It would be hard to find a gallery that exhibits more consistently interesting art in a more convivial setting that Gabba Gallery in Fillipinotown. The current four solo shows on exhibit are no exception.
If you haven’t seen the shows yet, you must. The gallery features exhibitions by four LA-based artists: Anyes Galleani, Kate Carvellas, Patrick Haemmerlein, and Henry Niller, and is as always beautifully and conversationally curated by Jason Ostro and Elena Jacobson.
Female icons are the subject of Galleani’s Strong, which features richly layered mixed media works that depict resilliant well-known women such as Marilyn Monroe, and Angelina Jolie, below in “Angelina & the Dripping Pink Skyline.” There’s a futuristic aspect to her work, which combines photo montage, paste, and paint. Her color palette is as LA as a winter sunset; her subjects as well-known as they are ripe for a more personal evocation.
Haemmerlein is presenting his second solo show at Gabba. Working in mixed media on panel, he combines watercolor images with collages of sheet music and written materials; other images reflect Native American symbols and animal photography. Measuring Memories has an ephermeral and elegaic quality that deserves a careful look at each element of his work.
Niller’s Anomalies encompasses two years of work in pen and ink drawings and mixed media works that build upon the concepts of the drawings. His reinvention of rock artists and bands also on exhibit make a terrific contrast with the drawings; both make powerful use of line and curve, and have a compelling tension in the images, which are fresh and filled with motion.
Carvellas, with Time, Space, and Place used found objects and assemblage incorporating a wide-range of items while creating richly rewarding, delicately assembled works that honestly vibrate with meaning. Carvellas is creating astonishing sculptural forms out of discards and ordinary objects; she uses each in almost mosaic-like approach.
In her work above, “Branching Out,” she utilizes the natural beauty of a found branch, aligning it to a location through map. A mysterious shape in the frame and in the top upper right remind the viewer of a compass, perhaps an emotional one; while her use of colored toy squares beneath them are both perfect geometric compositions and haunting reminders of past memories and future dreams.
The title of her exhibition refers to philosopher Edward Casey as well of the study of archeology. She notes “Time and space come together in place, resulting in change that celebrates or disrupts cyclical time and leads to rituals that recreate the universe.”
However, she explains “Instead of rituals, I gather disparate objects from different places and times, unifying them to create my own new and unique ‘universes.'” These are universes indeed, astonishing small worlds that expand the mind and eye just from viewing them. She percieves and reveals patterns and meanings in the objects she uses, shaping, structuring, and altering our own recognition of them.
With her piece “A Powerful Alliance,” above, Carvellas uses stencils, blocks, and a sundial-like configuration of small washers and hinges to create a piece that seems mystical, akin to a ouija board, a hierglyphic interpretation ready to transport viewers to another time or realm.
Many of her pieces here have the same effect: there’s something mysterious and magical to them, a heft that both her use of material and juxtaposition of images creates.
Hurry on in to see each of these artist’s works, and take in the exhibiting artists in the gallery’s rear salon space as well, including the photographic noir of LA in the work of Stephen Levey, who recently had his own solo show at the gallery.
- Genie Davis; images provided by artists and gallery
