September Art Swirl

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Like falling leaves from autumn trees elsewhere in the country, in Los Angeles, the vibrant colors of art in a wide variety of permutations is fluttering down on the City of Angels. Here’s a brief look at some recent shows:

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The light-filled sculptures of Brad Howe and the astronomy-as-art acrylics and mixed media work of Susan Woodruff create an exciting show in Properties of Light, at La Ciegena’s George Billis Gallery.

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The pairing of these artists has created a visually uplifting exhibition, reflective and immersive. Entering the gallery, there’s an immediate sensation of walking onto another planet – one in which glowing light suffuses the almost sentient stainless steel sculpture of Howe, and Woodruff’s abstract cosmos-evoking works. Afterward, you may want to go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again. A beautiful show.

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Other beauties are also available on Culver City’s art row – with so many galleries hosting openings in one night, the 10th, we joined the crowd in essentially trick or treating for art, and found one of art’s coveted giant Hershey bars (well, that was always what I coveted when I trick or treated) at Edward Cella, where Jun Kaneko’s Mirage drew gaping pleasure. A site-specific installation of nine separate large scale canvases, the titular piece unfolds into 63 feet of dazzling color vibrating in lines that shift from golds and yellows to oranges and reds. His ceramic works, some diminutive and one towering at 7 feet in height, exhibit the artist’s signature, meticulous, ceramic process in black and white.

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Intriguing, Matisse-like works in thick, puzzle-piece like shapes was the order of the day at Zevitas Marcus,  where Andrew Masullo’s exhibition Pretty Pictures and Other Disasters, is all about bold color, straight-from-the-tube paint, that grabs the eye and the imagination.

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And at Honor Fraser, Ry Rocklen: L.A. Relics,  are diverse and clever. With mirrored backing, the artist creates two-sided sculptures that form incisive and delightful works based on his own personal possessions. A wonderfully whimsical show that also offers stirring insight into the every day world.

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In Chinatown, check out Raven Servellon’s Velvet Sunflower at
Coagula Curatorial through early October. Intensely colorful, shaped from stenciled images on handmade cutouts, each minutely detailed pop-art piece encourages repeated viewing, as new images surprise, surfacing from the depth of these absorbing works.

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Just down Chun King Alley from Coagula is Glenn Goldberg’s Somewhere at the Charlie James Gallery. Painted in pastels, these sweet images of birds, dogs, and other beings are designed, according to the artist, to make viewers feel lighter and happier. “A lot of artists put their finger on the problems of the world. I’m looking more to provide a gift or offering.”

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As to his subjects, he notes that his choice of bird images are both designed to evoke the freedom of flight and the poignant limitations on their lives, while his dog images represent the idea of a “friendly, domesticated protector.”  This is lovely work, that both soothes the soul and expands it.

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Over at CB1 Gallery in the warehouse arts district, Mira Schor’s War Frieze (1991 – 1994) and “Power” Frieze share space with a retrospective of Tom Knechtel’s work, The Reader of His Own Self.  Schor’s earlier work War Frieze is a strong companion to Power Frieze, with the former taking on the subject of the military, the recent, large scale works on paper with today’s political agendas.

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While inspired by African sculpture both artistically and philosophically, Schor’s work also reminds one a bit of Modigliani – the long, long-figured works created on tracing paper in rolls also evokes Japanese scrolls.

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“I’ve only worked in this degree of figuration and scale for the last year, except for figurative life size pieces I created in the 70s and 80s,” she says.

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Knechtel’s retrospective ranges from the present all the way back to 1979. The beautiful and carefully drawn graphite works and prints tackle a variety of subjects including self-image; when asked which piece was his favorite in the collection, he laughed.

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“That’s like asking a mother which of her kids is her favorite,” he said. Overall each piece presents strong texture that seems tactile, regardless of subject.

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Across the city in Santa Monica’s Bergamont Station, don’t miss Chilean artist Rebecca Puga’s lines and geometric shapes at Sloan Projects, a collection of her New Paintings in oil. “They are all related to specific spaces, to the time of day. I didn’t even realize this. When I saw the titles of paintings here, it occurred to me that these were all about ideas of space and time, and that brings meaning to our lives.” And to her abstract works.

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Also at Bergamont, at Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Tran T. Le’s In Transition and Trygve Faste’s Op-Tech each offer superlative abstractions. Le says of her work, “This exhibition represents me going back to my roots, being a Vietnamese American, and a woman, going through changes in my life, which include a divorce after eighteen years. The paintings are each very different, you can see the transition between each painting. The lines keep me grounded and help me meditate.”

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Lovely and lyrical work by both artists.

If this isn’t enough to keep you going through the next weeks, don’t worry, we’ll have more soon!

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke, Genie Davis, and many thanks to George Billis, Coagula, Charlie James for supplementing our photos. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jodi Bonassi: LA Art Scene Mural-on-Canvas

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Self-taught LA artist Jodi Bonassi may just have created a master work with her “Chungking Alley” – a mural on canvas that depicts the LA Art Scene.

Now on display in the heart of Chung King Alley itself, in the backroom at Coagula Curatorial, artists, curators, regular gallery goers – they’re all here in a truly awesome piece that has elements that are reminiscent of Henri Rosseau in its cavalcade of art.

Described as an upbeat artist who creates sweetly detailed, slightly surreal drawings of iconic LA locations, children, and other human beings, Bonassi is considered an outsider artist, but one whose sophistication and warmth grows with each piece.

Bonassi notes “Chungking Alley”  represents “the path we have all chosen. The painting did not come out of an idea but more as a reflection of the LA art scene and the people who chose to be a part of it. The painting was begun in December 2015.”

Oil on canvas, the piece would be a perfect adjunct to a museum collection or for a private buyer.  Just about everyone who “is” anyone in the LA art scene is a part of this painting, whose richness requires repeated viewings to truly appreciate its complexity, detail, and profoundly inclusive sweetness.

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“The composition is created right onto the canvas. People who have touched my life in some way, who hung out, and were in the art scene ended up in the painting. This is a painting about the art community, and how we all play together. The basketballs on the floor in the foreground represent the striving to be a part of this team. I am self taught and have exhibited in galleries and I have been published in different publications since 1991. I’ve always drawn and painted, and this is the only way that I can relate to the world.  My work stems from a desire to understand people and document my experiences through drawing and painting,”  the artist explains.

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Mat Gleason, curator of Coagula Curatorial, says “My impressions of the piece are that it asserts its own art historical narrative instead of submitting to academic structures and choices.”  He describes the painting as an “amazing dreamscape narrative with painterly precision.  Jodi has been around forever as have I.”
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Does the piece immortalize Gleason and the current body of art in LA? “Immortalized in art would still require the Louvre Museum to acquire the picture,” Gleason notes.
We believe that it would be a most auspicious addition to the Louvre’s collection. In the meantime, view it at Coagula, open Wenesday through Saturday form 1-6 p.m. and on Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. The gallery is located at 974 Chung King Road in Chinatown.

The Chinatown Art Scene: March Edition

 

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Chinatown has more cool art than dim sum these days. Last Saturday night, the opening receptions for a bevy of terrific shows filled Chung King Road with art lovers. There was a live band in the plaza, and the red paper lanterns glowed overhead, but the real events were inside a quartet of great galleries.

At The Good Luck Gallery, running through April 2nd, the imaginative found-art sculptures of Willard Hill dance across shelves and tables. Tenessee resident Hill worked in restaurants in his hometown of Manchester from the age of 17 to 63. Twenty years ago, he began creating sculptures crafted from others’ detritus. Today, retired, he shows no sign of stopping. A flood of creativity pours from his hands and heart.

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Hill uses foil, hangars, plastic bags, tooth picks, and cotton balls, among other commonplace discards, shaping them into ingenious and charming sculptures that tell beautifully realized stories.F23C9777

The pieces are lighthearted, but poignant. There’s a yearning in the figures, a longing for movement. F23C9776

A carnival of imaginative figures dance, pull carts, ride horse drawn conveyances, sing around a piano. There’s an immediacy and intimacy to his work that makes these figures spring to life. A viewer could imagine these pieces inhabiting a living world of their own when the lights go out and the gallery closes. F23C9773

Hill has crafted a world that’s colorful, bright, and slightly surreal. His use of found objects adds to the power of his pieces. He’s crafted so much from so little. This quintessential outsider artist has made literally thousands of pieces. The sheer scope of his work is astounding, the emotion captured in each piece literally shines.F23C9769

A very different show awaits viewers at the Charlie James Gallery. On display through April 9th, artist Guy Richards Smit presents A Mountain of Skulls and Not One I Recognize, a series he completed in just under a year. “I just constantly have a need to comment on things, even on the most basic image, like that of a skull,” Smit remarks.

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Smit has crafted a mock newspaper with headlines that amusingly mock current events, public figures, and social cliches. Brilliantly satirical, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, Smit is a force to be reckoned with, read, and watched.

His skull series was created as a response to a trip to Bohemia and a visit to a church made of skulls and bones when he was in his 20s. “I could imagine each skull having had a fight with a landlord or a lover. I’ve held onto to those images. Sometimes my captions are mundane, and some have bigger messages.”F23C9751His skulls feature captions that describe human types and behaviors. Each skull, like each person, is unique – in color, shape, and physical characteristics. The works, created in watercolor and gouache, are as haunting – a treatise on the ephemeral quality of life – as they are amusing. F23C9750

At Coagula Curatorial , the first solo show by New York based artist Emma Sulkowicz, Self Portrait, is a riveting portrait of the artist as – a sculpture.

The 23-year-old artist will be taking her place on a platform during regular gallery hours for the first three weeks of the show, which runs through April 3rd. The experience of communing with artist, sculpture, and 3D printed replica is quite profound. What dimension do we exist in?

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Above, Sulkowicz herself is on display, positioned on a pedestal and answering questions posed by viewers.

Below, In-Action Figure, a 3D-printed replica of the artist representing her past experience with the media, flattening her image.

 

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On opening night, viewers were able to interact with the artist, and ask her questions on just about any subject they liked. Except those that objectified her.F23C9740

Objectifying questions could be posted to Emmatron, a life-size, and life-like sculpture on an adjoining pedestal. Viewers interact with Emmatron through an app,  programmed so that the sculptural figure can answer a series of pre-set questions. F23C9733

At the Gregorio Escalante Gallery, perfect, minute, rotating doll house displays take viewers into a world of madness, survival, and whimsy – all at the same time. Running through March 27th, Michael Criley’s “Dr. Awkward’s Clinical Findings on the Back Wards,” plunges viewers down an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole of sanity and insanity.

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Criley was inspired by closed state mental hospitals in Lima, Ohio, and Weston, West Virginia. His mixed media creations tell the dark tale of a doctor and his abandoned patients. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. But not the ability to laugh, relate, and connect.

 

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An imaginary doctor’s insane dissertation on insanity, the mechanical gizmos here are madly magical.

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Containing equal parts of whimsy and terror, the miniatures, collages, sculptures, and dioramas of Criley’s work will have viewers thinking a long time. Or perhaps it’s time to stop thinking, lest your mind play any number of tricks that lead you to an urban legend of a mental hospital gone mad. F23C9704 F23C9702 F23C9697 F23C9696

Provocative, fascinating, and different indeed – those are the four exhibitions that opened fresh last weekend. Hold the egg rolls – order instead a quadruple helping of awesome art in DTLA’s Chinatown gallery row.

  • Genie Davis, All photos: Jack Burke

A Saturday Night in Chinatown

Joyous celebration, paper lanterns swinging overhead, crowds pushing into and out of galleries all along Chung King Road in the heart of Chinatown. That was the scene for Saturday openings all along Chung King Road’s walk-street gallery row on January 9th.

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Images and experiences flow together with the crowd – and just because this was a don’t-miss-night, Los Angeles art lovers need not despair. Thursday January 28, the scene will be repeated from 7-10 p.m., part of an LA Art Show sponsored celebration honoring Pop Surrealist artist Robert Williams with a lifetime achievement award. And most of the exhibitions run through February 20th.

Here’s a look at the great art flowing through these DTLA galleries.

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Brian Mains’ “The Intersection of Light and Darkness,” at the Gregorio Escalante Gallery is a visually and emotionally stimulating mythological world. The artist says “The kind of space, type of composition, use of light, and method of articulating forms all work together to create an other-worldly reality and to infuse the pictures with magical, theatrical and spiritual qualities.”

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At Chungking Studios, Painting by Scott Trimble and Photography by Osceola Refetoff, co-curated by Refetoff and Shana Nys Dambrot, enrichingly combines photographic and painted images that share the same sensibility of space, light, line, or emotion.

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Coagula Curatorial featured “Ten Top Artists,” a group show juried by Tulsa Kinney, editor of Artillery Magazine, and featuring artists including Jill Emery, Same Source, Vanessa Madrid, Annette Hassell, Jennifer Lugris,
Reagan Lake, Daggi Wallace, Michele Vavonese, and Kate Oltmann.
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Very different art and artists – commonality: a vision that makes you look twice.

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The Charlie James Gallery gave us artist Sadie Barnette’s meditative and haunting take on life at the racetrack, Superfecta, and Rosette, a group show curated by artist Mary Anna Pomonis, featuring the work of Suzanne Adelman, Lili Bernard, Mattia Biagi, Annie Buckley, Kristin Calabrese, Angel Chen, Sarah Cromarty, Cherie Benner Davis, Mark Dutcher, Christine Dianne Guiyangco, Sabina Ott,  Pomonis, Cindy Rehm, Allison Stewart and Vincent Ramos.

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Artist Lili Bernard, above, discusses her autobiographical tribute to the souls of her ancestors and three generations of rape survivors. The powerful piece, titled “Elvis Slept Here: Help Me, Abuelitas,” grabs you by the heart and the gut and won’t let go until you really see the details.

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Below, The Project Gallery premiered Wyatt Mills’ Normal, whose images belie the title. The Los Angeles artist’s mixed media paintings are a bold mix of the real and surreal.

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At The Good Luck Gallery, below, Art Moura’s stunning installations are a fine example of this gallery’s commitment to visionary and outsider art.

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Like walking into a dreamscape…F23C7995

A treasure trove of art washed up on a wild shore…

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Not sure how anyone couldn’t love this. It’s folk art, it’s surreal, it’s a tapestry of life, it’s the rhythm of existence, dream, and distance.

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The details are as compelling as the large designs.

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So you want some art? Some exciting art? Chung King Road is the place to be. But then, it almost always is.

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