Author: Diversions LA

With the stunning group show Black, at Loft at Liz’s through March 26th, the color glows, shines, and spills texture. Curated by gallery owner Liz Gordon, the exhibition reveals the ways in which this color is not just one rich, dark shade, but an entire palette of blackness, nuanced and thought-provoking.

Like the spill of ink or a shimmering backdrop to stars, there is a wonderfully vast feeling to the work on display; in fact there is so much wonderful art that it spreads beyond the main gallery into a small section of Liz’s Antique Hardware store on the floor below.

This is the black of coffee, of night, of puddles, of lightless woods, of just-about-morning, of rain storms with thick clouds, of those perfect cocktail party dresses, of contrast – with pops of gold, red, and white. It is ice caves and moonless midnights, the bottom of a well, the ash from a fire.

You won’t know just how black and how varied black can be until you take in this show.

Kelly Berg’s  sculptural wall art uses shards of mirror and plexiglass creating shining, physically and emotionally sharp works that remind one of chunks of hail, ice, or broken glass stabbing through the blackness; Berg also offers additional sculptural pieces which weave in color that reference the fashion industry, shoes and purses.

Carlos Grasso’s mixed media works are a fascinating study in textural contrast, as are the volcanic, molten, obsidian-like works of Jeff Iorillo.

Michael Hayden’s encaustics fall into a different sphere, layered, with  a golden, horizon-like light weaving in gold leaf and salvage.

Veda B. Kaya creates swirling, abstract images in white and orange on her oil and acrylic works, patterns that evoke snowflakes and shimmer with both surface and hidden light.

Andy Moses, also working in oil and acrylic, gives viewers large scale works with black backgrounds against which hypnotic white and blue patterns seem to move, slowly, to the viewers eye, as if they were ice flows.

Lindsey Noble makes a pointed reference to the energy devoured by the cryptocurrency industry in her series of ribbed and webbed works, and in taking on that industry also evokes some of its shadowy, dark, deep beneath the ground “mining.”

Miguel Osuna offers stunning textures, and in “Difficult Pleasure,” a rose pattern within his midnight black works.

This is dizzying, fabric-like, highly textured work you could sink inside.

Red and white faces and bodies pop like vampires or creatures born in darkness within Stefano Panichi’s large scale black backgrounds.

And then there are the seductive and sinuous sculptural limbs created by Camilla Taylor. Cast from stoneware, lino-cut, ceramics and pewter, these are powerful pieces, haunting, dismembered, burnt, scarred, redeemed.

This is a poetic and beautiful show, one that somehow, almost magically, carries the viewer deep within the heart of blackness, making viewers forget – or realize the fallacy of – the monochromatic color scheme.

Above, Liz Gordon, curator and gallerist.

Black is back indeed – riven with passion – or perhaps it never left. It’s bold, it’s big, it’s gotta be seen.

Loft at Liz’s is located at 453 S. La Brea in mid-city.

• Genie Davis; Photos by Genie Davis; additional photos: Carlos Grasso and Michael Hayden