The City of South Gate Offers Art to Help You Take Care of Yourself

Posted on by Diversions LA

As part of its Cultural Arts Division, the City of South Gate has opened Cuídate / Take Care of Yourself, a juried group exhibition featuring more than 30 visual artists at the city’s newly revamped South Gate Museum and Gallery. The exhibition’s title and theme both reflect on life during the pandemic. Opened January 29th, the exhibition of over 30 artists was gathered through an open call for local artists and juried by Color Compton founder Abigail-Lopez-Byrd, Chief Curator of the Museum of Latin American Art Gabriela Urtiaga, and artist Ozzie Juarez, founder of Tlaloc studios. The show runs through March 26th, when a closing reception will be held.

Participating artists include:  Alba Castro, Albert Orozco, Amabelle Aguiluz, Andreina Giron, Angelica Viramontes, Billy Montenegro, Blanca Ibarra, Brenda Trujillo, Brenda Cibrian, Calixto Rodriguez (and students), Carlos Ayon, Catrina Esperanza, Celestina Rodriguez, Cindy “cindita” Macias, Daisy Velasco, Daniela Garcia, David Martinez, Edlin Lopez, Eleazar Martinez, Evelyn Menjivar, Ever Velasquez, Gloria “Glories” Martinez, Israel Lopez, Jacqueline Valenzuela, Joan “Zeta” Zamora, Jo Jimenez, Jynx Prado, Kiara Aileen Machado, Leo Alas & Genna Bloombecker, Leopoldo Peña, Martin Alexander Hernandez, Michael Gallegos, Michael The Khoi Tran, Miguel Rivera, Mike Alonso Alcala, Nicole Fournier, Paloma Montoya.

The evocative and varied work includes painting, sculpture, and mixed media. Some images are grounded in an evocative realism, others are abstract; one moving work recreates images often found in ofrendas honoring the departed.

According to acting cultural arts coordinator Jennifer Mejia, the exhibition’s inspiration and title came from a lighthearted aphorism for farewell. Reflecting the unique experiences of those living in Southeast Los Angeles (SELA) during
the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibition’s focus is self-care. “We wanted to create a space where artists could share what self-care meant to them. As we began curating the exhibit, we realized that [the meaning of] self care has so many intersections. Three pillars we built upon included taking care of oneself, the community and the environment.” As the gallery’s first exhibition,  Mejia notes “We were intentional with curating an exhibit that uplifts our community by showcasing local artists and talent from South
East Los Angeles.”

Each image resonates with themes of self-care and awareness of the importance of health and personal responsibility. “Whether
that looks like celebrating a birthday, cooking with your loved ones, or moving your body, each artwork brings [the artist’s] unique take to the theme taking care of oneself,” Mejia says.

She passionately believes in the importance of creating spaces to “amplify the voices of our community through the arts, especially in regards to meaningful themes.” And one way to support that artistic initiative is to visit and empower the new South Gate Museum and Art Gallery. Once the city’s public library, the space became a museum in the late 1980s and has only recently been revamped for the community and art lovers everywhere to enjoy.

“The cultural arts staff envisions the space continuing to thrive and grow to benefit our art community and public in general. We hope to foster a safe space where people are welcomed to create, be inspired and build strong connections with each other. We also want to see our space engage the community by providing programming and events that create new and exciting experiences. It would mean a lot for us to see our museum and art gallery be the go-to space for others to enjoy on their down time, when they are looking to learn something new, or find opportunities and resources in the pursuit of an art pathway or career,” Mejia asserts. “Our community only gets stronger when it has spaces like ours to relish in and there is great joy in a community being empowered through the arts.”

The exhibition is available for viewing from 12 to 4 p.m. daily. A special closing celebration event will be held from 12-4 on the 26th of March. Festivities will include a sound bath facilitated by Rob Don Yoga; Weaving Hope, an interactive installation and art activity by Yeu Q Nguyen; free art workshops provided by the SELA Artists Guild, Color Compton, Carlos Gacharna, Latinas Art Foundation and Artspace HP; and local vendors and community resources. And of course, the chance to explore this beautifully curated exhibition.

South Gate Museum and Gallery is located at 8680 California Avenue, South Gate, CA 90280

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the gallery and artists

LAAA – Powerful Environmentally Focused Solo Shows

Posted on by Diversions LA

An environmental focus forms the theme of three of the four fine exhibitions currently on the Los Angeles Art Association’s Gallery 825.

Awash in the rich blue of the sea, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic’s impressive and immersive installation Collateral Damage Recall serves to compel viewers to act against our consumer madness – the use of plastic, plastic everywhere. The exhibition is thoroughly entertaining, even exuberant, as it brings viewers awareness toward climate change, and the terrible destruction mankind has wreaked upon ocean, coral reefs, and other water resources. The artist has created both a wondrous immersive world in her futuristic living room and bedroom, while also leading viewers to contemplate the ongoing nightmare of plastic. The installation is an outgrowth of a room-size exhibition held at MOAH Cedar four years ago.

Along with its immersive nature, the exhibition now features video and audio components and interactive capabilities for viewers. There are 3D printed corals, a waterbed for viewers to incline upon while experiencing underwater video images, a suspended blue marlin which emanates with sounds of the natural world from speakers contained within the great fish. Images of augmented reality, accessed through the ARTIVIVE app add an extra dimension to the exhibition.  A sculptural tour de force for Petrovic, the exhibition will haunt viewers with its beauty and challenge them to take action in the name of the Earth.

With her own images of nature, including strong visions of sea and sky, the large-scale painted images of Frederika Roeder in her exhibition, Scapes, are equally captivating. Roeder illuminates the walls with her glowing abstract landscapes describing  geography, place, new horizons, and the majesty of the natural world, through the lens of biological narrative.

Depicting both the Southern California environment to which Roeder is native, but also cooler images inspired by a recent residency in the Italian Alps, Roeder, like Petrovic, stresses the importance of protecting our fragile earth, specifically its coastal areas, and at the same time expresses the vibrant beauty of the sea. Her eight acrylic works shimmer with images of water and sun, wild waves and pristine clear bays. Her geometrically abstract use of vertical bands, bars, and narrow lines are hypnotizing, but it is her palette, shimmeringly poetic, that aches with the beauty of the natural world.

S.P. Harper’s Natural Force contains images of nature, both painted and sculptural, vibrant in color and precisely structures. Unlike Roeder and Petrovic, Harper focuses on land rather than sea, specifically the jeweled wonder of nature’s crystals. Employing found-art objects in her sculptural style and a sleek modernist approach to opaque oil paintings, Harper’s work offers its own jeweled dazzle. Her Gods of Fire series of small paintings represent birthstones of singular luster and depth; her use of geometric imaging includes reforming and upcycling of diverse discarded mediums from fabric to her use of an appropriately diamond-blade circular saw.

Gallery 825’s stellar ecologically-themed exhibitions includes the human species too, with an involving video installation from artist Janine Brown, reviewed elsewhere.

Gallery 825 is located at 825 N. La Cienega in West Hollywood. The exhibition closes IRL February 18th; view images online here.

  • Genie Davis – photos, Genie Davis

 

 

 

 

 

Quaranta at BG Gallery Reveals Dreams of Pandemic Art

Posted on by Diversions LA
Susan Lizotte

Quaranta, just closed at bG Gallery in Bergamot Station, but viewable online, is a dynamic group exhibition with a powerful group of LA-based artists.

Curators

Susan Lizotte and Jenny Hager (above) co-curated a beautiful show with an inherent and wildly colorful rhythm, one of introspection and resurrection, of internal vibrance and vivid takes on the external world.

Both alluding to and inclusive of work produced during the beginning of the pandemic and quarantine times, Quaranta offers a wide range of work that reveals not only the artists’ psyches during that time period, but the diverse and experiential quality of the Los Angeles area artists who produced it.

Dani Dodge

The work includes the glorious gold leaf-infused mixed media images of Dani Dodge in her tragic yet life-affirming “Mojave Burning…”

Luciana Abait

the vibrant colors of Luciana Abait in “Pink Sky-Orange Mountains,” in which a reflective body of water and an ice formation reflect these hot, bright shades…

Gay Summer Rick

twilight drenched yet still glowing work from Gay Summer Rick…

Susan Lizotte

lustrous new map work from Lizotte, above; rich layered abstract from Hage, below…

Jenny Hager

and, an intricate landscape piece from Sijia Chen that summons a sense of profound wonder in its multicolored patterns.

Sijia Chen

There is lush sculptural work from Steven Fujimoto in the mandala-like pattern of his “Tide Pools” …

Steven Fujimoto

and the fascinating four-part reworking in watercolor of a classic image from Lena Moross.

Lena Moross

Other excellent pieces come from Douglas Alvarez, with his lovely still life depictions of fruit, and Ray Beldner’s tribal-like geometrically patterned rocks.

Douglas Alvarez

Tara de la Garza’s raw sculptures, Alex Shaffer’s perfectly lit, graffiti-filled LA street scenes, and the fascinating patterns represented in diverse pieces from Diane Meyer, Curtis Stage, and Alexandra Weisenfeld complete the exhibition.

Curtis Stage

The curators’ description reads “Work produced during the Quarantine, by nature, is a visual documentation of artists’ emotional response, either directly, or indirectly.” That response is one of vivid palette, repeated patterns, totem-like shapes and colors, an inner world of brightness, texture, contrast, and form that both mourned and celebrated an outside world. Both curators exemplify this in their own very different works – compelling in color and depth.

Tara de la Garza

As we drop our protective cocoons and become masked butterflies, it’s wise to remember the year 2020, and the time of emotional gestation, both physically limiting and emotionally draining, yet somehow as crazy perfect as dreams become art. Quaranta’s perceptive take on this period and strong mix of important, LA-based artists brings that art dream full circle to external viewers.

If you missed Quaranta at BG in Santa Monica, view the online exhibition here. 

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

 

LA Art Show 2022 Sparkles

Posted on by Diversions LA

There was a great deal of awesome art eye candy at the LA Art Show, which ran in the South Hall of the LA Convention Center January 19th through 23rd. From glittery NFTs to a dazzling series of installations by DIVERSEArtLA, there was plenty to take in.

Opening night also saw the return of a food court and cocktails, as well as art talks held throughout the event.

Daniela Soberman

DIVERSEartLA, curated by Marisa Caichiolo, returned this year with an evocative, environmental perspective, shaping immersive experiences focusing on global warming and human relationships to nature. Each of the participants provided fascinating work, with TAM (Torrance Art Museum) presenting Memorial to the Future, a collaborative work curated by Max Presneill referencing Brutalist architecture in a large scale cityscape installation created by Daniela Soberman.

Both impressive and immersive, the structure was interspersed with photographic visual elements offering interpretations of nature, climate change, and danger in our environment. A dazzling piece.

Dox Contemporary-Prague, the Czech Center New York, and The General
Consulate of The Czech Republic present “THE SIGN,” a site specific
installation by Swen Leer used a mimicking of freeway signage to communicate trenchant messages that began in the entrance lobby to the South Hall. The largest and perhaps the most pointed was “Your children WILL hate you – eventually.” But, equally memorable as we all snapped photographs of art and masked but well-dressed guests posed for social media photos, was “Enjoy Your Life on Instagram or TikTok.”

Other installation pieces included work from MUSA, Museum of the Arts of the University of Guadalajara, and MCA Museum of Environmental Science presenting “THE OTHER WATERFALL & CHAPALA ALSO DROPS ITSELF” by Claudia Rodriguez, both of which reflect the contamination and lack of water that has affected the state of Jalisco, Mexico in the last decades. The result on exhibit: stunning visuals approached through a cave of netted curtains.

MUMBAT Museum of Fine Arts of Tandil and the Museum of Nature and
Science Antonio Serrano of Entre Rios Argentina presented “THE EARTH’S
FRUITS” by Guillermo Anselmo Vezzosi curated by Indiana Gnocchini, a
scientific research project and an installation work of
a specific ephemeral site, where the waste that takes on a second life is dignified. Vezzosi’s graceful trees, built into a darkened space, were beautiful.

Caichiolo curated “The Environmental Digital Experience” by A.Ordoñez delivered by Raubtier Productions & Unicus, an immersive experience
revealing a range of climate phenomena, with the culmination a representation of the positive growth of new flora. The sculptural construction of the images pulled viewers into a new space.

A startling, and even tragic look at the melting Arctic was presented in the large scale video installations from The Museum of Nature of Cantabria Spain in the work “Our turn to change” by Andrea Juan and Gabriel Penedo Diego, depicting on large screens how drop by drop, large amounts of ice are lost every second as the oceans levels continue to rise. UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center’s “Mound” by María Elena González, curated by Chon A. Noriega revealed the process of attempts at restoration; while “Recognizing Skid Row As A Neighborhood:Skid Row Cooling Resources,”
curated by Tom Grode highlights the neighborhood as a community, including the Skid Row Cooling Resources, a collaborative
planning effort and think tank.

Debbie Korbel

But of course, there was so much more. A series of sculptures by artist Debbie Korbel; a collection of NFT art from Fabrik NFT Salon; a wide range of beautiful work at bG Gallery including stellar LA artists such as Gay Summer Rick, Susan Lizotte, Glenn Waggner, Richard Chow, Barbara Kolo, Hung Viet Nguyen, and many others. Each artist’s unique work is somehow quintessentially born of Los Angeles, and it was fitting that this exhibition space, filled with their beautiful work, was the first I explored at the exhibition hall. Arcadia Contemporary offered a fascinating collection of works, from a series of portraits to an evocative Yoda looming from a movie screen in a heartland farm field from artist Stephen Fox.

There were artistic homages to other creators from Picasso to Kerouac, as well as an actual Picasso; rich rainbows of stained glass from Judson Studios; strange mysteries of civilization, such as London underwater, from Thitz; glowing jelly fish from Mario Pasqualotto at Pigment Gallery; Jacob Gils dazzling landscapes at InTheGallery; the quilt-like images of Heimyung C. Hyun; Wyoming Working Group’s ongoing Jackson Pollock project; and at John Natsoulas Gallery, whimsical and involving sculptural works and wall art. Minoru Ohira’s forest of small sculptures has an otherworldly glow.

Alexandra Dillon
Matter Gallery
Nathie Katzoff
Cinq Gallery

Sponsored by bG, there was Alexandra Dillon’s portraiture on unusual objects; LA’s Matter Gallery presented the works of JonMarc Edwards; Nathie Katzoff out of Seattle exhibited a series of dazzling cast and fused art glass works and sculptural wood furnishings. Also notable were the post-apocalyptic cats and dystopian landscapes at Cinq Gallery.

Cathy Immordino
Luciana Abait
Jorge Rios

Los Angeles artist Cathy Immordino’s portrait cyanotypes haunted in blues, golds and beige at Fabrik Projects; while Luciana Abait’s startling lime green and hot pink landscapes seared at Building Bridges Art Exchange. And, one of my favorite images throughout the entire vast banquet of art on exhibit this year was Jorge Rios “This was the first reflection.”

Moberg Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

Art tells us a story that resonates visually, emotionally, and in the soul. The LA Art Show served up a big, sprawling novel for 2022.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis