from one panel to another.”

His works have a fluently intricate quality, with images that appear patterned and lacy, almost as if the images of faces that make up the core of his work were woven or pressed like preserved flowers or insect wings. Goodich says that his technique “allows me to craft the intricate symmetries and asymmetries that form the backbone of the organic and geometric structures in my multilayered artworks.”

The panels dry flat, preserving the “delicate mono-printed marks along with their subtle shifts in color and translucency.” The artist’s process allows the formation of varied markings, a tapestry with fibers that are entirely painted, which serve, he says, as “both ambiguous and direct metaphors for a multitude of concepts spanning physics, biology, chemistry, geography, consciousness,
and philosophy. They reflect a profound exploration of our physical world, from the subatomic level to the cosmic expanse.”

Goodich’s work both engage and soothes, creating a sense of spirituality and succor contained within its vivid light. This sensation is by design as “…the heart of my art is the theme of healing,” he explains. The self-mirroring in the exhibition reflects both the  resilience and the fragility of the human spirit, and the power of how people “perceive themselves and the potential for growth, change, realization, and learning” that comes from true self-reflection.

His personal journey is deeply embedded in these works, a harrowing path with a powerfully beautiful shift from homelessness and a 13-year methamphetamine addiction that nearly took the artist’s life, to 9-and-a-half years clean and sober. “My recovery and transformation resonate with the profound metaphor of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly,” he says.

There are images in this body of work – most pieces created just this year, that resemble butterfly wings, or the emergence of form from a chrysalis. These include the closely conjoined profiles of “Wings of Desire II” and the geometric rainbow pattern in the center of “My Black Grandfather William and My White Grandfather William in a Cosmic Rainbow Mind’s Eye Vision Out of Time and Place and Space.”

The emergence of Goodich’s healing art was not only a personal catharsis for him, but serves in that way for the viewer as well, as the works shimmer with a kind of magical glow,  one which intensifies in a dark setting, as well as interacting and responding to “their surroundings, [which change] with the light of day or night and the viewer’s perspective. The glass surfaces not only reflect their environment but also absorb ambient light, adding layers to their visual narrative.”

This shifting is exhilarating to behold in a variety of light, as the works interact with the space that contains them as well as with reflective daylight, shadow, sunrise, sunset, and evening. The layering of glass “[acts] sculpturally in 3D and even 4D as they interact with time, space, light, and mood,” Goodich says.

The work on view is an evolution over a 25-year period devoted to creating layered paintings with a base of canvas topped with glass, clear plastics, or plexiglass. His two-sided works, enhanced by back or edge-lighting, use this light itself to create another transformative layer. “By working with glass, which naturally transmits light, I’ve crafted layered pieces that emanate an inner glow,” he says. That glow gives these works not just light, but a sense of life – each work provides a delightfully motion-filled aliveness.

On display are works from two main series, Goodich’s Inverted Double Portraits, which use plexiglass diptychs mounted on canvas or wood panels to present a twinned duality and sense of emergence, and Luminous Symmetries, his impressive two-sided glass works framed and illuminated with embedded LED lights. The latter works are their own glowing slices of human and planetary life, cosmically creative.

According to Goodich, “I perceive art as a reflective mirror, echoing both our internal and external existences. In this spirit, I incorporate mirroring and the motif of the profile portrait as symbolic devices. These elements, though seemingly representing living entities, are in fact almost entirely abstract in their portrayal.”

Along with this gallery exhibition, Goodich has many plans to extend his artistic glow. 2024 will see museum exhibitions of his work, including work to be featured at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster. Goodich is also developing well-received plans for an exciting public art project with sites planned in both Richmond, Va., and here in Los Angeles. The Luminous Community Center is visualized as a socially engaged public art project that is designed “to create monumental-scale installations that foster community engagement and social healing.” To learn more about his lustrous vision, see luminouscommunitycenter.net.

But to explore Goodich’s art live – with daylight or moonlight as a backdrop through the many glass walls of Gallery 169, do visit the exhibition for an infusion of healing light, through January 11th. There will be an artist’s talk with art critic and curator Shana Nys Dambrot held on January 11th.

  • Genie Davis; photos both by Genie Davis and as provided by the artist

 

Design This For Some Holiday Cheer

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If you’re looking for something a bit more mellow than spiked egg nog for the holidays – or to chill with on a bright New Year’s night, THC Design may have just what you’re looking for.  As a premium cannabis cultivator, THC Design offers estate grown, single-sourced flower for a wide variety of brands. Environmentally aware, the company utilizes advanced cultivation practices and techniques to achieve self-sustainable operation and renewable energy resources. Using integrated pest management, water reclamation techniques, LED lighting, and renewable energy, THC Design’s goal is to be the first company to be carbon-neutral and climate positive in the indoor cannabis industry.

Of course, the products themselves are just as carefully curated as the growing process and the company’s environmental awareness. Committed to the science behind cannabis, THC Design is working to identify the roles of not only THC and CBD but  the dozens of other therapeutic compounds in cannabis, developing plants that provide a premium product and can more accurately treat disease and ailments. Shifting away from THC percentages to a more balanced and intuitive view of the ways different cannabis chemotypes affect different people, the company is committed to helping people thrive – not just mellow out.

Among the company’s offered cannibis products are indica strains, recommended for relaxation, pain management, inflammation, and anxiety relief. The effects are relaxing and sedative, and include signature strains such as the Garlic Cocktail, a cross of GMO and Mimosa strains offering “earthy notes of clove, anise and orange-tangerine-citrus finish.”

The company cites this strain as “perfect…for pain relief and inflmmation without the typical sedative qualities of most indica-dominant strains” for a relaxing but not sleep-inducing chill experience. Another signature cultivator is Confidential OG, an Indica cross of LA Confidential x OG Bubba Kush. With δ-Limonene, β-Caryophyllene, and Linalool as its dominant terpenes. Citrus notes meet classic Kush dankess and a potency level of 30-36% THC, making it an excellent choice to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression, inflammation, and acute pain.

Our sampler tried both pre-roll and flower from the Sativa strains, considered excellent for symptoms of depression, stress, fatigue, loss of appetite, and pain relief and well as enhancing creativity. The strain sampled was Crescendo, smooth and mellow, mentally activating rather than intoxicating. Providing a bright lemony finish with an earthy, spicy pine taste befitting the holiday season, the strain offers a THC level of between 30-35%. Among the other Sativa strains availabe are Orange Creamsicle, Gelatti Cake, and Lime Slurps.

Prefer a mix of sativa and indica effects? Hybrid cannabis products include strains such as Purple Punch and Wedding Cake. Hybrids are often able to promote feelings of contentment and happiness for relaxation and contentment; and, one of the more beneficial hybrid strain effects is an increase in creativity.

 

With over 150 different strains in their genetic library, THC Design truly provides high quality flower available as pre-rolls, eighth jars, and buds. The company is the proud recipient of two High Times Cannabis Cups, and voted Best Pre Roll in California by Weedmaps and LA Weekly, also winning multiple Farmers Cup awards. They have a menu of five permanent strains, and regularly rotate through limited edition drops as well.

Overall assessment: THC Design offers beautifully packaged, carefully cultivated cannabis and provides recommendations for strains based on user needs. The company offers products locally through a range of distributors in the SoCal area, including Greenwolf in Los Feliz, New Age Care Center in South Los Angeles, Sweet Flower in the Arts District, and Dr. Greenthumb in Lincoln Heights among other locations. Their products are also available through many delivery services from Long Beach to West LA to Central California and Sacramento. Delivery was fast, efficient, and friendly to our location in the South Bay.

Happy Holidays – and mellow ones, too.

  • Genie Davis; images provided by THC Design

 

Uli Boege – The Retrospective of a True Original

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One of the most inventive and original exhibitions in LA is up through January 6th at Loft at Liz’s in mid-city. Entelechies: The Art of Uli Boege is wide ranging in medium and visionary in context, as he explores the relationship between humans and nature, civilization itself, and the role playing by women in family life and culture.

Boege’s retrospective explores a vast range of mediums from stained glass to paintings, from collage to inkblot and an utterly unique form of terrazzo art, above. The art exhibited stretches from 1960 to 2020, and as mysteriously wonderful as much of the work is, its message is clean, powerful and persuasive.

“Whatever we do in life, to get a perfect result, is to collaborate with nature on a 50/50 level,” Boege says, noting that from our political ills to climate change and horrors of war, our lack of cooperation with nurturing earth, the earth mother, the female aspect of all nature, is creating the chaos all too visible in the world. He asserts that “this contempt for everything female and nature morphed in a symbiotic denial of our shared reality, smothered by war, addiction, and consumption…”

But there’s a way to put humankind on the right track, Boege asserts. One of the potential therapeutic tools that the artist suggests is creating figurative inkblot paintings, a technique which he has mastered on an epic scale in his Amazonas series. Boege insists that we are “all artists by nature….every inkblot painting is a yin yang masterpiece,” one that allows creators to experience the sensation of “giving birth to a real person,” which will “reconnect us to our long lost and denied love for ourselves.”

While creating work designed to reintroduce us to our spiritual selves – and inviting men to celebrate rather than deny what Boege views as the importance of the female, the artist also strongly condemns the negative institutions of right-wing politics, the hierarchy of the Catholic church, and the corruption of nationalism.

Weighty as these subjects sound, in Boege’s masterful grasp, they become playful and joyous, his way of making dark profundity transform itself into the light. Visually, he sees himself as “the legitimate continuation of Jackson Pollock…we are both action painters, with the difference that I add a narrative…”

For the viewer, this translates into fifty years of evolutionary work in which each differing medium used by Boege takes one into a new artistic chapter, all with an underlying theme that celebrates life, of which the female is an intrinsic core element of life’s creation.

Boege is undoubtedly influenced deeply by his fraught upbringing during World War II, witnessing first-hand the destruction of Dresden. His early years were marked by the inhumanity of men, an impression he carries with him to this day, and which he carried through studies in France to art exhibitions in NYC in the 60s. It was there that he created well-received collage art, while working as the first graphic design director for Essence magazine.

Upon moving to LA, he began working in his unusual form of terrazzo that utilizes plastic as its base, creating a smooth surface that is at once both liquid and deep.

Boege has also made vibrant stained glass lights featuring lush images of nature.

But today, his focus is on his inkblot paintings, in which Boege draws half of a figurative image, then folds the canvas he has painted on to create a second half through a natural process. He is drawn to not knowing what the final result will be, but says he is assured by nature itself, as well as the result of his creative process, that the paintings will be, in their own way, perfect.

The medium in short, to quote Marshall McLuhan, is the message. In his large-scale inkblot on canvas, “Election Night,” he uses red, blue, and black ink to create an image of “mom,” undoubtedly mother earth herself, on a crucifix, while both blue and red factions wave flags at her feet, as if celebrating her demise.

In “Two Me,” inkblot acrylic on canvas, two images of a beautiful young woman mirror each other in an expression of wonder, with a yin-yang symbol suspended between them.

“Home Sweet Home” on the other hand, gives us a figure behind bars, clutching them, mouth open and angry, while “Sadu,” is a solemn forceful being, balancing two globes, one in each hand.

The reverent “Amazonia with Infant” speaks for itself, an elegant woman holding her baby safely in her hands.

 

And the gestational red and black inkblot “Vetruvian Wombman alias Brunhilde” is reminiscent in design and title of course of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man.”

 

The exhibition is filled with these impressive, enormous canvasses, with the most impressive of all the sculptural creation from them, a multi-sided panoply of ink blot beings displayed in the center of the main gallery. Off to the side are several of the luminous stained-glass art lamps Boege has created and vibrant lush depictions of nature that are sensually shaped and potent.

The project room contains a series of the artist’s jewel-like terrazzo art works – he has also made furniture from his terrazzo materials In “Girl Riding A Hoop,” the figure is a lovely sea green, the hoop itself a mesmerizing spiral. This piece, and the body of Boege’s terrazzo wall sculptures, recall both ancient Greek and Roman artworks and the Art Deco era of the 1920s. The artist’s work here utilizes terrazzo, marble, turquoise, and carnival glass.

The exhibition also features a variety of paintings, and in a briefer tribute to his earliest fine art, there are fluid examples of the artist’s collages, delicate in line and gracefully nuanced, and also recalling Art Deco styling.

As curator Monique Birault says, “Uli is an inventor. He can’t just be a ‘maker’ repeating or copying processes, he creates his own language and invents new ways of shaping his art – it’s his way of giving birth.”

She adds that “Uli’s voice is that of one of the few artists left alive and producing art born under Germany’s falling bombs. I became committed to helping him bring his vision to life in this exhibit before we no longer have access to him and other voices of his time and experience. He wants to teach others to carry on what he has developed. That is a gift, one that opens a creative door, even after the exhibition ends.”

The show runs through January 6th; Loft at Liz’s will be closed from December 24 until January 2nd, so do mark your calendars for the final week of this inventive exhibition.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis and provided by Monique Birault