It’s time to get down with Zero Down. Coming up this Saturday, June 4th from 5-9 p.m., it’s a multi-media art experience at the 1019WEST Art Studios in Inglewood, a cool, re-purposed workspace where over 30 artists have their studios in what was once a former Volkswagon dealership.
The third year for this multi-media art exhibit, the evening promises a combination party and art experience, with open studios, a group show, and performance art. This single night event is a festive occasion featuring a variety of artists’ work from the 1019 Artists Studio Complex and the nearby Beacon Arts Building. Live music, installations, and stellar group exhibitions join over 20 open artist studios. Installations and group presentations will take place in hallways and common space around the site. Food and drink will be available, too – we hear there will be tacos.
Participating artists from 1019WEST are: Mira Alibek, Susan Amorde, Michee Asselin, Nina Chin, Clerio Demoraes, Jeanne Dunn, Claire Jackel, Rachel Kaster, Henry Kitchen, Stuart Marcus, Jesus Max, David Newcombe, Melanie Newcombe, David Peters, Tony de los Reyes, David Spanbock, Ernie Steiner, Lacey Stoffer, Liza Vosbigian, Pontus Wilfors, Ashley Wilson.
Artist David Spanbock, work shown above, is the co-founder of BLAM, a new Brooklyn/Los Angeles arts collective. Spanbock uses prismatic shapes to refract both light and color. “All of my work is about the politics of transformation, the politics of human physics. I had the insight that a city is a collection of events and figures, creating a larger structure, and that’s what I’m working with.”
Above, Susan Amorde explores the human form and emotions navigating the challenges of life. Her expressionistic works are created in clay, wax, plaster, and bronze, as well as mixed media. Her recent series “Baggage” engages a highly personal theme of how the literal and figurative baggage we carry with us becomes an emblem of our lives in the emotional and metaphysical sense.
Above, Jesus Max creates light filled still-lifes that vibrate with meaning, poetic settings that translate into beautifully hyper realistic pieces created in often-pastel colors with rigorous attention to detail in a fantastic world.
Participating artists from Beacon Arts Building are: Brian Biedul, Darel Carey, Matthew Carey, Dosshaus, Bibi Davidson, Sue Francis, Nancy Jo Haselbacher, Shelley Heffler, Deborah Lambert, Tahnee Lonsdale, Michael Massenburg, Jen Meyer, Alexis Murray, Calida Garcia Rawles, Dawn Rosenquist, Katie Sinnott, Ginger Van Hook.
Bibi Davidson says she wants her viewers to see the humor in life, humor necessary to existence, or “we would all die of sorrow.” Her paintings provide intense, amusing, and delightfully whimsical views of the world, as if seen through the eyes of a wise child, as sensitive as she is brilliant. Often utilizing her self-proclaimed favorite color, red, her works are different than anything you’ve ever seen, and entirely engaging.
Artist Shelly Heffler describes her art as a “roadmap. I paint a topography that doesn’t always represent an actual location.” Heffler also works extensively in ceramics but her acrylic on canvas pieces are her primary medium at the moment, each with a 3D depth that creates a path beyond maps, grids and lines. “It goes into and beyond surface, layers, strata, land forms, time, and age. But at its core, at its inception, it evokes a sense of place,” she attests.
Performance art by Kayla Tange, L.A. Mudpeople, Vittoria Colonna, and Elizabeth Tobias will also be a part of the evening.
The founder of L.A. Mudpeople is artist Mike Mollet, who sculpts large scale pieces created from found art, shaped into balls and bundles. Mollet’s work offers a look into a different reality, one in which what look like clay statues live and breathe, and bundles of wires move in the wind and become animated themselves. Mollet considers his troupe of L.A. Mudpeople to function as “essentially living sculptures.” Mudpeople don’t speak, and move slowly and deliberately, as if lumps of clay had shaped themselves into human beings and literally come to life.
Kayla Tange terms her passion “in meaningful dialog, creative problem solving, collaborative projects and facilitating a unique relationship between art and audience.” To experience her vibrant yet darkly intense performance art is to become immersed in her own inner vision.
To learn more and experience the work of these and other artists, visit this single night’s artistic adventure. The event is sponsored by 1019WEST/Beacon Arts Building management, Shoebox PR and Kristine Schomaker, and 1019WEST/Beacon Arts Building artists, including: Susan Amorde, Jeanne Dunn, and Deborah Lambert.
1019WEST is a dynamic complex of creative workspaces where 30 multi-disciplinary artists maintain studios.
Zero Down is located at 1019 west Manchester Blvd. in Inglewood. Walk-in entrance only on West Manchester and Hindry Avenue. Get on down.
- Genie Davis; Photos: Shoebox PR