Miriam Wosk – Touch of the Hand at LAM Gallery

Posted on by Diversions LA

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In LA? Run, don’t walk to LAM Gallery for the stunning exhibit of the estate of the late Miriam Wosk. The pieces are for the most part writ large, floral, a kaleidoscope that spins the world into a rich, forested fantasia. In 2007, the artist described her work as a discovery of “a certain order in the chaos of life.” She termed her work both spiritual and surreal., calling her paintings “symbolically autobiographical…an investigation into the patterns of human experience and perception.” Searching for a balance between spontaneity and design, the artist touches on “the sacred and the mundane, life and death.” Poignantly, as the artist is no longer with us, her work is bursting with life, an eternal experience that transcends her own death. In many of her pieces, the viewer senses a rift between this world and the next, this planet and another.

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Wosk’s “Animus” is branches, horn, and painted metallic foils on a mannequin. What is the creature, frozen here, waiting to writhe into life?

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“The Mystic Flower of the Soul” is acrylic and mixed media on panel. Jewels, a star-fish – a sensual feast for the eyes.

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“The Grotto” is mixed media, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas. Starfish, cactus spines, coral, glitter, beads are all a part of this piece, which looks like night beneath the sea, or a surreal sky the artist surfed.

Perhaps it’s the artist’s use of three dimensional materials, but the paintings transport the viewer to a place of magic, of bliss.

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“It Flows Everywhere Out of Itself” – with radiance. Paper collage with crystals embedded, the other worldly presence takes the viewer into the flowered world from which it flowed. Below,  “What in the World” — paper, crystals, threads, mixed media on black gessoed rice paper. An imploded planet, the inside of a flower, the dissection of the universe.

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Watercolors and glitter on paper – individually a Rorschach test for the senses, collectively, creatures from a different world, astrology symbols fused with sea life.

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This piece below  is a tapestry, woven with metallic threads and Swarovski crystals. It could’ve been created in a 12th century castle, or in a future not yet realized. “Big Red Tapestry” is just that. Large and aflame.

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Wosk takes on the past, an unknown future, a present bright with secret spaces and wondrous places. This her elegy and her tribute. A collection of spirits on canvas, panel, tapestry, and paper.

LAM Gallery is located at 913 N. Highland in LA on the edge of Hollywood. Or perhaps, in this case, on the edge of this universe and another.

  • Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke

Via Negativa at South Bay Contemporary

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Via Negativa - Photos by Jack Burke
Via Negativa – Photos by Jack Burke

South Bay Contemporary in San Pedro has a fascinating new exhibit running through October 10th. Via Negativa: The Transcendence of the unReal explores the idea of clarifying religious experience and language through knowledge of what God is not, rather than what He is. Visually and texturally stunning, the theme behind the show adds heft to works that individually show substantial perceptive power.

Via Negativa - South Bay Contemporary - Photos by Jack Burke
Via Negativa – South Bay Contemporary – Photos by Jack Burke

Guest curated by the Cerritos College Art Gallery,  curator James MacDevitt, avoids a direct depiction of what is unknowable, instead presenting a swirling enigma in lieu of the concrete world. While the entire exhibition bristles with visual excitement, some standouts include untitled wood and neon pieces by Lisa Schulte, Shannon Willis’ fascinating sculpture created with ping pong balls and LED colored light strips, “Spiritual Aspiration,’ the single channel video “Wind and Water Study’ by David O’Brien,  and the spidery wires of Christopher Pate’s “Emergent Action.”

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MacDevitt explains the roots of the show. “When offered a space as guest curator here, I decided to extend the Cerritos show I curated with an exhibit that, like the show there, also attempts to know and to understand the unknowable.” At Cerritos, MacDevitt says the exhibition “tried to visualize big data, the artists worked with ideas like mystic diagrams. Here we are looking at apophatic theology – knowing something by what it’s not. The artists use issues of tangential stimulation and play around with animate objects. Ther’s a vitalist energy that expresses both science and religion without being dogmatic about one or another. Both, after all, are attempts to know. They are just different strategies for knowing.”

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Perhaps, where the intersection of science and religion meet, art is created. Judge for yourselves, and enjoy an exhibit that makes you think about deep questions, but is also quite a lot of fun.

South Bay Contemporary is located at 401 Mesa Street, 3rd floor, in San Pedro.

  • Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke

 

Transcendant – The Art of Angelica Sotiriou – San Pedro Art Walk

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The San Pedro art walk continues to be a wonderful opportunity to find exciting art. A highlight of this month’s  walk was discovering the work of artist Angelica Sotiriou. Her paintings have a mystical, magical quality that draws the viewer into her unique vision.

“It’s my voice. I’ve known since I was a child, the only way I can survive is my art. It’s my world,” Sotiriou says. Working with acrylics, she considers herself a contemplative, narrative painter. “My work – I get lost in it. It’s like little portals have opened.” Viewed, this makes perfect sense. Spend any time looking at the paintings and there is the sensation of being pulled into the paintings.

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“All my pieces have to do with looking for light,” Sotiriou relates. Viewing her paintings with their mix of deep blues, rich gold, and shimmering white, she has found it. There is a dimensional quality to her work that reaches beneath the surface of the canvas, and exudes spirituality.  The golds and blues have the resonance of 12th Century icons that have time traveled to the present. When first viewed, we were unaware that the artist was raised in a Greek Orthodox family, or that she had incorporated her religious faith into her paintings. And yet, knowing none of this, to the viewer, her work radiantly expresses pure faith, wonder, and belief. Possibly the best way to describe these pieces is transcendent.

Sotiriou's studio - photo by Jack Burke
Sotiriou’s studio – photo by Jack Burke

In Sotiriou’s studio, the artist’s work, past, present, and in process, all stunningly present images of light and life. “For the first 20 years I created large narrative bas-relief figurative sculptures. Currently I’m working on a crepuscular series, inspired by the beauty of light coming through clouds.”  On her website, the artist says “My recent drawings and paintings have been a personal journey of uncovering and revealing pathways, windows and portals of light and of spirit.” The paintings seem to glow, as if light came from inside the canvas, or the canvas itself was a window.

While many of the artist’s works are large scale, averaging 8′ by 4′, some are more diminutive in size.

Contemplative Narrative Paintings - Angelica Sotriou - Photos by Jack Burke
Contemplative Narrative Paintings – Angelica Sotriou – Photos by Jack Burke

The artist has this quote posted around her gallery and studio:

“I don’t know how
But suddenly there is no darkness left at all
The sun has poured itself inside me
From a thousand wounds.”  – Nikoforos Vretakos

Sotiriou has taught art throughout California, and holds masters degrees from UCLA.  From sculptural pieces to acrylic paintings, the artist has been exhibiting in San Pedro since 2001. See her astonishing work at Loft 2, Second Floor gallery  at 401 Mesa Street in San Pedro.

Artist Angelica Sotiriou right, author left - Photo by Jack Burke
Artist Angelica Sotiriou right, author left – Photo by Jack Burke
  • Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke and courtesy of artist

Torrance Museum of Art – More South Bay Art

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Torrance Museum of Art - Closing Reception - The Studio System - All photos by Jack Burke

Torrance Museum of Art – Closing Reception – The Studio System – All photos by Jack Burke

For a long time, the South Bay – those beach-close communities just south of LAX – were regarded as a place where art events were few and far between. No longer.

The Torrance Art Museum, which is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary with an anniversary fundraiser on September 12th, is one strong part of the South Bay’s emergence into the Los Angeles art culture zeitgeist. On the 12th, guests attending the free event can purchase artworks from artists who’ve exhibited at the museum throughout the decade – each selling for a bargain price of $100.00. Funds raised are for museum arts and education programs and future renovations.

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No better example of TAM’s stewardship of the arts – and a commitment to the cutting edge – can be shown than the museum’s August month- long main gallery exhibit, Studio System. The show featured eleven local working artists in a month-long experimental residency which was designed to bridge the gap between artists and the public. This intimate experiment ran from August 1 to 29. The artists were there to create; last Saturday, a closing reception displayed their works.

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A lively, fun evening, the ability to interact with the artists and study their work offered an insider view of the creation process. Participating artists were: Sydney Croskery, Elizabeth Dorbad, Nancy Evans, Josh Hagler, Seth Kaufman, Hung Viet Nguyen, Don Porcella, Dickson Schneider, Mariangeles Soto-Diaz, Vincent Tomczyk, and Valerie Wilcox.

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Over the course of the month, artist Dickson Schneider made his art even more accessible, distributing his work to viewers for free. Artists were committed to discussing the ideas and processes behind their art as well as their concrete materials and artistic vision with museum visitors. That dialog was on-going throughout the crowded reception.

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Also on display Saturday were large-scale works by sculptor and artist Kay Whitney. Her evocative, industrial felt-based pieces were both supple and sinewy, creating sensual shapes of depth and breadth. The exhibit, titled, “A Deceit,” deceived only in the material’s transforming capabilities: the pieces are not cast in bronze, after all, and Whitney is more than willing to tweak and rearrange them, altering perception and meaning.

With shows like these, TAM is well worth celebrating – don’t forget their 10th anniversary fundraiser on September 12th.

 

 

  •  Genie Davis, all photos by Jack Burke