Mirror, Mirror! Kristine Schomaker Reflects Our Bodies/Ourselves

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Curated by Gloria Plascencia, Kristine Schomaker’s impressive solo exhibition Mirror, Mirror! celebrates the body and soul. From the female form to cultural stereotypes, Schomaker captures both the body politic and a rich palette of color and motion.

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Using installation, text, photography, mixed media, video, and performance, Schomaker explores notions of societal expectations, online identity, and society’s judgement and obsession with physical appearance.

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What we project on ourselves and others – it can be as ephemeral as a shadow. Schomaker’s work may be at it’s strongest with projected images and installation juxtaposed. Viewers truly enter a different world.

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Schomaker’s avatars are part of her process of becoming self-aware.

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The artist says her way of painting, using multiple layers, functions as a “metaphorical skin.”

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Her vivid color palette grabs the eye while her message of empowerment and identity tug at the heart.

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What exactly is being reflected? Our own images? Our own perceptions? Bodies that take on lives of their own, separate from cognizance? Step into another life.

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Baby you can drive my car…

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Literally and figuratively, Schomaker has created an impressive “body of work.”  How we feel about our bodies and the spirit they contain is truly all in the eye of the beholder – often ourselves.

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Mirror, Mirror! runs through December 20th at Gallery H Phantom Galleries LA – 12619 Hawthorne Blvd., Hawthorne.

Art Makes Change

Posted on by Diversions LA

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VisionLA ‘15 presents Art Makes Change, a group exhibition of 60 local artists. Through over 200 pieces of art from photography to sculpture, these works inspire viewers to confront the climate-related issues in today’s world.  These beautiful pieces are divided into four categories: Earth, Water, Recycle, and Awareness. Co-curators Dale Youngman and Lilli Muller hone in on the ways in which art can create and promote change.

Each piece speaks of either or both the beauty of the earth and the challenges facing it, such as drought, pollution, endangered species, and climate change.

Participating artists include:

Mike Anderson, Jacki Apple, Cody Bayne, Clara Berta, Om Bleicher, Jody Bonassi, Wanda Boudreaux, Qathryn Brehm, Bill Brewer, Gary Brewer, Wini Brewer, Mark Brosmer, Kate Caravellas, Michael Carrier, Nathan Cartwright, Morgan Chavoshi, Steven David, Roberto Delgado, Ben Dewell,Beth Elliott, Karen Fiorito, Nicole Fournier, Barbara Fritsche, Anyes Galliani, Tom Garner, Brian Goodman, Patrick Haemmerlein, Erin Hansen, Michael Hayden, William Hogan, Brenda Hurst, Liz Huston, Dave Knudsen, Juri Koll, Jamie Lynn Kovacs, Stuart Kusher, Jonna Lee, Aline Mare,Michael McCall, Rick Mendoza, Monica Mader, Colette Miller, Rebecca Molayem, Michael M. Mollett, Suzi Moon, Jen Moore, Pamela Mower-Conners, Lilli Muller, Julie Orr, Miguel Osuna, Billy Pacek, Yael Pardess, Vinnie Picardi, Naomi Pitcairn, Jena Priebe, Osceola Refetoff, Gay Summer Rick, Robert Rosenblum, Karrie Ross, Avi Roth, Catherine Ruane, Louise Russell, Gwen Samuels, Elizabeth Saveri, Winston Secrest, Moses Seenarine, Karen Sikie, Paul Soady, Sean Sobczak, Marilee Spencer, Anna Stump, Jill Sykes, Alexandra Underhill, Rachel Van Der Pol, Andrea Villefane, Geoffry White, Rush White, Tami Wood and Ron Zeno

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Above: a photo chronicle of Mud People, the living sculpture project helmed by artist and performance artist Mike Mollett.

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Co-curator Dale Youngman says “I am so happy about this opportunity to curate a show of this magnitude for such a really important cause.  I think that artists have an ability to engage the public in meaningful conversation through their work, and if they can affect or inspire change through their efforts, that is a wonderful thing.”

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Morgan Chavoshi has focused on the plight of endangered animals for many years. She painted these wild mustangs as if in a void, because they are disappearing from our landscape. Her sensitivity is equal to her passion for changing people’s behavior through awareness.

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Osceola Refetoff’s evocative photographs above focus on both the wonder and potential ecological disaster that is the Salton Sea. Refetoff has also worked on depicting the desert and its relationship to Los Angeles itself as part of a long term project with writer/collaborator Christopher Langley.

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Absorb the water. Robert Rosenblum’s stunning photomontage technique mirrors the life in each drop.

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Colette Miller’s vibrant wings make a great spot to pose for a photo and show support for the environment — and soar to protective, guardian angel heights to help preserve it.

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Sculptures by Mike Mollett…wires that seem to bloom like dry-weather plants.

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Support art and the environment with many of these beautiful eco-centered pieces making a very reasonable holiday gift.

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Artist Gay Summer Rick has four pieces in the show, all featuring local beach scenes in Santa Monica and Venice. “I like to paint what I see as I’m making my way around town,” she says. “I paint the bay, and I try to show the mood I feel at the moment,” she relates. “In Atomic Trash Can (left) I included the trash can of course and also tractor marks from sand combing. I wanted to create a little different impression of preserving our beautiful beaches.”
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Rick says she paints using only a palette knife, no brushes or solvents. “I’m very environmentally friendly. Very little goes into the landfill when I create my art. I want to be a good steward of the environment and still deliver a message about how beautiful nature is.”

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Youngman says: “I have selected works that  depict endangered animals, photos of drought–stricken areas, and assemblage pieces that utilize recycled and re-purposed materials to spark the flame of realization regarding environmental issues.”

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Bill Leigh Brewer’s take on the desert focuses on the Salton Sea in this series of evocative black and white prints. Viewers can almost touch the magic, the aloneness, the dryness, the preciousness of water.

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Steve David’s sculptures seem to show the human head as a flower. What ideas are we planting?

“This show speaks loud and clear that climate change is one of the most important issues facing the world today,” Youngman notes.

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Jonna Lee’s compelling Folly uses grass, dirt, wire, and wood. A whole new kind of topiary art.

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“I hope people recognize the power of art to make change – and I pray they come out to support this endeavor by purchasing work here that will benefit these artists and the Vision LA Fest non-profit cause,” Youngman says.

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Mike Anderson created the forest of art above.

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So much to see, so much to take in: art mirroring the environment, art respecting the environment, art as a song to action.

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Foreground: Mike Mollett’s balls of beauty and detrititus.

The free and truly awe-inspiring Art Makes Change exhibit is open daily Dec. 1st through Dec. 10th, at the VisionLA ’15 Home Gallery at Bergamot Station, located at: 2525 Michigan Ave, Building G1 in Santa Monica, CA 90404

all pieces in the exhibition are for sale

  • Genie Davis; all photos: Jack Burke

C.A.V.E. Gallery: Dark Paradise – New works by Gustavo Rimada

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Closing December 6th at C.A.V.E. Gallery on Abbott Kinney in Venice, is an astonishing implosion of color and darkness: Gustavo Rimada‘s Dark Paradise.

 It’s Rimada’s fourth time showing at the gallery, and this one is stunning, the stuff of dreams.
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Mysterious and evocative, these fractured dreamlike images of flowers, butterflies, and beautiful women evoke the feeling of vivid icons, nearly religious in nature.
The contrast between the dark undertones of the work and the vibrant color palette locks in the eye while the mind works to fill in the connections between dark and light. Somehow the pieces also fit with this time of year: bright California dimmed with winter’s shortened days, the light always subject to the burgeoning night.
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Rimada says “The work is pretty but has darkness as the underlying story. A lot of the pieces are based on the music of Lana del Rey, whose songs informed these works. Her lyrics captivated me. Pretty music, dark lyrics.”
Rimada notes that he uses a great deal of red in these paintings. “It’s a primary color, and I do use it a lot. It’s something that I’ve done from the beginning of my painting career, and I consider it due to my culture.”
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Born in Torreon, Mexico, Rimada’s upper middle class life was changed drastically when his family moved to Indio, Calif.  exchanging professional positions for domestic ones. In Mexico and the U.S., Rimada was always drawing. After 9/11, however, he joined the Army for a 3-year stint. When he returned to civilian life, Rimada also returned to art with a passion – both painting and working as a tattoo artist. “I truly eat, breath and sleep art,” he says.

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He also creates dreams from it. Enter some of them before Dark Paradise closes this weekend.

– Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke

Photographer Kathy Curtis Cahill: Inside Her Art

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Photo by Jack Burke
Photo by Jack Burke

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A harrowing childhood led photographer Kathy Curtis Cahill to the presentation of a world that’s as wonderful and inspiring as it is frightening and mysterious. Her life and her art are both dedicated to a singular mission, an “educational process” revealing “how fragile young children are, and how everything matters in the home environment,” Cahill explains.

Her most recent exhibition, “Memories and Demons,” held at the Artists Corner Gallery in Hollywood this past summer, and her current work, both express this mission beautifully.

 

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Her work was inspired by her difficult childhood with a volatile, often violent who physically abused her, her siblings, and her mother and her parents’ toxic co-dependent relationship. Cahill says she spent a long time getting over being angry, but her work provides closure and catharsis. Vivid and insightful, her luminous and haunting photographs revolve around realistic looking antique dolls, whose often chipped and cracked visages are positioned to be startlingly lifelike, and eerily symbolic of the daily narrative of Cahill’s early life. “Child abusers will not leave you unscathed,” Cahill notes.

The path to the artist’s own self-awareness began with therapy, and the painful process of examining her childhood to uncover who she was in the present. Controlling her own self-directed anger and destructive impulses led her to move from the position of an aggressor and victim to that of a victor, she relates.

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“As I began to understand the long-lasting effects of being raised in a violent, angry, male- dominated household, I realized I wasn’t alone in this kind of background. The death of my parents opened a dialogue with my siblings about our shared experiences, the ones that remain painful,” she says.

Cahill was determined to raise awareness about the vulnerability of children. “Children are very aware, but what they are not able to do is emotionally cope with what they know and are powerless to change. I used this knowledge to create photographic portraits of many of my childhood memories, and those of others with similar upbringings, who were generous enough to let me illustrate their stories.”

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Educated as an art teacher, Cahill was an Emmy nominated film and television set decorator for over thirty years. Retired in 2011, her entertainment industry work nurtured her skills in shaping a continuing, non-verbal story – skills she uses in her art, with dolls serving as stand-ins for the children they depict.

“I’ve always been involved in art and photography. I have been inspired greatly by Diane Arbus and Sally Mann”, she says. The dolls came later, the outgrowth of an antique doll collection, and an intimate connection with the dolls themselves. “I used older style dolls with cloth bodies to represent the very young in situations that portray sad and painful memories. The aged, cracked patina of their faces signifies the trauma and scars they endure, and their expressions gave me a starting point for their stories.”

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As her subjects, the dolls’ electrify viewers with their poignant and life-like expressions and positions. Working entirely on her own, Cahill has been creating her unique vision for just over a year, relying on minimal but natural settings and natural light to create miniature sets, often making many of the dolls’ costumes and props. She shapes a realistic yet surreal style that pulls viewers into an alternate but all-too-real and painful world. Loss, longing, and a capacity for hope and awe pull at the eye and heart in her work, from her very first piece, “Small Comforts,” inspired directly by her older brother. Her narrative photographs were often shot as many as one hundred times to accurately narrate the emotional mutilation of an abusive childhood.

photos by Jack Burke
Through her doll subjects, Cahill creates ways of exploring and expressing self-identity, merging installation, photography, and self into a mosaic of highly emotional portraiture. She draws from her own background to create tremendously moving stories that invite viewers to form connections and empathize with her subjects. “I wanted to photograph this extensive repository of anguish, using dolls to evoke the fear, loneliness, and anger that all children, at times, experience.”

 

She compels viewers to shape their own personal stories and memories through her evocative work. Without human subjects, the focus of her photographs becomes universal, and thus intensely personal, to each viewer.

“I make these pieces for all the children who were traumatized, for children who are still affected as adults by what has happened in the past. I tell stories in images that children may not be able to tell in words,” Cahill says. “There is universality to the wounds that young people feel, wounds that can haunt them forever.”

 

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  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke, Shoebox PR, Kathy Cahill