Originally scheduled to open when COVID-19 hit in 2020, through June 4th this lustrous collection of works is now viewable at Wonzimer Gallery in DTLA. The article and most of the photos are taken from its earlier frozen-in-time incarnation, but it is expertly curated at Wonzimer.
The radiantly lovely works of Gary Brewer and Aline Mare are a fine collection by married artists enmeshed in a beautiful dance of passionate art and companionship.
Aline Mare
Entwined Roots: Symbiotic Relationships is a tribute to both artists’ works, individually and viewed together.
Aline Mare
Mare works in hypnotically dense, fabulously fecund mixed media; Brewer in oil on canvas. Both are abstract artists, each non-figuative piece here is nonetheless rooted with recognizable elements from their artistic pasts that are sublimely figurative images of nature.
Gary Brewer
Their palettes are rich, their sense of beauty sublime. There is a wildness in both artists’ works that defies categorization, that welcomes the subversive and the sweet in equal measures.
One can view the cosmos or the untamed sensuality of nature in both artists’ works. Mare gives us a universe in a forest floor; a galaxy within a rain soaked garden. Brewer gives us twined cells, seeds and flowers, twisted cords of natural beauty that are larger than life. Both create works that flow in a fine and fanastical series of perfectly calibrated colors and patterns that are almost hypnotic.
Mare’s “Green Seeded” combines a delicate, evocative painted background with photographic images of seeds and images from space. Layers of paint shift the image so that the viewer is both above, beyond, and within the it; we are seeing the vast and infinite in the small and perfect.
Brewer’s works here feel more decidely floral, but what a fierce and marvelous series of blooms these are. In his “Constellation,” or in “Seeds of Life,” we see orchids that seem to burst from the canvas with a muscular life-force. These flowers are no swoony, scented bouquet, but rather vital, living entities.
Brewer, above; Mare, below
Where Brewer works in vastly large canvases depicting what could be minute objects – petals, seeds, flowers – writ large, Mare’s smaller works depict a strange and tumultous vastness contained in a smaller space. Both artists seem to work in a kind of synchronistic counterpoint, creating a sense of unseen wonder and hidden, intertwined gestural relationships.
And speaking of relationships, their own – to each other, to their art, to the way in which they seem to play off one another both in life and in this exhibition, is intrinsic to this exhibition. It is a great ritual alchemy celebrating the “other” within all of us.
Both artists invite the viewer – or perhaps the correct word here is compel – to go beyond surface perceptions and into a deeper, stranger, more wonderous realm: that of intertwined roots of life and love and into the celestial, where words may be inchoate but beauty falls like a welcoming, luminous light.
Now that this exhibition is no longer in COVID limbo, the life force it brings to the viewer cannot be constrained. Drink it in deeply, in the heart of downtown.
Wonzimer is located at 621 S Olive St, Los Angeles, CA 90014 – no appointment is necessary; check open hours; through June 4th.
Genie Davis; Photos at Wonzimer by Genie Davis; photos provided by the artistsof individual works.
Mutable and mysterious at first look, Ruby Vartan’s artwork represents a figurative abstract exploration based on the feminine form. Working in a wide range of mixed mediums such acrylic, oil, charcoal, and fabric, as well as with oil on canvas, artist Ruby Vartan weaves powerful, emotional images.
Her work expresses both her own inner world and experiences. It evokes the liquid as well as flame, revealing both what Vartan terms messages of peace and love, as well as a flood of highly emotional, evocative images that express her own generational and intimate trauma.
The artist describes her layered and poetically physical work as the process through which she feels most free, where no boundaries exist to arriving at her destination of expression.
From inner emotion to the external body, Vartan uses her own presence to represent a vital life force, light and renewal. Her process often includes painting, tearing, sewing, and the incorporation of unique mediums that resonate with love and pain. Works include elements of empty space which she views as a way to create and uncover and exciting new world that she makes her own.
Born to Armenian parents in Beirut, Lebanon, Vartan moved to the U.S. in 2008, and currently resides in Los Angeles. She says that her strong use of color reflects her heritage and identity, as well as symbolizing her dreams, desires, and emotions. She takes her work and her viewers into a world of volatile honesty and fragile self-expression.
Some images include canvas slashes the reveal a gold texture below, similar to the Japanese technique of Kintsugi that repairs the broken with the use of a precious substance such as gold, silver, or platinum. Other works include text, and intricate patterns.
Regardless of image, Vartan’s work exudes the aura of survival, resurrection, and resilience, shaping an experience of artistic and soulful redemption.
Artist Randi Matushevitz has created astonishing three recent bodies of work that are both emotionally resonant and plugged into the zeitgeist of today’s world.
The earliest series is Dystopian Lullaby. What is such a song? Does it soothe, does it rock the saddest soul into something astonishingly beautiful, hovering at the edge of hope? Does the strange melody somehow also seem distorted and off-balance, chaotic and inchoate? Matushevitz somehow manages to do all of these things with this series , one which is so poignant and real as to defy any routine categorization.
It is that poignancy perhaps that serves as a lullaby to these dystopian faces and settings. The people she creates, and even their elusive situations, are each sublimely real; they have lives we may not have been invited to visit before. For every element of distortion or horror at the state of their – and our – world – there is a sense of the rhythm of life, a brief impulse of comfort or longing. Created in oil on linen, the artist’s paintings feature backgrounds that are muted, often grey toned; the faces themselves reveal a palette of oblique and uncommon shades, while remaining entirely recognizable as “real.”
In images such as the artist’s “Cluster 4” (above), this dichotomy is richly evident. Matushevitz shapes an intimacy that compels the viewer into identifying with these dystopian inhabitants. In this work, a large, possibly disembodied figure appears to comfort a fully realized, frightened young girl. Behind her to one side, a shadowy outlined figure watches, with a benevolent if sorrowful expression. Two disembodied heads display alarm; one figure is partially reclining and seemingly viewing something entirely inward – perhaps this entire scene is a part of her memory. Like a film that makes the viewer long for a sequel, this work, too, aches for continuation and explanation, while still being wholly satisfying in its mystery.
There is a sense of family in each of the artist’s clusters, whether it is a “real” family, or characters that inhabit our own minds. Some of these characters reveal a sense of abject dread, but others seem at peace, resigned, ready to accept/embrace the dystopian world around them and possibly even shape an antidote for it.
Each image is both grounded in realism and yet layered in metaphorical abstractness. One can see the physical layers, which the artist creates by drawing, smudging, superimposing, and re-drawing or painting; and within those physical representations, within those impressive, passionate countenances, are layers of meaning and belief. If our own realities are made up of years of experience and knowledge, social interaction, and beliefs passed on from others and learned within ourselves, then so is the reality of these images.
With Headspace and Headspace 3D (above), Matushevitz continues her nuanced exploration of the human condition and spirit, her works entering into increasingly complex spaces, mesmerizing and self-illuminative.
She often presents a conundrum of the spirit, in which she reveals the fears and indecisions, even the anger, that may lurk in each of us, but also a sense of exhilaration, of hope and connectivity, all filtered through her own affection for and exploration of human emotion. Just as her work itself is physically – and now, dimensionally – layered, so too is the meaning within it, packed with feeling and perceptive sensation.
Using what she describes as “emotional” portraiture, she captures an enormous amount of grace and resiliency in human expression, in both the oil on linen Headspace series, and its 3D and video iterations, Headspace 3D, the latter of which offers a vast expansion of fresh perceptions.
To create Headspace 3D Matushevitz initially used smartphone technology to animate her works, furthering her passionate deep dive into human expression, and to foster a sense of connectivity and community.
She began with simply animating the still images from her Headspace series, shaping a number of the images into Headspace 3-D. However, now they have grown into longer video explorations, revealing the subject of each image as a character with a breadth of emotions, as the artist explores meaning and non-meaning, and the true nature of understanding, and when it can occur. Matushevitz believes “We have an innate human ability that is in our DNA and in our sympathetic nervous system to understand. It goes beyond culture, gender and language.”
These new-media digital art works last from 6 to 20 seconds, and offer an intimate looking into portraits that have become uniquely alive.
As an artist, she reassures us that we may not be perfect constructs – in fact, we are each inherently flawed – but that does not make us any less valuable or worthy. She celebrates her people, however imperfect, revealing varied expressions, changing moods, and inviting the viewer into a full and immersive interaction with them in her 3D works.
It is a wonderful morphing of technology and art, very much of the moment and yet very much infused with a classic, intuitive intimacy associated with the art of portraiture. Nodding, laughing, turning, smiling, eyes close to filling with tears – these are the “living” manifestations of the moments her oil works portray.
Both in the more surreal-tinged 3D version, and in the original Headspace, much like ourselves, the people in her portraits are complex. They are both fully realized and in-progress, both expressing our outward personas and our inward dreams, fears, hopes, and unrevealed traumas.
Matushevitz’ “Adoration” may be the most benign image of the Headspace series. Peaceful, accepting, she has a half-smile and the most realistically-grounded skin tone.
“At the Wedding” (above, top) is another graceful image, one that nonetheless reveals watchfulness, resignation, subdued interest or acceptance; “Call Me Coiffed, I just left the Salon” (second image, above) offers a similarly recognizable and interested countenance, here, that familiar expression of feeling self-confident in one’s looks, in appraising one’s appearance in a passing window or mirror and feeling “well-done.”
“Chuckles, an ode to Matthew Barney” (above) is darker in tone, just as Barney’s works were often riven with allusions to defeat, failure or a sense of conflict.
It is perhaps with “I am She” (above) that all aspects of this series coalesces: this portrait appears to be of the Headspace universe’s creator, certainly of an every-woman. She feels, thinks, and is – everything. You see pleasure, sadness, hesitation, strength, all of these shifting across this image, although it remains physically still, not a 3D AR depiction – at least as yet.
Two interesting things to note about the wonderfully deep Headspace and Headspace3D series: they are all of women, and in some way appear to be a kind of personal as well as collective self-portraiture; and the backgrounds are perfect and puzzling. Like a kind of patterned wallpaper or edgy Zoom background, these faces stand out against an environment that both clashes and offsets. All in all, that is not so dissimilar to how we experience the world today. We are who we are; the backgrounds we inhabit, whether IRL or virtual, do not empirically change us, although we may change them.
Headspace and Headspace 3D are both relatable and mind-bending, as all truly passionate art must be. These wonderfully immersive works make a perfect pairing with a visual “listen” to Matushevitz’ Dystopian Lullaby, a song for the senses, a melody of hope playing softly in a very discordant world.
We packed in every film we could in the final hours of Sundance 2021 with a variety of award winners in the mix. Here are the hits and misses.
Hits:
Sabaya is a pure wow of a documentary with unbelievable imbedded footage from the harrowing rescues of kidnapped Yazidi girls from the hands of the Daesh terrorists, who abused and sold them as sex slaves. Brave, poignant, riveting, Hogir Hirori’s film is a powerhouse, more than deserving of the World Cinema Documentary Award for directing.
Luzzu: Winner of a Special Jury Award for acting. Filmed and set in Malta, which has not had an entry at Sundance previously, director Alex Camilleri’s debut project tells the story of Jesmark, a fisherman and new father, as he tries to earn a living in a market controlled by EU regulations. Giving up the open sea, his passion, is a sacrifice – and the film aches with longing for a no longer viable way of life.
The World to Come: From the festival’s Spotlight selections, this well-acted drama of thwarted lesbian love is moving, aesthetically deliberate, and absorbing. Set in the frontier era, the rugged setting and sense of loss is punctuated by bursts of too-short pleasure. Mona Fastvold’s short-story-based film is quietly tragic and extremely well acted, but does not break any new ground.
Cusp: Some things never change? Women are still prey to a patriarchal society, this one in modern day Texas. Winner of the special jury award for emerging filmmaker, this intimate documentary follows a summer in the lives of teens Autumn, Brittney, and Aaloni and their families. The directors, Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt, offer an absorbing and deeply intimate view of the girls as they navigate fraught family lives and the older boys they date and party with, as well as a history of abuse. Their fast food eating and beer drinking social life is quite a contrast with the young women in Sabaya, and yet there are some parallels.
Documentary top prize winner Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is a joyous compilation packed with terrific music, presenting primarily archival material about the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, forgotten amid the Woodstock hype from the same year, and very likely due to systemic racism. The festival was not just a musical event, it was truly a celebration of black culture, and a galvanizing social event. Current-time interviews and political commentary contribute to a balanced, smart film.
Misses:
On the Count of Three, award recipient for screenwriting, just didn’t work for me. The story of two suicidal friends veered through a roller coaster of a day; the beginning of which was far more compelling than its conclusion. Darkly comic, director Jerrod Carmichael’s film has its moments, but ultimately went nowhere.
Already sold to Magnolia, the uniquely animated Cryptozoo gives us a fanatical animal world and some awesome creatures, but not much else. Random violence from the beginning was off-putting. Dash Shaw’s film was four years in the making, and certainly lovely to look at, but similar to the old saying about black olives, probably just not to everyone’s taste – at least not to mine.
And that’s a wrap for Sundance 2021, virtual edition, where pandemic life, racial inequality, and a color palette of pink (The Pink Cloud, Strawberry Mansions, Blazing World, and Eight for Silver all exhibited memorable moments awash in this shade) stood out thematically.
Genie Davis; photos provided by Sundance Institute
