When Line Becomes Form: Brand Library Gallery Liberates

Posted on by Diversions LA

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A soaring show filled with powerful figures and shapes, When Line Becomes Form is an elegant, measured spiritual odyssey. Featuring the art work of Mark Acetelli, Dirk Hagner, Cindy Jackson, Grey James, Joanna Kidd and Miles Lewis, the expressionistic exhibition roams from sculpture to painting and drawing, touching all points between them.

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Pasadena based painter Mark Acetelli works in oils and encaustics, layering his canvasses in a kind of emotional abstraction.  His figures are ghost-like, souls in migration, images to which the viewer imparts the more concrete elements. Lush and dreamy, these works wander through the mind and take root there, wavering in an emotional wind.

Brand line 2Dirk Hagner uses traditional mediums to create uniquely modern portraits of literary and political subjects. Iconic figures and those whose images just appear familiar are portrayed through a series of large-scale woodblock portraiture. Hagner’s highly stylized works are seemingly elegaic, poignant and cool, involving yet carefully nuanced.

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The late Cindy Jackson’s large scale and absolutely magnificent sculptures here are brimming with life. The artist noted that viewers should “Look deeply into my work and you’ll see that it is not about the figure itself, but about the internal emotional worlds that sit within those boundaries.” The entwined and exaggerated shapes of her very-much-alive figures soar through the space they inhabit. It would be impossible for a viewer to not stand beside these figures in awe of their spiritual depth. These are souls frozen in sculpted bodies, to which Jackson pays tribute. The internationally recognized and award-winning artist has created sublime works that serve as a legacy for her own indomitable spirit. To a large extent, these pieces are the center of the exhibit, from which other works spiral out and in, line having fully become form in her works.

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Glendale-based artist Grey James’ offers paintings and mixed media, personal, involving accounts of transition both physical and emotional. James creates moving transgender icons, intimate and appealing; a universal sense of beauty and change in these images going far beyond the borders of sexual definition. The works have the quality of religious paintings, a reverence that the viewer finds palpable.

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Joanna Kidd’s work forms a different sort of transition: that between the sculptural and painting. Her bas relief portraits are raised in high relief, shaping a highly dimensional, caught-in-motion quality to each portrait.  The faces she depicts are detailed and alive, shifting in light and in the viewers relationship to the images, so that they seem to be watching and watchful. Her art contains something quite intensely, universally human, the capture of a living being for a fraught moment in time.

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Miles Lewis considers himself a life-drawing artist. Drawing is the medium he uses to shape figures that are fluid and resonant; delicately textured, these works on paper seem ready to shape-shift into something more dimensional. These are carefully wrought creations, studies that make it seem possible they may morph into flesh and blood.

Over all, this exhibit is all about life: the lines that become form are the strands of DNA that create existence. The art is a part of the wonder and artistry of a spiritual universe, a new way of creating the real; expressionist art that expresses the most powerful and graceful embodiment of art itself – the human form, the human spirit.

The show runs through September 1st. The Brand Art Gallery is located at 1601 W. Mountain Street in Glendale.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

 

Durden and Ray Collaborate

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Just closed at Durden and Ray, Simultaneous Contrast offered a fresh and provocative look at texture and line, with works positioned in a perfectly balanced counterpoint of color and pattern from one another. Indeed, the exhibition served as an inclusive, vibrant installation as much as a display of singularly cool works of art.

The exhibition, an exchange show with Chicago’s LVL3 gallery, features three Los Angeles artists and two Chicago artists in a show of abstract paintings that were created and curated to “symbolize the current violent swings of thought across the country regarding America’s simultaneous utopia and dystopia,” according to the exhibition’s notes.

However, visually, the show compelled on a level that goes beyond politics or symbolism. The colors and textures, the rich and the absorbing designs, all served as a kind of kaleidoscope of palette and pattern.

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Curated by Durden and Ray member Curtis Stage and LVL3 member Adam Scott, LA artists Roberta Gentry, Nano Rubio, and Chris Trueman are joined by Zoe Nelson and Adam Scott from Chicago. The counterpart of this show in Chicago is scheduled for October.

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From Chris Trueman’s lush, almost watery abstract splashes, swatches, and hypnotic swipes of color…

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…to Adam Scott’s prismatic, deeply grooved and textured works, Simultaneous Contrast did just that, offering a sense of immediacy and a vibrant counterpoint.

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Nano Rubio’s incredible, precise lines and patterns support what Rubio calls “the idea of trickery, that things can change your perception.”Durden July 15 nelson

Zoe Nelson’s amorphous forms and shapes are edged with surrealism, a balancing act of floating rhythms of color.

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Roberta Gentry’s intense, almost psychedelic prismatic works were in short, fascinatingly different and yet intertwined. They’re dreamscapes in a way, and the viewer nearly falls into a rabbit hole just watching them.

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The pairings of paintings and positioning of works across the gallery from each other, created a dialog of sorts, one that set the eye and mind buzzing.

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Like puzzle pieces, the artworks fit together and danced alone, interwoven and dazzling, each and together.

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As always, Durden and Ray‘s dedication to the different did not disappoint.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Genie Davis and Curtis Stage

 

Cynthia Minet: Glowing and Winged Things Illuminated with Meaning

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Entangled exhibition at the Animal Museum, featuring themes of fish netting, plastic pollution in the ocean, celebrity pets and the gift store.

Los Angeles based artist and sculptor Cynthia Minet creates dynamic, soul-alive animals. This is found art that’s “found” new life in her vivid, LED-illuminated glowing animals. Whether it’s a life-sized baby elephant, a camel, or an ox, Minet uses post-consumer plastic, PVC, and LED lights to shape her mixed media sculptures. The figures essentially have a transparent plastic skin, through which the LED-lighting wires run like veins. She also draws these animals in a beautifully realistic, motion-filled style. These serve both as models for her sculptures and as a different way to express the life of her animals.

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At the same time, Minet exposes the waste of our dependence on plastic, transforming these discarded products into sculptural beauty.

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“My process involves drawing, research into anatomy, gesture and behavior of animals, model and armature building, collecting of materials, lots of trial and error, and exploration of different ways of working with light and color,” Minet says.

Minet’s meticulous attention to detail with her large-scale figures results in life-like creatures that are both dreamscape and entirely realistic. They’re moving and intimate, the glow from her LED lights manifesting an almost spiritual presence.

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The incredible use of found materials in her work developed fortuitously in 2008, when Minet was invited to create an exhibition in an Italian nightclub. “The club was next door to a recycling facility. I had just seen an amazing show of work using fiber optics and light in Finland. I came back to LA and started working with plastics and light right away.”

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Minet says her work is influenced by “Everything having to do with science, anatomy, environmentalism, place, social issues, light and color.” Specific artists also inspire her, including the work of Auguste Rodin and Marcel Duchamp, Louise Bourgeois, and Olafur Elliason, as well as Lee Bul’s work.

Currently, the artist is working on Migrations, a solo project for the International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen, Texas, which will run from November 2017 to February 2018.

She says there are a number of aspects as to the museum’s location itself that excite her: the fact that McAllen borders Mexico on the Rio Grande, and that it lies on the Avian Central Flyway Corridor.

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“Both of these factors inspire me to create an installation that features seven life-size sculptures of roseate spoonbills, and one that considers both avian and human migration through the use of found materials and interactivity.”

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She describes the show as consistent with her other work focusing on animals and environmental issues, and that it, too, uses LEDs and post-consumer plastics, and is site-responsive. However, the work is also different from past projects. “It’s interactive; motion sensors will activate sound elements, and the lights will incorporate a sequencing animation to enhance the sense of movement in the work. I am collaborating with Vaugh Hannon, an artist and technical wiz, on the interactivity and the lighting sequences,” she explains. “I do seek help with lighting design, as that is a continuous learning curve for me.”

There are other differences in the material that she is utilizing as well.

“It incorporates materials gathered from the borderlands along the Rio Grande River, and carries a political as well as environmental message. When I visited McAllen, I found some materials dropped by migrants along the river, and I remain struck by the pathos in those objects.  I left the clothes I found behind because I found them too sad for me to handle, but I collected plastic bottles, toothbrushes, a hat, sandals.”

Additionally, Minet also received items collected by McAllen-based artist and activist Scott Nicol. “He has sent me Homeland Security bags, a small child’s necklace, earphones, and other items. I have imbedded these items into the bird sculptures, so that the works point to the desperation and resilience of the people who are continuously risking all in order to make a better life for themselves.”

Minet relates that she views her role in this new installation as a “provocateur without answers. I hope to encourage a dialogue around the complexity of the social, political and environmental issues in the region, and by extension, on our planet.”

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Following her installation in Texas, Minet has plenty to fill her calendar, with her Peace on Earth Migrations installation set for January 2019 at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, Calif.

She’s also scheduled to construct a solo installation in the window and lobby area of the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, in September, 2019.

“The CAFAM show will be a new interactive sculptural project that will be influenced by the La Brea Tar Pits and the Page Museum across the street,” she notes.

Minet says what she most wants people to understand about her art is the multiple layers of meaning she puts into it. “I want to capture a sense of life in my work. I build everything myself, as I like the challenge of solving the engineering problems of how things fit together and come apart.”

Let it glow.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

 

 

 

Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California (JAI) Flashpoints: A Collective Response – Jerusalem Biennale 2017

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Flashpoints: A Collective Response is a stunning new exhibition of murals created by the Jewish Artists Initiative of Southern California (JAI) for the 2017 Jerusalem Biennale. JAI is an artist-run organization dedicated to visual art by Jewish artists and the promotion of a dialog about Jewish identity in the arts community. This collective spirit is especially evident in the collaborative project currently being undertaken for the Jerusalem Biennale.

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With the theme of the Biennale being“Watershed,” a moment of important change, JAI decided a collaborative work based on the watershed of America’s highly visible political divide was the appropriate undertaking. Designed to raise a collective voice, this highly ambitious undertaking features five large-scale collaborative murals. Each mural focuses on watershed moments, particularly those which had a lasting effect on the world.

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The mural teams were given these subjects: Civil Rights, Water, Nationalism, Human Rights, Political Polarization. The process follows the framework of the Surrealist parlor game, “Exquisite Corpse,” as a way to explore both the divisions in the U.S. today and the desire for unity. The game requires each participant to draw an image on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal what they drew and pass it to the next player. Once unfolded, the drawings present a larger truth, a sum of the individual artistic parts. In the same fashion, each mural was created to tell a unique story of change and challenge.

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According to JAI board member and mural curator Georgia Freeman-Harvey, “The decision to create a series of murals came about because we were trying to think how to position ourselves at the Biennale  and what would make us stand out, what would be a challenge for us, and be something different than a collection of individual work. Looking at the Exquisite Corpse game structure with its surprise element and loose connection between each part was an inspiration,” she adds. “In the game, everyone hides what they have done and the next person takes over – you can get all sorts of wonderful combinations of things.  Traditionally with the game, it’s a human figure, but we allowed each group to just explore their subject.”

The results are something special indeed, with art that is linked and lovely, mysterious and mythic.

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Working with an outside juror, Emily Zaiden, a Los Angeles based curator from the Craft in America Center, teams were compiled, and mural curators selected: Ann Hromadka Greenwald and Georgia Freedman-Harvey, who then, along with the JAI executive committee, selected the mural themes and what each would encompass. Freedman-Harvey is an independent curator and the curator for the Platt/Borstein Galleries at American Jewish University; Hromadka Greenwald is a curator, educator, and founder of AMH Art Advisory, an LA based art consulting firm.

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The Civil Rights mural includes images referencing the Civil Rights Act, Black Lives Matter, and Immigration; artists for this project are Elena Siff, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Judy Dekel, and Ellen Cantor. Artists working on the Water project, which features images of the California drought, and Israeli water rights include Randi Matushevitz, Cathy Weiss, Lorraine Bubar, and Karen Frimkess Wolff. The Nationalism mural, which references the changing understanding of nation-states, as well as Zionism, features the work of artists Avi Roth, Ruth Weisberg, Marisa Mandler, and Bill Aron; while the artists working on the Human Rights Mural, with references to Feminism, the global refugee crisis, and LGBTQ issues include Doni Silver Simons, Renee Amitai, Marleene Rubenstein, and Nancy Goodman Lawrence. The Political Polarization mural emphasizes images of the great recession and the 2016 elections, and includes the work of artists Susan Gesundheit, Jackie Nach, and Debra Sokolow.

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Hromadka Greenwald and Freedman-Harvey will review the results of each team’s collaboration and help select the final images to be created for each. The group meetings allow the artists to create designs, sketches, and renderings for the final murals.

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“When we submitted our proposal to the Biennale, we really talked about how to develop and understand what we thought were very important watershed moments within our own country. We gave the artists this chance to blend and mesh within their particular watershed moments, and let them stand out individually, but collectively present a stronger message about that watershed moment,” Freedman-Harvey relates.

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When submitting samples of their work for consideration, the artists were asked to choose their first and second choice as to which mural group category they wanted to be a part of, as Freedman-Harvey explains. “We then had to really think about what art would work well together, and what topics made the most sense. We left it to the juror to look at the quality of pieces submitted. We felt it was important to use an outside person to do the final selection, and we ended up with five really strong teams.”

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The mediums the artists are working in are varied. Some work in mixed media and collage, as well as traditional painting, solar plate etching, charcoal and spray paint, drawings and installations. The result: a diverse collection of artistic mediums and murals that transcend form.

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“Within our exhibition space in Jerusalem, the murals will be presented as five large-scale pieces of art. Three are already being shipped, attached and ready to hang, two will be assembled by us on site,” Freedman-Harvey notes. “This is the 3rd Biennale, and our second time participating. This year there were 96 applications and 20 were selected from around the world – and we were one of them.”

Along with the funds JAI is providing to cover participation costs in the Biennale, a September fundraiser is planned to make the exhibition possible. JAI is also running a crowd-sourcing campaign on Jewcer.com.

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“I think the pieces are more powerful because multiple people were addressing and interpreting each watershed moment, as opposed to there being five individual works. They each support and strengthen each other,” Freedman-Harvey says. “We are thrilled to be going back again. This biennale keeps growing in size and in its reach around the world.”

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The Biennale runs from October 1st through November 16th. It’s dedicated to exploring the intersection of contemporary art with the world of Jewish content, and serves as a stage for professional artists who refer in their work to Jewish thought, spirit, tradition or experience. And above all else, toward a transcendent beauty such as that seen so powerfully here.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by JAI