Magical realism has always been a strong component of Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman’s light-filled work, and if ever there was a time for the glow of her images, it is now.
Daemons and dreams, young girls and delightful animals are most often her subjects, in work that she terms “always introspective” and which the amount of time she spent alone with her thoughts in this past year made even more so.
“I also think that global events have forced introspection from everyone, and observing that has informed my work too, since my subject matter is focused on the human subconscious. Also, the totally surreal nature of everything that happened brought up a lot of esoteric thoughts and feelings for me. I kind of felt like I was working in slow motion and while that was uncomfortable at times, I also think it all also helped the work,” Sullivan-Beeman says.
The pandemic has also enhanced the relationship between all species, something that ties into the magical quality of shared feeling that the artist often represents.
“I definitely think that the communication between animal and human is especially poignant right now. People are desperately searching for things to connect with and ways to find meaning, and animals have played an important role in that,” she explains. “I see animals as an eternally important source of soul connection for humans, and I think more people are coming to that conclusion as they are dealing with intense isolation.”
The comfort, wisdom, and companionship of animals in the world has long been expressed in the artist’s work. “Animals, which in my work are spirit guides, share all of our emotions, they feel what is happening in the world around them, and for that reason they are an incredibly powerful comfort, both consciously and subconsciously.”
Sullivan-Beeman is currently creating a new body of work, and has solo shows coming up nationally – one in May of 2022 with Bert Green Fine Art in Chicago and the other in the fall with Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville. She will also be a part of several group shows with WOW x WOW and has pieces from that exhibition showing on line at present. Currently, she is also one of a lovely three-artist exhibition at KP Projects in Los Angeles, where she will also be signing limited edition prints Saturday, April 24th.
“The prints of Flamingo Girl are a Limited Edition of 25, signed and numbered. I think that piece makes a great print because of its lush colors and Static Medium really did an incredible job with them,” she relates.
Mutable and mysterious at first look, Ruby Vartan’s artwork represents a figurative abstract exploration based on the feminine form. Working in a wide range of mixed mediums such acrylic, oil, charcoal, and fabric, as well as with oil on canvas, artist Ruby Vartan weaves powerful, emotional images.
Her work expresses both her own inner world and experiences. It evokes the liquid as well as flame, revealing both what Vartan terms messages of peace and love, as well as a flood of highly emotional, evocative images that express her own generational and intimate trauma.
The artist describes her layered and poetically physical work as the process through which she feels most free, where no boundaries exist to arriving at her destination of expression.
From inner emotion to the external body, Vartan uses her own presence to represent a vital life force, light and renewal. Her process often includes painting, tearing, sewing, and the incorporation of unique mediums that resonate with love and pain. Works include elements of empty space which she views as a way to create and uncover and exciting new world that she makes her own.
Born to Armenian parents in Beirut, Lebanon, Vartan moved to the U.S. in 2008, and currently resides in Los Angeles. She says that her strong use of color reflects her heritage and identity, as well as symbolizing her dreams, desires, and emotions. She takes her work and her viewers into a world of volatile honesty and fragile self-expression.
Some images include canvas slashes the reveal a gold texture below, similar to the Japanese technique of Kintsugi that repairs the broken with the use of a precious substance such as gold, silver, or platinum. Other works include text, and intricate patterns.
Regardless of image, Vartan’s work exudes the aura of survival, resurrection, and resilience, shaping an experience of artistic and soulful redemption.
Momenta, a solo exhibition from multi-media artist Lauren Kasmer, is one of the rare online exhibitions that allows viewers to almost feel its textural, tactile elements. Curated by Susanna Meiers, and presented by El Camino College Art Gallery, the exhibition has been extended through May 9th.
The show offers five segments, and perhaps the most absorbing was the video exhibition, Mount.
Mount tells a visual rather than narrative story, as layered as chiffon on silk, and just as graceful. Addressing a hard subject – a fire that destroyed a great deal of Kasmer’s home and art work, as well as the wildfires throughout California, it is poignant, prescient, and poetic.
But each of the exhibitions is lovely: Wardrobe consists of garments printed with photographic images; these are wearable fine art works and upcycled rugs and hangings. Delicate abstract nature imagery created by the artist create the patterns. Having produced wearable art to accompany installations for over ten years, in this exhibition, Kasmer successfully repurposed some of them, as remnants in sitting rugs.
Equipose offers an interactive installation experience. This section was planning initially for public, in-person viewing, but instead here it is viewed photographically; a meditative space with fine art ritual objects.
How is it interactive? Through an Activation section that suggests what viewers can create themselves as a space for contemplation.
There are also two additional photographic sections, Collaboration at a Distance, and Flourish from Fire, featuring stills from 2019’s Blind Courier exhibition at Brand Library.
Collaboration at a Distance integrates work made by Kasmer and ten female friends via Zoom, Skype, and email during the pandemic. Through photography, they both wore and displayed ten years of Kasmer’s printed clothing.
Flourish from Fire, relates to Kasmer’s devasting home fire experience, and is sourced from that as well as the original arrangement exhibited at the Brand.
Kasmer wants viewers to “tap into the universality as well as respect for the veiled personal history that we each possess. Because of the viewing style, they can relate to the exhibition as a whole or as individual parts.” And about those parts – “While the separate parts of the exhibit might appear unrelated, there is a constant thread of transformation that is expressed in each. I would hope that they can relate the images and film experience to their own lives. I would also hope that they might also tune in viewing a live streaming from one portion of the show that will occur April 30 – May 2.”
While some of the work in the show is new, and specifically related to today’s world, others rework previously exhibited elements, which relates saliently to the layering Kasmer uess in her artistic process. Kasmer feels that each component of Momenta works independently, but notes that. “Each part is likely to be integrated into another project in the future, so there is also a hint of what is to come.” She adds that “There are constants that relate to each other on a physical level but also embed universal themes of generative and restorative powers…Much of the imagery on the wardrobes are sourced from my photograph of the powerful force of fire, and many contain indigenous flora and fauna, both on a microscopic and macroscopic level.”
Mount’s tactile, sensual quality is entirely unique, and the visual poetry is ably abetted by a composed soundtrack. Kasmer describes the work as “both a poetic and abstract interpretation of the regenerative and restorative power that is nature. Imagery was shot in a variety of locales such as environments affected by the Woolsey and Thomas Fires, fires that impacted extended communities throughout California coastline and beyond, as well as the fires that affected me personally. Aspects were also shot in native gardens that were not affected.” Mount is available in three versions, two of which are designed to accommodate viewers with hearing or vision challenges.
As an online exhibition, a first for Kasmer without a physical gallery presence, the artist worked to “reorient myself to the fact that there would not be an in-person experience nor event where interaction with the works is a key part to the experience…I had to reframe and embrace technology knowing that this presentation would only be virtual. This induced new challenge actually spawned creative opportunity and expanded influences.”
As an artist, despite the wide array of alternative processes which she works in, she primarily considers herself a fine art photographer, she relates, with work that segued into live action in film and video and installations as well as events. “My history as the daughter of a clothing designer made its way into the work early when I began an action called the Clothing Exchanges. Those were a series of public participatory artworks, where people traded or bartered for clothing others donated anonymously to the exchanges.” This idea transformed over time with Kasmer using “transferred imagery that was manipulated and edited to create patterns and designs that maintained an affinity with their origins – even if not recognizable.” In other words, the beautifully mysterious patterns on present garments.
The exhibition’s planned live streaming event at the end of April will feature COVID-safe individuals and couples performing within the unoccupied apartment bedroom that houses the Equipoise installation.
At that time, Kasmer will also unveil a new book based on the exhibition. Already available is a limited-edition Viewmaster which she says is “intended to evoke the feeling of being in the presence of the elements via the use of an art object that you can hold in your hands, a contrast to this virtual exhibition.”
After Momenta, Kasmer will embark on other exhibitions, New York City museum space, and with the curation of an exhibition for the Angels Gate Cultural Center.
In the meantime, don’t miss Momenta or its live-streamed event.
SXSW 2021 online continued to offer a rich and varied platform as the week unspooled. While some films didn’t work for me, uniformly all of them were well-worth viewing.
Case in point was Mei Markino’s Inbetween Girl. The bittersweet coming-of-age-the-hard-way story crammed a lot into its run time, with teen Angie Chen indulging in secret hooking-up with an unfaithful boyfriend. Her burgeoning friendship with the boy’s main squeeze was the most interesting part of the well-acted, angsty film; the boy/girl fling just didn’t compel. Touching on racial topics and stereotypes enriched the story, Markino will do much more.
The conflicts of gentrification and the lives of real, gritty, down-on-their-luck residents resonates in director Liz Lambert’s Through the Plexi-Glass: The Last Days of the San Jose. Both as a character study and the history of a neighborhood, the story took turns and twists. Fascinating and raw.
While Disintegration Loops bore marks of a low-budget production (cue the grainy zoom images), it was nonetheless quite wonderful in revealing the composer behind a haunting and beautiful piece of “found” looped music. Director David Wexler merges interviews and 9/11 footage with filming of New York City under early pandemic lockdown, introducing viewers to composer William Basinski in the process. Basinski’s work received widespread recognition when the music was presented as an elegy to 9/11. I wanted it to last longer.
Violet, from director/screenwriter Justine Bateman, was literally the only film viewed in the festival that did not grab me in one way or another. Boasting a full cast of well known’s, including lead Olivia Munn, the thin story centered on a film-development executive trying to overcome an abusive childhood that resulted in her own negative guiding voice. Perhaps in another, less reverentially meta work setting, I might’ve cared. Some.
Witch Hunt, on the other hand, was an extremely smart use of the horror genre to confront racism.
Director and screenwriter Elle Callahan crafted a nail-biting horror thriller in an America where witches are not only real, they’re outlawed, and the witch-hunting version of ICE persecutes them. Safe territory is Mexico, but can a sheltered teen make it there? And will America ever change? Definitely could not look away at the hope we can burn racism at the stake.
Oh no, not a pandemic comedy! Too soon? Apparently not. Recoveryis nothing if not zany fun, with a number of genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Directors Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek, along with screenwriters Whitney Call and Mallory Everton, lead viewers on two sisters’ wild journey to “recover” their grandmother from a nursing home experiencing a COVID outbreak. We could all use a dose of smart n’ silly about now.
The Falloutis an absolute wow. Justifiably the jury pick for a Narrative Feature win, the film had me dissolved in tears and hurting with anger.
Perfectly acted high school drama about the aftermath of a school shooting, writer/director and co-star Megan Park focuses on high schooler Vada and her relationships with her family, friends and future. A film that ached to be made, its powerful and resonant. Park scores high on all counts.
The documentary Lily Topples the World introduces us to the cool and successful world of a domino artist. Director Jeremy Workman tackles another jury award winner with the insightful story of 20-year-old Lily Hevesh, the only woman in her field. While this was an excellent character study, the documentary that blew me away – was the story of 25-year-old Reality Winner.
Director Sonia Kennebeck does a riveting job of exposing the perfidy of the FBI and truth about the young woman who disclosed one document about Russian election interference to the media in the United States vs. Reality Winner. Persecuted by the Trump administration, this armed service veteran and down-home Texas girl has received one bum rap. Here’s hoping President Biden pardons her, and the film is widely viewed; Kennebeck does stellar work on a do-not-miss story.
I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking)a strong concept and well-performed lead can’t save Kelley Kali and Angelique Molina’s film about a beleaguered single mom and young widow forced to live in a tent with her young daughter. I was rooting for them, but amateurish supporting performances and a repetitive, rather sluggish storyline derailed the power of what could’ve been a truly moving film about being houseless in Los Angeles.
Shorts
Above, Joanne is Dead
Sisters – Director and writer Jess Brunetto expertly explores a tense relationship between two estranged sisters with wit and a perfect third-act twist. Lots of story packed in a small package, the film expertly strides the line between funny and poignant.
Joanne is Dead – I loved the black comedy of this film about one wicked old spy in a nursing home. Director, writer and co-star Brian Sacca does not fail to surprise.
O Black Hole – Animated and adventurous, this didn’t grab me, but it is visually lovely and uniquely spiritual. Renee Zhan’s Jury prize winner touches on deep subjects such as the passage of time, singularity, and loneliness.
Puss – Okay, so it’s odd, to say the least, but ultimately fun; the story of a pandemic-cloistered woman seeking a booty call with a kitty at home definitely made me laugh. Writer/director Leigh Shore has shaped an edgy, clever, and enjoyable Midnight Short.
Significant Other – taut and well-done, this super-short horror tale gives us a red orb throbbing away in the madness of late night. Wonderfully creepy, writer/director Quinn George knows how fashion one weird glow.
A Really Dark Comedy – Absolutely loved this funny and quirky tale crafted by Texas High School filmmakers about a lovelorn boy, a potential prom date, and a dog in the wrong place at the wrong time. Director Manasi Ughadmathe and writer Jackson Coates have done an awesome job, one which should predict a bright film future.
Overall verdict on SXSW 2021? Not only was it an often outstanding film festival, I just wish I had more time to explore other programming sections. A festival I will not miss, pandemic or no pandemic, this was a deep breath of fresh and intelligent filmmaking.
