Cynthia Friedlob

Celebrating World Art Day, an exhibition featuring Botart International artworks offered barrels of fun and fine art at the Brewery arts complex on April 17th.

Botart is a collection of art pieces produced on wooden wine barrels, featuring work by invited artists around the globe. These beautiful free-standing pieces are as varied as the artists chosen to create them. At the far right, the beautiful glowing pastel of Hung Viet Nguyen’s barrel.

Above, artist Cynthia Friedlob created “Tipitina,” titled after the classic new Orleans jazz song that was this Los Angeles artist’s inspiration. “My art is inspired by jazz. I essentially created a Mardi Gras piece to lighten it up. There are beads on top of the barrel. The black stripes on the barrel represent city streets – it’s very much a New Orleans-style piece,” Friedlob explains.

Hanging behind her barrel was her painting “Notes 101C” which is one of a series of paintings based on general chords and orchestral passages. “I was inspired by the great jazz towns of the 40s and 50s, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and St. Louis,” Friedlob says.

Above, Yvonne Beatty with Baha Danesh.

Yvonne Beatty’s barrel is titled “Linear.”  The title refers to the way “wine” is written in a variety of languages. “I looked up the word, and each of the images on the barrel is based on a particular script in which the word ‘wine’ is written. What I discovered is that calligraphy is based on a actual being in the world. There is a ghost of a living creature in each script image,” she reports. Beatty’s both charming and pointed painting of another living creature, a squirrel armed with a gun, was hung behind her barrel.

Titled “Phil,” Beatty says of this piece “I know this squirrel. He lives in my backyard. He’s protecting himself from hunting season for squirrels.” The hyper-realistic piece is created in acrylic ink and paint on canvas.

Sunflowers burst from both an oil-on-canvas painting and the wine barrel created by Ada Pullini. “The painting is a sunflower field in Tuscany that I painted while burning up in the sun.” The heat and intensity still radiates.

The exhibition was curated by Shawn Barrett, with creative direction from Andre Miliposky and Baha Danesh. A tour of a number of artists’ studios at The Brewery complex was organized by Dale Youngman.

Art work was also on display at Gallery I-5 in the Brewery complex.

Above, the delicate, mosaic-like landscape of Hung Viet Nguyen. From trees, to sea,  the work depicts an internal, spiritual world as well as the external.

• Genie Davis; all photos: Jack Burke