Artist Talk from Sant Khalsa: The Perfect Closing for Forest for the Trees at MOAH

Posted on by Diversions LA

Sant 3With the Museum of Art and History’s stellar multiple-show exhibition Forest for the Trees closing this Sunday, it’s time to take a second look at all the exhibiting artists, and to enjoy an artist’s talk by Sant Khalsa (above), whose solo show includes contemplative, luminous work from a period of over 40 years. Khalsa will be holding an artist’s talk to discuss her work, which shimmers with light and motion.

sant H 2

As with each of the shows that comprise the museum’s exhibition, her work presents the natural environment and man’s interaction with it. Khalsa’s perspective is contemplative, as she opens a portal to viewers in order to examine their relationship with both nature as a place and as a part of our society. While documentary in style, her works none the less reveal an inner richness, a devotion to the prayer that is water and the dream that is light. Reflective and immersive, Sant Khalsa invites viewers to step inside her special visual window on nature and experience it. Her talk begins at 1 p.m.

VxS7v04Q

Afterwards, be sure to take a look at the main gallery show, Tree Fiction from LA-based artist Greg Rose, who presents beautiful, narrative gouache works are based on his hikes through the San Gabriel Mountains.

uegEo9CA

Constance Mallinson’s Me, Me, Me offers a visceral depiction of the detritus of man, presenting what others may view as post-apocalyptic trash as jeweled, vast wastelands of monumental scale. Her vivid images are both horrifying and beautiful, seductive and dismaying.

And don’t miss a look at Revised Maps of the Present, from muralist and oil painter Timothy Robert Smith.

31961023_10157342138514046_8964789635263758336_n

His interactive installation gives us sound and video projects, sculpted figures, and painted walls in a wonderfully involving, multi-dimensional work that takes personal experience and makes it both communal and transcendent.

KTlykvjA

With High & Dry: Land Artifacts, photographic artist Osceola Refetoff and writer/historian Christopher Langley create their own immersive work, an exploration of their regular KCET Artbound feature exploring the California Desert and those residing there. Lush and evocative infrared images from Refetoff reflect the intensely human and revealing text from Langley; the show also includes historical objects from MOAH’s permanent collection.

gilena

Last but not least, explore the assemblage art doll houses of Treasured Again from artist Gilena Simons, who works with collections of discarded objects to form mixed-media sculptures that riff on family and home.

Sant H

With her Prana: Life with Trees, Sant Khalsa offers viewers a wide range of evocative images to explore from her early landscapes to images of trees to beautiful, zen-like sculptures and installations that reflect her passion for nature and her research on air quality and the planting of trees. Activist and artist, Khalsa makes a terrific choice for the artist’s talk that closes Forest for the Trees.

 ​The museum is open until 5 p.m. Sunday; Khalsa’s talk begins at 1 p.m.

MOAH is located at 655 W. Lancaster Blvd. in Lancaster.

  • Genie Davis; Photos courtesy of MOAH

 

 

 

Randi Matushevitz Rocks Her World

Posted on by Diversions LA

Randi 1

Randi Matushevitz’ recent residency at Shoebox Projects invited viewers into an installation that was it’s own world. Like many of the artist’s recent works, her images here were layered, socio-political, filled with the energy of our times. “My images explore the psychological dichotomies of dark and light, the tension of anxiety and fear, and the quietude of contentedness and assurance,” Matushevitz remarks.

Randi 14

Her work is designed to immerse her viewers in a reality they may usually refuse to acknowledge, to draw them into a visceral conversation about “the fact that many of us live in a state of illusion, where entitlement, safety and security are only a barrier to hide the disparity and inhumanity that others live.”

randi 12

The haves, the have nots. How many of us have what we really want? How many of us appreciate what we have? How many of us walk in the shoes, sleep in the bed, see through the eyes of those who have little or who tread a thin line between the comforts of home and hearth and the cold of the streets.

Randi 10

“The goal of my Shoebox Projects Residency was to find the thread that runs through all of my art projects. I connected this residency to my previous installation Conundrum, thinking about cultural fear,” she relates.  “I began with the horrors of homelessness and looked deeper into the darkness of the other, the invisible, and illusions of safety to find that I am interested in pointing to the connective tissue of being human, without race, gender or culture.”

Randi 4

As she worked, however, she says her sense of purpose and the strong linear poetry that suffuses her work, both shifted.

“My ideas evolved as I had real and hard conversations, the tent, my shelter, became a space where all thoughts co-exist. I realized the crux of my artwork is, and has been, to point to human equity. ”

So rather than depicting a habitation that was outside many viewers experience, she dug deeper into something more inclusive, yet riven with intense hope and dread.

Randi 8

“I created this space, where the coexistence of all thought exists, contrarian and temporary, to reflect the nature of life itself.  This space is fragile yet strong. It has been constructed, deconstructed and re-organized from cardboard, wallpaper, string, clamps, personal ephemera and phrases that represent the emotional and contrary inner workings of our minds.”

Randi 3

Matushevitz’ process in creating it  was dynamic and highly visceral. “I cut, punctured, tore, only to tie and clamp the fragments back together.  The divisions mimic the physical, social and psychological walls that often divide and separate community and individuals; only to counter these barriers with ideas of commonality, safety, love and joy.”

The most overriding sensation in viewing this installation was of being deeply involved in the world she created.

Randi 5

“This work is my first to focus on viewer engagement. The viewer is prompted to walk through, sit in, add images or phrases to the whole, to recognize shared human experience.”

Randi 6

Matushevitz succeeded entirely, and this is just the beginning of this particular body of her work.
Randi 2
“I am continuing to build upon the experiences of this residency, by creating more spaces for human engagement,  make objects that point to complicated space and contrary experience,” she explains.
While Matushevitz’ next project is a group show in Berlin scheduled for the Fall of 2018  – in conjunction with Enter Art Foundation in Berlin – expect to see more of her work in LA, and to live the viewing experience.
– Genie Davis; Photos: Genie Davis

Obligatory Privacy Notice

Posted on by Diversions LA

 

On Friday May 25 2018, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect. DiversionsLA is updating its privacy policy to comply with the new GDPR standards.

If you want to keep hearing from us, you don’t need to do anything! We will continue to contact you with relevant news and updates. To unsubscribe from our list at any time, you can click unsubscribe at the bottom of this blog.

 

Redemption and Rebirth: Susan Lizotte and Trine Churchill Opening at Castelli Art Space

Posted on by Diversions LA

trine show

Opening at Castelli Art Space this Saturday, artists Susan Lizotte and Trine Churchill offer two dynamic solo shows running through May 12th.

SusanandSnakesSeasons

Lizotte’s New Work and Churchill’s The Woodstock Landscape are both singularly beautiful shows, each using palettes that vibrate with color and light. And, each have another element that makes this pairing special: emotional resonance.

Unitled(SmallFourSeasons)_EachCanvas18x12inches

Lizotte’s show introduces a new series of paintings that serve as an elegiac, lush tribute and response to the passing of her adoptive father last year. Loss, rebirth, and transformation find metaphors in works that echo the beauty of nature and the the life cycle. Floral and animal images serve as metaphors for the LA-based artist, as sinuous snakes pass through multi-hued panels, or serenely move through a scattering of leaves.

Untitled7_oiloncanvas_32x20

In her “Untitled 7,” bursting with life, a vivid purple dress – which also evokes an image of a tree trunk, steady and fecund, is bordered by stunning orange flowered vines. A multi-hued stained-glass-colored snake rises from its center; giant red blooms erupt from the sides.

Untitled10_oiloncanvas_32x20

In another work, “Untitled 10” – each of these works are untitled, which adds to an aura of mystery, with the viewer responsible for interpreting them –  ripe red roses rise from a surface that resembles fabric; in “Untitled 8,” white blossoms cluster, reminding one of a spilled wedding bouquet. Richly impressionistic, these works possess a beguiling, enchanted quality.

Untitled8_oiloncanvas_32x20

Two snakes’ tongues meet in another work, while a sorrowing face emerges from “Untitled 9” in a piece that evokes the bottom of the sea. Her “Small Four Seasons” features panels in which snakes slip across each separate but emotionally and visually connected work: the aquamarine of spring, the rich gold of summer, the rusty brown of fall, and the cool lavender of winter form the backgrounds.

Untitled9_oiloncanvas_32x20

susan

Lizotte’s work can be viewed both as simply gracious depictions of flowers and snakes, a kind of evocation of the Adam and Eve story in a garden of the viewers mind; or it can be seen as a transcendent look at mortality, at the slippery slope of life, death, birth; renewal and redemption after a harrowing passage.

trine 8

 

Churchill’s work is more defined. The Woodstock Landscapes vividly and sweetly express the cultural shift of the Woodstock years. The Danish-born artist saw the aftermath of the 60s era tumult from Denmark, as a child. Her love of the music of the era – first truly experienced when coming of age in the 80s, resonated strongly through the years. So while in terms of literal time, Churchill was not a part of that era, emotionally she had a strong connection to the tenets of freedom and and joy it evoked.

Trine Churchill - After the storm

In honor of the upcoming 2019 50th anniversary of Woodstock, Churchill created the body of work on display at Castelli. The internationally-exhibited artist explores how the 60s counterculture manifested globally and continues to do so through the years.

trine 4

Her blissful color palette features abstract landscapes that imagine the grounds of the Woodstock music fest merged with personal images based on family photos.

trine 3

This is memory as a fiction, creating a dreamy narrative. Her stories are beautifully shaped, as in “After the Storm,” in which a couple appears to be dancing, while a child pulls a large, seaweed-like bouquet of daisies from the muddy ground, and in the background, smaller figures stroll among striped tents.

IMG_3830 - Version 2_2

Her “Version 2” is more dream-like, with a lush forest background, as apparently nude (at least from the waist up) figures float across a lake in a multi-hued, abstract boat.

finals-2107_2

“Finals” gives us an angelic young girl almost gliding through a field of tall flowers; behind her a quaint cabin stands, a representative of something solid in a world that is shifting – or wants to shift- into a more ephemeral beauty.

trine 6

Together, both artists weave beautiful stories, poignant and romantic, each in their own way depicting renewal, change, and wonder.

trine 7

Castelli Art Space is located at 5428 W. Washington, Los Angeles.

  • Genie Davis; photos: courtesy of the artists; Genie Davis