Vina Blair: Graceful Abstracts Arrive from Malaysia

Posted on by Diversions LA
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Describing her work as a mixture that merges “memories, meditation, and life itself,” Malaysian-based artist Vina Blair has moved from photographic work to highly original acrylic on canvas abstract works that she says were initially inspired by her passion for Jackson Pollock, but have shifted into completely unique, dynamic forms.

“I feel that I’ve made very bold attempts and breakthroughs at this point, and I’m excited to be exhibiting in both New York City and Guangzhou, China this year,” she says.  She will be presenting her work at two art expos in both locations: Art Expo New York in April and the Guangzhou Art Fair in June.

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Raised in Johor, Malaysia, Blair has long felt an affinity to both nature and busy urban environments. Both, she relates, have shaped her vision as an artist and a desire to create meaning from color patterns, surreal impressions, and her own emotions. She terms herself a quintessential “observer, having a deep affection towards the nature, emotions, feelings and spirituality that I encounter.”

In her current body of work, she then turns that affinity into lush, swirling abstract works. In many of her paintings, she uses a limited color palette, her brush strokes and lines speaking in a kind of inchoate language, resembling sky, wind, water, and floral elements. “My themes are full of philosophical speculations,” she asserts.

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Largely a self-taught painter, she relates that to her, “Art is an effective communication tool that could touch others’ hearts,” a belief which has encouraged her to create expansively.

She adds “I create layered surfaces and use a strong palette, letting them both flow together to make a lyrical and yet deeply concrete image.”

In her past photographic work, she manipulated her images to shape abstract works focused on “identity, relationships, emotions like desire and despair;” images that took on the quality of dreams

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In her painted work, she likes rich blues and glowing golds, streaks of thick white, ribbons of color that seem to twine and dance. Watery images implode with light; others seem to resemble cyclones and rivers, caligraphy and a kind of Rorschach test of art.

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The work moves and shifts as the viewer does; the tumult of curves and lines compelling and intuitive. Blair transcends location and neatly edges into a kind of universal conception of color and movement that evokes the origins of life.

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Her “birth” of abstract images is not about fury and fire but rather more about a shifting perspective, a kind of formless grace, and a sense of transition, an acceptance of change.

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The art fairs in which Blair is participating this year should introduce her work to a wider audience; Blair is  eager, she says, to shape more beauty for a global and universal audience.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by artist

Fantastic Four: A Super Hero and Heroine Quartet Hit the Art World

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Left to right, above, it’s the fantastic four artists and friends: Bob Branaman, Gay Summer Rick,  Catherine Ruane, and Mike Street.

At Venice’s Mike Kelley Gallery at Beyond Baroque through March 15th, the work of four exceptional SoCal artists makes up the Fantastic Four exhibition. Each artist is quite different from the other, yet their work in the rambling upstairs/downstairs gallery is brilliantly compatible in a quite wonderful show curated by Bob Branaman.

Gay Summer Rick’s intense golds, oranges, and pinks are the stuff of California dreams; Catherine Ruane’s delicate, ruminitive pieces are touched in gold and have an astonishing jewel-like glow; Mike Street’s work feels both modern and yet that it would not be out-of-place in Greco-Roman times, both monochromatic and richly narrative; while Bob Branaman’s work is all vibrant color, exuberant and blossoming with life.

In short, this is an exhibition to savor, in terms of its differentness among the artists – who are all friends – and their similarities. Each in their own way present work that is emblematic of their lives in California; images born both of imagination and the emotional alchemy that arises in the diverse environments of their home state and the fertile field of aristic dreams.

Enjoy the fantastic ride: these four take you on roads of beauty that refuse to remain unmapped.

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The glow of Gay Summer Rick’s work, above and below is astonishing. It is the fire of sunsets, the rising light of dawn, the backdrop, love-song, and legacy of Los Angeles. From freeway commuter views toward the sea to the skies that simmer and shift above the downtown cityscape, Rick is perhaps the quintessential artist for LA. Radiant work here, as is her norm; with an underpinning of dreamy light even in the most prosaic landscape.

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With Catherine Ruane’s work, below,  there are familiar aspects of her oeuvre, too, and many previously unexperienced. Her gorgeous, often black and white drawings of trees and branches, flowers, and desert have been supplanted here by smaller, very jewel-like etchings.

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From beautiful, motion-filled, wind-swept palms to fish with gold highlights on their scales, this is perfect, dazzlingly precise work. Each piece is a work of wonder, something so finely crafted that the viewer simply does not want to look away.

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Mike Street’s work here is somehow timeless: it is of this place and era and yet it could also easily be  from a distant world.

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There’s a sculptural quality to each piece, and their monochromatic use of color adds to that. Rich in depth, they remind the viewer of the  past, somehow transported to our time and space through the conduit of Street’s artistry.

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To some extent, these fascinating faces remind the viewer of a daguerreotype, as if created on a silver-covered copper plate.

If Street’s work offers an elegant, restrained use of palette, Branaman’s work provides the exact opposite: imposing color, the delight of a hippie kingdom, a tie-dyed world, rainbows.

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There is a fierceness to his colors, to his stained-glass-like patterns; an impulsive, vibrant quality that leaps at the viewer and catches one up in its powerful exuberance. Below, Branaman stands with Gay Summer Rick.

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So – which of the four is the most fantastic? It’s a tough call – you’ll have to go see for yourselves.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

Gabba Gallery is Filled With Great Art – Through This Weekend

Posted on by Diversions LA

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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.” 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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  • Genie Davis; images provided by artists and gallery

Radiant Spectrum Offers a Rainbow of Color at MASH

Posted on by Diversions LA

Color, color, color.  Like spring flowers, carnival rides, and kaleidoscopes, colors are popping from the gallery walls at MASH Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. Opening this Saturday is Radiant Spectrum,  a group show of 16 contemporary artists working in a wide range of mediums including sculpture, painting, and drawing. Curated by designer Mark Murphy, the show’s exhibiting artists include: Michelle A. Benoit, Jud Bergeron, Kelsey Brookes, Jill Carlock, Christian Clayton, Nate Harris, Terry Hoff, Shaelin Jornigan, Tasha Kusama, Kevin Long – aka – Spanky, Joe Roberts – aka – LSD Worldpeace, David Shillinglaw, Bonnie Marie Smith, Tricia Strickfaden, Kellesimone Waits, Marco Zamora. The opening March 9th is just the beginning for the exhibition, which will also feature an appearance by color psychic Sarah Potter on March 23rd.

According to Murphy, “Radiant Spectrum establishes color as a central character.” Whether abstract or cubist, the work here has all been created specifically for the installation, which he terms “salon-inspired.”  

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LA-based Christian Clayton, above, offers ten mixed media works that utilize a wide range of textures and patterns; the works are part of “Emotion,” a series of textures and patterns utilized to shape portraits that evoke the spirit of Picasso.

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The work of Nate Harris, above, is sleek and dynamic, a piece that reminds the viewer of an optical illusion of sorts; while a single miniature painting packs a powerful punch from San Diego artist and former biologist Kelsey Brookes in his “Untitled Molecular Study,” below. In the latter work, tiny jeweled bits of color form a kind of universe in a wheel-like shape.

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Below, the work of Terry Huff is candy-coated psychedlia, a vibrant rainbow of color that looks good enough to eat, or at least to sink the viewer into a devouring dream.

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Tricia Strickfaden’s “Nobody Walks in LA,” below, brings to life a surreal and abstract version of stop lights and caution signs, a lively puzzle piece that has elements of throw-back moderne style.

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Surealism is the undercurrent for Kevin Spanky’s “Long,” below. Large red head, small blue car; highly dimensional checkered platform for the driver and vehicle.

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With the color palette the main conversation in this intense and vivid exhibition,  the lush LA sunset depicted in “Milennial Blood, Sweat, and Tears,” below, sets even the bones in this piece by Tasha Kusama on fire.

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Murphy says the entire show is a “reflection of artistic radiance.” He adds that the theme of the exhibition was truly an outgrowth of his own design work in books and catalogs over the years and the recognittion that “color really provides a pathway or imprint upon the work itself. “

Color of course adds a riveting dimension to the entire exhibition, but there are many sculptural works, including Bonnie Marie Smith’s lustrous work, below, that are dimensional in their own right. Smith’s piece here is a gorgeous crayon-box of color.

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After the opening, on March 23rd a tarot reading is in the cards when New York-based color psychic Sarah Potter celebrates the power of color in a unique presentation from 6 to 9 p.m. March 23rd at MASH.  Potter will present an exciting free event that should bring the color spectrum into even more vivid perspective.  As she says, “Each color has its own vibration and has the ability to stimulate powerful feelings. I can’t wait to share how this works and how you can apply it to your own life right away.”

In the meantime, experience all the color in the world in one gallery, this Saturday, when the exhibition opens at 7 p.m. Mash is located at 1325 Palmetto Street in DTLA.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by curator