MAS Attack – A Mutual Appreciation Society Art Pop Up for Our Times

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Community. Caring. Loads of love and sharp, social commentary art.  Conceived and curated by Torrance Art Museum director Max Presneill, this was one special evening at TAM, radiating with a sense of support and jubilant joy even in the face of uncertain (at best) times. LaLena Lewark-Presneill DJ’d; Jorin Bossen and Mark Fisher assisted; docent Katherine Orlin manned the desk.

While art on the wall might suggest “the end” times “…and scene,” this was the start of a really big scene of terrific art – over 300 artworks in all, from sculptures to paintings, photography, mixed media, and everything in between – and phenomenal art loving support with between 700 and 800 attendees. In three short, super fun hours on a very lucky Friday the 13th for all who came, a feast of art and happiness was on the table.

I didn’t get to say hi to all of you – and I missed some works – but here is somewhat of a compilation of terrific art.

If you were there, relive the glorious experience; if you were not, now you can pretend you were.

And share this story! We have no pay wall – so spread the love on and around.

  • Genie Davis; photos, Genie Davis

Art as Medicine at Torrance Art Museum

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If medicine is an art – can art be medicine? The answer is a resounding yes at Torrance Art Museum where two exhibitions are also about medicine.

Provocative, healing and thoughtful both the museum’s galleries feature art that literally and figuratively dissects medical intervention and practice, the body’s capacity to heal and be healed , chronic illness, pain and acceptance, and the state of American medical care.

Gallery Two presents a vivid, compelling exhibition created by patient artists in Art and Med.

Curated by Ted Meyer, the show features work by Ellen Cantor, Ayin Es, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Siobhan Hebron, Cathy Immordino, Rachael Jablo, Daniel Leighton,  Krista Machovina, J. Fredric May, Bhanva Mehta, Dylan Mortimer, Kathy Nida, Alice Marie Perreault, Jane Szabo, Susan Trachman, James T. Walker, and Meyer himself.

Intense and beautiful, viewers see beautiful, heart wrenching and beautiful photographic images of a complicated pregnancy from Cathy Immordino in “Cry for Help;” “Two Mirrors,” a wall sculpture offering a look inside Alice Marie Perreault’s role as advocate and caregiver; and Daniel Leighton’s vivid iPad painting radiating pain and healing – and the admission of same – in “Opening Up.”

Also on exhibit is the delicate mix of Ayin Es’ “Inherited Shock,” a woven wonder of oil, pencil, embroidery, thread, wire, paper, and pins on canvas; Dylan Mortimer’s zen garden and glitter reimagining of an ambulance ride in “Gates in Proximity to Paradise;” and Meyer’s own sinuous skeleton figure in “Structural Abnormalities” among so many other fine works, including dream-like photography from Jane Szabo, and terrific sculptural work from Krista Machovina among more.

For over a decade Ted Meyer had curated art shows focusing on artworks by patient-artists as a means of teaching future doctors and current medical workers about the lived experience of chronic pain and illness.

These patient-artists create work that depicts the myriad of ways their illnesses affect day-to-day living, physical health and mental well-being.  Like all important art, patient artwork makes strong statements about the human condition.  These works are personal in their creation yet universal in their scope. They make up some of Meyer’s favorites from his times as Artist-in-Residence at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.  Over 10 years he has curated some 40 different exhibits tied to the school’s core curriculum, producing beautiful exhibits that are also both compelling and informational ones.

In Gallery One, the medical world is both personal and more political in Body Politics. Curated by Max Presneill and Sue-Na Gay, this potent exhibition examines not only the disabled body, but how it is seen both socially and politically. The presenting artists include Panteha Abareshi, Emily Barker, Yadira Dockstader, Mari Katayama, Katherine Sherwood, and Liz Young.

Emily Barker’s witty and scathing “Good Medicine is Bitter to the Mouth” offers pithy commentary on health in the U.S.

There are heartbreaking installations dealing with medical billing, how the physical body is treated,  specimens and body parts, and the general treatment of those with disabilities or infirmities. It’s an achingly strong show.

View these two powerful exhibitions through September 9th, along with videos in the museums screening room, featuring Surrealist Vacations In The Subconscious 2023— a video art exhibition, curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne / The New Museum of Networked Art, inspired by the Manifesto of Surrealism by Andre Breton.

TAM is located at 3320 Civic Center Drive in Torrance, Calif.

  • Genie Davis;  photos: Genie Davis

Round Too: Durden and Ray Gets It Right – Again

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Curated by Max Presneill, Round Too – the second half of Durden and Ray’s opening – is strong, sensual, and smart.

Featuring artists  Jorin Bossen, Gul Cagin, Sijia Chen, Lana Duong, Ed Gomez, Brian Thomas Jones, Chris Mercier, Ty Pownall, Nano Rubio, Curtis Stage, Valerie Wilcox, and Steven Wolkoff, the exhibition has a cool, clean look from its colors to its spacing.  Both the style of the cohesive exhibition and that of the artists’ represented is innately different from the first half of gallery’s inaugural, Round Won.

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Christopher Mercier’s “In Proximity” describes his work as “an art conservator’s disaster.” Using frames to build new space, Mercier works with “Just paint. No rubber, no plastic, it’s just painting and the frame, latex, enamel, oil, water based ink,” he explains. By refolding the frames, Mercier has expanded the space in his wall sculpture to bring the painting into a three-dimensional space.

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The incredibly thick paint and even the artist’s unique use of space evokes the Excessivist movement. The piece is an encompassing 24 x 96 x 18 inches.

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Equally fascinating is the very different work by Nano Rubio, “Anti Flag.”

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Oil, acrylic, and spray paint on canvas, the work employs techniques Rubio often used in customizing cars. “There are lots of pin striping tools that I use, and I like to build up layers. I like the idea of trickery, that things can change your perception. Yes, the piece can be ready as very political,” he asserts.

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“Things are getting grittier to deal with politics in the California landscape.”

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Ty Pownall created his “Untitled (single fade out)” right on site. Comprised of steel, sand, and spray paint, the work needs to be created from scratch whenever Pownall exhibits it.

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“It’s loose sand raised on a steel sheet. The pigment is sifted on with a screen, you essentially tap it on in order to put the particulate on top. I do it all on site.” The piece seems to fade off into infinity at one end, creating an image that is both one of perfection and incompletion.

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Valerie Wilcox’ “Passage” is a mixed media work in cool whites, off-whites, grey and green. It’s both bold and ghostly; both all angular lines and soft colors.

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Steven Wolkoff, who curated the first half of Durden & Ray’s opening, here offers “High Adventure (a pile of gummy behrs).”

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Using Behr acrylic house paint to create his miniature paint bears, Wolkoff’s deliciously tactile work is available at a crazy-reasonable cost: $5 per bear. Good enough to eat, but don’t.

The impressionist abstract of Sijia Chen’s “Stray;” the photo diptych of Brian Thomas-Jones “Untitled (Green/Tan),” which fits visually with Wilcox’ “Passage” like they were destined to be shown together; and Gul Gain’s “To Look Aimlessly,” an abstract that looks as if a head was literally exploding other shadowy forms around it – are among the other standouts in a strong exhibition.

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Above, Durden and Ray’s Dani Dodge with curator Max Presneill.

The Durden and Ray collective continues to hit their art out of the ballpark – rarely has a gallery’s “opening season” looked so good.

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Durden and Ray is located at 1923 S. Santa Fe Avenue in a building now brimming with art galleries, including CB1.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

 

 

 

Durden and Ray: New Space, Same Passion

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Art collectives are a wonderful thing. They bring together and support groups of artists whose eclectic and powerful work deserves a showcase which it might not find with a solo approach.

Durden and Ray are one such collective, and they have recently made a move – from a loft space across the street on Santa Fe Avenue to a pristine, white-wall gallery in the same complex as CB1.

Above, left, Tom Dunn’s “Mesopotamia #36,” a marvelous mix of the abstract and figurative in oil. Alongside, to the right, the brilliantly textured acrylic on canvas of Jenny Hagar, “Roja.” Both leap off the wall, as different as they are well-matched.

Yes, the space is lovely and airy, the light dancing off the walls and works, but it is the art itself, and the passionate spirit the collective represents that shines.

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Above left, artist Dani Dodge with curator Steven Wolkoff.

The opening exhibition in the new space, Round Won was curated by Steven Wolkoff, the show features artists: Dani Dodge, Tom Dunn, Roni Feldman, Jon Flack, Jenny Hager, Ben Jackel, David Leapman, Alanna Marcelletti, Max Presneill, David Spanbock, Jesse Standlea, and Alison Woods.

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Above, Alison Woods with her “Utopia,” acrylic on canvas, we have geometric patterns and vibrating lines so intense that the canvas appears layered; there are elements that evoke a collage or puzzle pieces. Viewers see a city landscape that is exploding with flora and fauna.

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Above, Allana Marceletti, left, near her “Daae,” a sculptural collage of found objects, acrylic, and metal on organza with seatbelt straps. Hang on for the ride. Next to her is Dani Dodge, whose installation, “Ashes,”  is comprised of glass containing the burnt ashes of articulated, written fears.  While very different conceptually, both pieces feature sheer, almost fragile visual depth, and pull the viewer into a landscape that is shimmery and mutable.

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Max Presneill stands before his oil and enamel “RD 141.” Bold graphics and lines, shapes that stand entirely on their own yet coalesce into a vivid whole.  Presneill wants viewers to experience his bright, visceral work from the perspective of the “system of languages we call painting.”

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David Spanbock’s candy colored acrylic on linen, “The Politics of Transformation,” is a dimensional, unique take on urban life and environment.

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And what would an urban environment be without a few fire hydrants? Ben Jackel’s “Large headed hydrants (youth, middle age, elder) are stoneware and beeswax, and serve as a kind of ‘in memoriam’ to the vicissitudes of city life. The black color renders them tomb-like, yet the overall affect is lighthearted.

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Jon Flack’s “Backyard Sermon,” rear wall, takes an entirely modern approach to an iconic American subject, the itinerant preacher. Juxtaposed with Marcelletti’s sculpture and Dodge’s installation, the three works make an engaging commentary on things both profound and redemptive.

Both collectively and through each artist’s work, Round Won is more than ready for prime time.

This will be a two-part opening introducing the 24 members of Durden and Ray  – Round Too, curated by Max Presneill, will open April 1st.

The show runs through March 19th. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m. The new space is located at 1923 S. Santa Fe Ave. in DTLA.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis