About Men at Castelli Art Space

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About Men, closing July 13th at Castelli Art Space, offers the perfect balance to the #metoo era. Evocative, beautifully wrought works created about and by men offer a perceptive look at the masculine half of the species.

Curator Dale Youngman stresses that the group exhibit was created in honor of Fathers Day. “There is no deep intellectual backstory, but rather a look at how today’s society impacts the modern man.  What it is like to be a man today?  What do men think about, what drives them, interests them, worries them? What inspires them to select a particular subject, or is important enough to form the basis for their body of work? On a personal level – as a woman –  I often scratch my head and ask myself ‘What was he THINKING??'”
The exhibition includes works by 7 artists creating in a wide range of mediums.
Tom Garner Muscle Car oil on denim
Above and below, incredibly rich work from Tom Garner. Both hyper-realistic and dream-like, a reflection of California culture and a slice of life, the oil on denim “Muscle Car” is visceral and immersive, a literal and figurative window into a world.
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Luis Sanchez
Above and below, Luis Sanchez offers mixed media sculptures that dazzle with detail; a boy’s toybox of imagination that shapes creatures filled with motion and infused with a playful sense of fun. Cat imagry: major bonus. To Forte’s right: a collection of his paintings, which like the sculptures are powerfully frought with motion, and evoke mythological figures, Greek gods.
Luis Sanchez The Judge, The Spy, and the Buck Take a Tea
Above, “The Judge, The Spy, and The Buck Take A Tea.” Perfectly, minutely crafted, the calculated golden paint drips are indicative of a melting mask. Each of these elements, each personality perhaps, makes up a man. Strip off the artifice and you have disparate, even conflicting, sometimes merging, aspects that shape one soul.
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Above and below, Joe Forte. His mixed media works are vibrant with bright colors, and offer a poignant collage of insight into what makes a man tick – a passion for sports and beautiful women, sure, but also the fairytale they represent.
Joe Forte Old School (OG$)
Stuart Kusher Sketch Book mixed media
Above and below, Stuart Kusher’s mixed media “Sketch Book” is just that: a sketch of what’s in the artist’s mind and soul. From woman and dog to money and a dark and shadowy, dimensional masked figure, it’s a rich conglomeration of images that depict the jumble and profundity of an artist’s craft. Below, Kusher stands beside this piece and a lustrous gold sculptural work, revealing some of the depths and differences in his artwork.
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Patrick Donovan
Above and below, Patrick Donovan with his touching portraits of men. Infused with surrealist elements, these graceful works also riff on Renaissance style. The works are created using classical images that are beautifully detailed. Each image has a haunted quality, filled with an intrinsic sense of loss. Is any one man enough?
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Above and below , Bert-Esenherz’ with his large scale, monochrome “Len’s Men’s Club” is awash in noir mystery. His shadowy, faceless figures are both every man, and man in transition. What face do men – and does mankind – embrace?
Bert Esenherz Len's Mens Club acrylic on canvas
Below, Jack Avetisyan, “The Go Getter.” A wonderful mix of the surreal and representatitive, this painting gives us the working world, the chaotic mind, the white collar job, all skewered and revealed as one big cartoon. Avetisyan’s use of line is terrific, filled with power, humor, and the opposite: inaction, hidden fears. Only the cheerful white dog seems immune.

Jack Avetisyan The Go Getter

Fresh, insightful, and lovely, About Men is also about people, what it means to be human, and what it means to dream.

The gallery will host a closing event July 13th from 6 to 9 p.m. Castelli Art Space is located at 5428 Washington Blvd. in mid-city.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Dale Youngman

Jeffrey Sklan: His ELEGY Rocked Kopeikin Gallery and Rocks On

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Photographic artist Jeffrey Sklan presented a stellar exhibition at Kopeikin Gallery in the Culver City arts district last week. ELEGY offered beautiful and poignant images as a call to action against violence and mass shootings, and offered that call with grace and resonant, delicate botanical imagery. At his June 22nd opening, the gallery was packed with supporters for a lively opening.

Filled with a glowing light and using a deep, rich color palette that reflects the artist’s love for Baroque-era artists such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio, Sklan pays tribute to lives lost in mass killings and murders. The works are both radiant and lovely, solemn yet ethereal.

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The artist first exhibited this series at Photo LA in January; at Kopeikin, he added new images including those dedicated to Parkland student Sydney Aiello, Nipsey Hussle, (above) and celebrants of both Easter in Sri Lanka and Passover in Poway, California. They are glorious images, quietly lush.

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Sklan’s inspiring works are now moving on,  he says. “I’m starting to design a book of the images,” he relates. “And we are going to hang the show after July 12th at Finishing Concepts in Monterey Park.” While the exhibition is on display at that location, a documentary short film will be made about the work.

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Designed as a traveling show, Sklan relates that ELEGY will “most likely be exhibited at a university on the East Coast in the fall, and in North Dakota in the spring or summer of 2020.” As plans solidify, Sklan hopes ELEGY will continue to find new venues for future exhibitions. To defray  shipping and installation costs, limited edition fine art prints are for sale so that “even more people can view it, and, ideally, be inspired to remedy the wrongs they perceive in the communities where they live.” He adds “The message is simple: we are each, in our own way and according to our capacity, capable of affecting change.” 

The project began with a single image created after the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando, Fla. in June 2016, it truly took form for the artist following the July 2016 Bastille Day celebration in Nice during which 87 people were killed. He continues to add images as an homage that serve as both evocative rumination on the fragility of life, and an affirmation of the beauty of life itself. Filled with solace and beauty, Sklan’s photographs are filled with his passion for life as well as his awareness of how brief life can be.
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The artist explains “This project is no longer mine. It belongs to every community memorialized. It belongs to the families whose loved ones are honored. It belongs to those who want to change their world. There has never been any other motive for me in this. The edition of prints is intentionally small: my net proceeds will always go back to defray transportation, insurance, and exhibition costs.” He suggests viewers reach out “if your school, entity, or gallery would be a good fit to exhibit this.”

Finishing Concepts, where the show will next be viewable in the Southland, is located at 1230 Monterey Pass Rd.; stay tuned for updates as to hours and dates. For more information on purchasing prints and supporting the exhibition, visit the artist’s website store, here. Or contact the artist direction at jeffreysklan@aol.com

– Genie Davis; photos Genie Davis, and provided by the artist.

Edge to Edge Series Connects U.S. and Estonian Artists at ViCA

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Above,Curator/Artist Juri Koll points out the political elements of work by Estonian artist Leohnard Lapin
The Venice Institute of Contemporary Art’s Edge to Edge, a series of art exhibitions, has been holding forth at ViCA’s San Pedro location since May. Closing this weekend, the group exhibition features a vibrant collection from both U.S. and Estonian artists. The interplay between the two groups of artists creates a tightly curated show featuring a diverse body of work, one that depicts the culture of and iconic images from both countries.
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Above, the opening night crowd gathers around a sculpture by Pablo Llana (Mexico) 
According to curator Juri Koll, whose own Estonian roots played a part in the show’s strong interdisciplanary exchange of art and ideas, “The work emphasizes a prescient, mutual place in time and mind, a desire to push boundaries at every edge… An exhibition of different artworks from the very opposite ends of the western world create a coherent voice and experience in time and space, full of contrast, tension, and unanimity.”
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Above, from Estonian artist Peeter Allik.

Participating artists include, from Estonia: Toomas Kuusing, Anonymous Boh, Taje Tross, Pusa, Tönis Laanemaa, Leonhard Lapin, Terttu Uibopuu, Raul Meel, Peeter Allik, Hillar Tatar, George Koll and Serge Koll. From the U.S.: Bradford J. Salamon, Sonja Schenk, Doug Edge, Gloriane Harris, John Hancock, Sulamit Elizondo, Robbie Conal, Lilli Muller, Mb Boissonnault, Juri Koll, Cosimo Cavallaro, Lil’ Mikey Coleman, Lilli Muller, Robert Nelson, William Turtle, Catherine Ruane, and Pablo Llana.

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Above, the graceful trees of Catherine Ruane.

From the colorful abstract seascapes of Harris to Conal’s highly political art, Ruane’s lush graphite images of trees so real you could touch them, to Schenk’s exciting cut-out-based painting studies, and Salamon’s viscerally real all-American images, the exhibition offers vibrant artists that contrast and compare in a pitch-perfect visual dialog with their Estonian counterparts’ work.

Artists participated in an art talk last weekend that engaged both local artists live, and those from Estonia via video.

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Above, Signe Krikmann, Consul of the Consulate General of Estonia in New York, studies the artwork.

The exhibition is not only fascinating artistically, but as a step toward global cultural inclusion. The plan for the exhibition is that the ViCA gallery exhibition is just the start. Next, it will travel to Estonia in a cultural exchange to promote freedom of speech, activism, and peace as a new way to see and express each culture. A published catalog will follow the exhibition.

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Above, Koll points out elements of his latest work to Jaak Treiman, Honorary Consul of Estonia in Los Angeles, and artist Robert Nelson, whose exciting low brow pop realism work is included in the exhibition. 

Several artworks in the show date from the Soviet era, and serve as a commentary on the on-going struggle for independence and freedom of expressiong, Koll notes – and that commentary is prescient both in Estonia, as it celebrates its 100th anniversary of independence, but in the U.S. as well. Estonia and other Baltic states emerged as free, democratice countries 1918 through 1919. 

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Above, work from Estonian artist Leonhard Lapin, whose ideas about machines’  providing pleasure as well as production are the basis of his Machine, Man Machine, Woman Machine series, an example of which is above. Lapin’s interest in the subject was an outgrowth of his translation of the revolutionary book The Non-Objective World into the Estonian language.

After the exhibition closes in Los Angeles on June 29, Edge to Edge will be presented with works from additional artists as well as several new works from those already participating from North America in July at the Tartu Art House within the framework of the Tartu Graphic Festival (July 22 – August 18) and at the Pärnu IN Graphics Festival in Pärnu City Gallery opening on August 10, and the Fahle Gallery in Tallinn from July 27 through August 30th. These locations are all within Estonia.

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From left: “Midnight Snack” by Bradford Salamon; collaborations by Anonymous Boh (Estonia) and John Hancock (US), “Dude Descending the Staircase” by Bradford J. Salamon, and “Performance Formula I” by Taje Tross.

It doesn’t get much more iconic-Americana than the Dude or a giant burger. Salamon, as always, kills it with his intensely rewarding realist style.

For a look at this seminal exhibition closer to home, closing is Saturday the 29th at ViCA, located at 401 S. Mesa Street, San Pedro, CA 90731

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by Juri Koll

Nagisa Kamae: Adorable and Poignant Creatures Reach Out at Gabba Gallery

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Japan-based artist Nagisa Kamae creates adorable, touching images of small creatures. Rabbits, kittens, puppies, squirrels – Kamae realizes her images perfectly, touching them with a delicate brush of the whimsical. Both magical and moving, her lovely little beings are, she says, “very personal…every piece has a story behind it and a deeper meaning. They come from my experiences and things I observe in everyday life.”   

The richness of her work is on view at Gabba Gallery through June 22nd, in a delightful exhibition titled Sharing is Caring.

cannot sleep Koala

Kamae started working as an artist full-time in 2017, when she moved from the U.S. back to Japan. “I used to paint on tiny canvases, but I slowly worked my way up to bigger pieces. But then and now, I have always painted cute fluffy animals with food.”

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While that description is true as far as it goes, these cute animals are more than she describes. They’re eminently alive, beautifully detailed, and exude the artist’s passion for her subjects.

Her inspiration comes from small animals she finds them at the zoo, pet stores, and even in vintage animal picture books, she says; her accompanying food images are as likely to come from packaging as from vintage cook book illustrations.

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“My favorite animal to paint is a rabbit, because I have fond memories of my pet Moko, a grey bunny I had when I was little,” she says. But each of her creations exudes an inherent love and respect, which is part of the attraction of her work. As to the candy images, she swears she doesn’t particularly enjoy the taste of American candies and snacks, but she loves the packaging.

“I used to decorate my room with American items when I was in high school,” she laughs. “I even taped M&M chocolate and gummy worms packages on my wall – I was just obsessed.”

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Kamae lived in the U.S. for ten years, and says she never got tired of living here. Among the activities she most enjoyed, “Going to American chain grocery stores, the 99 Cent Store, looking at interesting items in the cereal aisle, and unhealthy looking Jello in the fridge sections – that was one of my guilty pleasures.”

flying squirrel tootsie roll

Kamae’s current solo show at Gabba is exciting for her. The gallery has showcased Kamae’s work before, and she has a wide range of American fans, but this is her first solo.

Her  heart-meltingly appealing work includes pieces larger than those she’s presented in the past.

“It was intimidating to paint on bigger panels at first, but it gave me the opportunity to explore more complex narratives and new concepts. I feel proud that I could get out of my comfort zone with the bigger pieces.” Kamae’s modesty aside, her charming works are a pure pleasure to take in.

flying squirrel snickers

The prolific artist is now planning an illustrated book directed at children of all ages – and art loving readers regardless of age. Her proposed title matches this exhibition: Sharing is Caring.

“The basis for the book, this current painting series, features a group of animals sharing food and a single animal having food by himself.  At the end of the book, the animal shares his food with others.”

swan and the baby

She adds “My favorite kind of book is a picture book with almost no words, because it leaves more to the imagination and you can create the story using your own interpretation. My favorite book from my childhood is Ennichi, which means Japanese summer festival.  This book has no words. but has super-detailed fun images, and the colors are beautiful.  I checked this book out over and over again from the local library. Thirty years later, I found it again, and had to buy it immediately.”

In short, she notes “Some people are affected by reading books, but powerful artwork and images have had a more lasting impression on me ever since I was little.”

It was perhaps the same sort of lasting impression her jewel-perfect little animals make on viewers now. One is never too old to take a long look at magic.

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Above, artist Kamae.

Gabba Gallery is located at 3126 Beverly Blvd. View Kamae’s work in Sharing is Caring through June 22nd. The gallery is also exhibiting solo shows from Morley, All Things Aspire Madly, and Jeremy Novy, A Queer Examination.

  • Genie Davis; photos courtesy of the artist