Artists Rule at Durden and Ray: Reviews of Americanism and Yvette Gellis/Drea Cofield

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Above: Americanism, from March 2016

We’ve seen two fantastic shows at the Durden and Ray gallery space in DTLA recently – unfortunately, you may have missed them. Both shows ran for short periods of time, two weeks and one week respectively, making it essential to put this gallery on your radar and your must-see gallery list.

We’ll give you a look here and suggest that you check out the well-curated offerings presented and the artists who created them online.

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Above, Yvette Gellis

The most recent stand-out exhibition was the paired solo exhibition of Yvette Gellis and Drea Cofield curated by Susan Lizotte.

In the back room of the Durden and Ray space, Drea Cofield paints a post-impressionistic lush and magical world in warmly saturated colors. “It was observational work created in Long Island City,” Cofield relates. Created in water color and colored pencil, she calls her work here “American Summer paintings, the hot sun, the back yard with the bathing suit on, a lot of our culture comes out in that,” she says. These Edenic pieces are softly sensual

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In the main exhibition room, the work of Yvette Gellis, whose paintings reconstruct and redefine her place in the world, through lyrical abstract impressionism. “Most of my pieces are oil on mylar, the panels combine acrylic and oil to break up the paintings and bring them into the space. The mylar tends to transform the entire space,” Gellis explains.

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It’s a conversation in which you are always on guard, a metaphor for life and what’s happening geopolitically, where we are headed as people.” These recent works were inspired by the artist’s recent visit to Paris and her return right after the bombings there.

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Further back, Americanism, a powerful group show curated by Steven Wolkoff, ran for far-too-short a time March 26th, and featured an absolutely killer collection of artists focused on what exactly it means to be an American – and what is an American “ism.”

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Featuring images as interesting as they are fun “including cat memes, supersized sodas, bottomless military funding, and all the anti-establishment political candidates you can handle,” according to Wolkoff, exhibiting artists included:

Gavin Bunner
Don Edler
Raymie Ladavaia
Ben Jackel
Casey Kauffmann
Yoshie Sakai
Sonja Schenk
Ami Tallman
Drue Worrell

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Curator Steven Wolkoff left, with artist Gavin Bunner, right

Wolkoff says “The project started with a few artists who wanted to show the Americanism spirit as something to explore. They had the idea of components of American spirit which are manifest in politics right now. The ideas coalesced around that,” he says.

The prescient and timely topic – given today’s political scene and the upcoming California primary election – offered a strong and bracing look at who we are as a culture in this point in time.

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Gavin Bunner’s “Job Interview” features a delicately rendered job interview line, with hope and dejection both rampant in a piece that serves as a solemn yet amusing ode to the recession we have still not recovered from – unless one is part of a political or economic dynasty.

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“Even Superman cannot get a job,” Bunner points out. “There’s hope going into the inteview, rejection and disappointment coming out.” The piece was created with gloss and sharpie ink.

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Raymie Ladevaia uses “the feline as a metaphor for the endurance and stamina, the power and energy of a cat’s bounce. It can start and stop, an action, a force of itself,” the artist relates.  His work was created using water color, crayon, and collage. “Lots of my work deals with feline energy and force. If you’re a cat person you understand.”

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Sonja Schenk’s “The End” is a plaster and styrofoam sculpture. “I considered what’s iconic about America, and I decided it was the car the road. It’s the end of that era, and our roads could be like the ruins of the Roman Empire or Native American Mounds. That was my inspiration.”

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Yoshie Sakai’s video work above shows Americans mindlessly eating junk food “Come One, Eat All;” while Ami Tallman’s “Local 215,” and other images below, are all about the desire for change.

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Below, the sculpture of Ben Jackal

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Below the work of Stacy Kaufman: smashed iPhones, hot dogs, Mickey Mouse, sex, and bombs.

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Find these artists! And keep an eye on Durden and Ray’s exhibition space, located at Durden and Ray 1950 S Santa Fe Ave Los Angeles, CA 90021

Lena Moross: For the Love of Carmine

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Born in St. Petersberg, Russia, artist Lena Moross is a true force in the Los Angeles art scene. With the characteristic vibrance she shows in so much of her lush work, she’s tackling a trenchant subject: what being transgender really means. In her upcoming solo exhibition, For the Love of Carmine, opening June 11th at MuzeuMM, Moross creates a social narrative.

Her beautifully colorful, finely detailed, impressionistic watercolor work is used here to create an immersive experience of what it’s like to grow up as a transgender male in the early post-war years. Her large-scale paintings demand repeat viewings: the very feminine, voluptuous curves and her emphasis on fluid strokes and shapes create a richly fertile landscape to explore what it’s like to be a woman inside a man’s body. A staged video is also included in the exhibit, which creates a deep dialog between the subject of her works here, Carmine, and the artist herself, as an untold narrative spills forth.

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Above, Carmine Messina with the artist, Lena Moross

The artist was captivated by the real Carmine Messina, whom she met on a Hollywood street corner three years ago. Tall, heavy-set, and middle-aged, Messina was heavily made up and dressed in a woman’s black coat, fishnet stockings, mid-calf boots and sporting a long, jet-black wig. Moross was struck by Carmine’s gentle demeanor and his obliviousness to the effect he was causing. The artist introduced herself and began a conversation that led to recorded conversations, videos, photographs, paintings, and sketches. Using these resources, she set about exploring, through her art, the ordeal of being transgender in the late 1940s, born into a middle class San Fernando Valley family.

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Her revealing, sensual paintings tell a long hidden story, one that exposes and gently honors what had been concealed and riddled with shame. While social change is slowly creating a space for transgendered people, their long hidden stories can be difficult to reveal and depict. Moross tells Messina’s story with dignity, humor, and a translucent grace, qualities which are representative of all of Moross’ recent work.

Her pieces have a dream-like, almost floating quality, their fluid lines and the incorporation of floral images and colors making her work as intense as it is delicate.

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In this exhibition, Messina, clad in a simple aqua smock, poses in feminine grace, shy and almost transcending his girth; or Moross positions him nude, with a jubilant, blooming bouquet of red roses masking his genitalia.

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Whether raising a glass of ruby wine, reclining against the coiled cocoon of a red quilt, or performing opera in a yellow tunic, the figure that Moross captures is at once bulky and beautiful, poised and awkward, always fluid and feminine. She casts what it means to be a woman – that particular state of grace, longing, and sensuous shape, in a fresh light.

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Moross fuses male and female, form and the softest of function. You can almost feel the draped cloths, smell and touch the soft rose petals. It’s no surprise the Moross is skilled at this kind of fusion. Moving from Russia to the U.S., she studied classical art at the State Academy of Art in Russia. In America, she studied at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design as a student of Peter Lyashkov, earned her master’s at Cal-Arts, and was a student of John Baldessari and John Borofsky.

Her fine art skills and her wonderfully interpretive, fantastical bent have meshed just as surely and resiliently as her international heritage has fused with a strong, brash sense of American freedom.

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In For the Love of Carmine, Moross expresses freedom, repression, fantasy, joy, and a spirit that longs to break loose from its confines. A truly masterful solo show, by an artist who is taking flight with story and shape.

MuzeuMM
4817 W Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
Opening reception June 11, 7-11pm

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Shoebox PR

Boots on the Ground

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Running through June 11 at the Mid-City Art House, Boots on the Ground is one eclectic, mesmerizing show. If you missed the opening May 21, there will be an artist’s talk this Saturday the 4th, an open panel discussion in collaboration with Betty Brown’s Art World Conversations series, from 2-4 p.m.

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Mid-City Art House is a great space for an exhibition, a front gallery connected to a rear space via an open air patio that served up drinks and snacks plus d.j. at the opening. This is a space to watch, and as curated by Dulce Stein and Tricia Banh, a great home for a show that introduces new artists, promotes mid-career artists, and is all about the forward march of art as experience.

Featured artists include:

Nancy Armitage
Tina Dille
Lorraine Bubar
Eva Polonkai
Jason Bud
Kayla Tange
Loren Philip
Jose Angel Hernandez
Francisco Alvarado
June Edmonds
Christine Rasmussen
Nancy Spiller
Robert Rosemblum
Javier Benitez
Jodi Bonassi
Stephanie Sherwood
Lana Chromium
John Hogan
Kira Vollman
Vanessa Contreras
Rouzanna Berberian
Kenn Raaff
Tamara Tolkin
Carl Shubs
Amber Goldhammer
Mela M
Nicole Fournier
Shizuko Greenblat
Francesca Quintano
Eva Perez

Francisco Alvarado with an image that evokes the work of Matisse. “I’m a prolific painter. I don’t work on a single piece, I create a series based on custom color mixes, doing multiple paintings at a time,” he says.

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Below, Art House owners and artists Jake Harwell and Selma Morales Harwell with some of their works. Jake Harwell’s found art sculptures include rawhide wraps.  Each piece has a song of motion in it.

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Above, Selma Morales Harwell creatures voluptuously shaped sculptures that evoke the Southwest.

Artist Loren Philip, below, has created work that is, according to the artist, a “witness to the mythology of youth, the final piece in a topographical witness series of creating topographical maps from memory.” As vivid as the sea and sky conjoined, this piece.

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Below, Robert Rosemblum, well known for creating visually arresting photo montages, abstract, and fine art photography. Here is abstract piece plunges viewers into the sea inside water droplets, each a tiny opal radiating color.

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Jodi Bonassi, below, has created another evocative, personal image, a work that allows the viewer to enter into the intimate life of another person in “Girl, Crosslegged.”

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Below, Kira Vollman creates an abstract, multi-media sculptural piece, a ladder that leads to intriguing “Ascending Intervals.”

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Artist Kenn Raaf, below, says that he works in a constructive and deconstructive fashion. “I build up multiple layers into each piece, then tear them down to abstract the imagery that captures the movement and essence of my subject.”

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Mid-City Art House is located at 5555 W. Washington Blvd., in of course, mid-city LA.

Check it out – at DiversionsLA, we and our Baby Art Critic (coming soon to an Instagram near you) agree.

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Above, artist Loren Philip with author and Baby Art Critic.

  • Genie Davis;  Photos: Jack Burke, (photo directly above via Loren Philip)

Connect with Gabba Gallery

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Another great show runs at Gabba Gallery through June 18th – Connect, featuring four very different – yet connected in terms of their visual intensity – artists. The four solo shows also connect with their audience: these are immediate, exciting, stimulating works that grab the eye and poke at the heart.

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Jeff Kravitz’s Photography for the Soul is this fine arts photographer’s first solo show. “It’s a labor of love, it’s what I do for a living. I put everything through Photoshop. I want my work to be colorful. I see everything in bright color and I really like to accentuate that.”

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Originally shooting on film, he’s gone digital, using Nikon gear, for the last fourteen years. He’s captured historical moments of all kinds, noting self-deprecatingly that he’s “witnessed incredible iconic moments.” And captured them perfectly.

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“I’ve been working on this a long time. I have photos I shot in high school. I’ve been working on building a body of work I felt comfortable enough to show the world.”

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Jules Muck’s Available made the artist herself feel edgy.

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“I usually do street art. Having a gallery show is a little uncomfortable, so I wanted to do something fun with it.”

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Her idea, fully realized: to set herself up in the center of her exhibition room with a tattoo gun and many willing participants. “I do tattooing every now and then. This is something I felt could really reach people.”

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Along with tattoo art, Muck’s exhibition features large scale, hyper-realistic pieces painted in oil.

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Stormie Mills’ A Fish Tale exhibition is both witty and dark, a Tim Burton-esque take on life created in mixed acrylic, including spray paint.

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“Ultimately the work is about connection, it’s a tool for communication, an outlet that facilitates communication which leads to connection,” he says.

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The Australian artist has created an insightful body of work that tells a riveting story about a man and his friendship with a fish. The story is based on the writings of filmmaker Mark Strong who was himself inspired by Stormie’s work “I miss my friend, I want him back.” In short, the subject of this show is also its purpose – inspiration and connection. Overall, the show has the look of a lushly detailed dreamscape.

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Across the street from the gallery, Mills has created a gorgeous wall-size piece of street art. It’s not a permanent mural installation – “it’s like a bunch of flowers, it will only last so long,” Mills attests. More reason to hurry to the gallery and see the show as well as the art visible through it’s windows.

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Noah Emhurt’s The Doheny Challenge is a body of intimate, poetic work created on acrylic. The artist sourced much of his material from 1960s era magazines and fashion magazines, creating a template for figurative work and images transfers in a chaotic yet delicate atmosphere.

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“When I was younger, I would write a lot of poetry, I would write my ideas. A lot of my work is translating words into sketches into painting to get that look of writing ideas into a painting. I want people to look at each piece and find something new all the time,” Emhurt says.

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His love of travel and other cultures is also on view. Having spent time living in Japan and New York, the influence of these locales is very evident in his work. “I stole a wine list from a French restaurant,” he notes. “I’ve incorporated that menu into my work, too.”

Emhurt’s work absorbs his surroundings and experiences, and the viewer absorbs his experiences through his work, connection as cultural zeitgeist.

Go ahead and plug in: this solo show runs through June 18th, and the Gabba Gallery is located at

3126 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90057
(310) 498-2697

Gallery Hours are Wed-Saturday 12- 3 or by appointment.