Daniel Leighton’s Permission to Enter and Chestnut Group Show at Los Angeles Art Association

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LAAA Group Show, "Chestnut" - Photos: Jack Burke
LAAA Group Show, “Chestnut” – Photos: Jack Burke

The Los Angeles Art Association continues to knock them out of the ball park with a series of solo shows and one group show this month.

A Young Girl's Vanity - Kristine Schomaker
A Young Girl’s Vanity – Kristine Schomaker

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Along with Lori Pond’s dark Menace, and Elyse Wyman’s insightful Conceal/Reveal, Daniel Leighton offers a portal to another dimension with Permission to Enter.

Daniel Leighton's Permission to Enter
Daniel Leighton’s Permission to Enter

Through an augmented reality app, Leighton takes viewers beyond the experience of seeing his art and within it. The title of his exhibition refers to allowing or not allowing this interaction, or any human interaction – granting “permission to enter.”

Works such as “Their Place in the Sky” offer a bold color pallet and evocative forms that feel both elemental and impressionistic. Here the color purple gives birth to a new young shape that represents both a peaceful progression and uncertain melancholy.

Combining technology with his brilliant color spectrum and dream-like images makes Permission to Enter a magical exhibition that’s fully experiential.

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Visions from the group show, Chestnut.

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The experiences of many artists are on display in the group exhibition at LAAA, Chestnut. Juried by Walter Maciel of Culver City’s Walter Maciel Gallery, Chestnut includes works by a number of outstanding LA area artists including Linda Sue Price’s “Forget,” a blossom of neon; Jane Szabo’s archival pigment print “Superman,” which depicts a grown man getting his super-hero on in a child’s room; and Kristine Schomaker’s evocative “A Young Girl’s Vanity,” a mixed media sculpture that posits questions about body image, self-reflection, and self-awareness. Other standouts include Rob Grad’s spray paint on bi-level plexi-glass works, “Preflight” and “Unplugged,” and Dahye Kim’s video installation, “Dreaming.”

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The Los Angeles Arts Association is located at 825 La Cienega in West Hollywood – and if you haven’t gotten the message yet in previous stories on present exhibitions, go see what art is all about.

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Jane Szabo’s “Superman” above.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke

Elyse Wyman’s Conceal/Reveal at the Los Angeles Art Association

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Elyse Wyman’s Conceal/Reveal explores the connection between personal identity and body image in a stunning exhibition focusing on the female body in our culture. Wyman uses plastic forms as symbols of our emotional defenses, and layers these sculptures with found objects and fragments.

One of three solo exhibitions at the Los Angeles Art Association through November 20th, Wyman’s show is a brilliantly layered exploration of the female form, and it’s meaning in society and our minds.

Wyman with "Fire in the Belly" - all photos: Jack Burke
Wyman with “Fire in the Belly” – all photos: Jack Burke

In her piece “Fire in the Belly,” Wyman utilizes a voltage sign she found broken into two pieces. “I immediately thought I had to have this for something. My husband calls me a pack rat, but eventually the use reveals itself,” she says. “My process is similar to my work: what do we conceal and what do we reveal about ourselves.”

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Wyman says her pieces were “born during my own bout with breast cancer. I had to examine what a torso really means to us, as a receptacle of us, of our heart and our guts,” she notes.

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The Los Angeles Art Association is located at 825 La Cienega in West Hollywood.

  • Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke

Lori Pond: Menace at the Los Angeles Art Association

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Lori Pond at LAAA - all photos: Jack Burke
Lori Pond at LAAA – all photos: Jack Burke

The Los Angeles Art Association is packed with great exhibits through November 20th, a great reason to head up to the gallery’s West Hollywood location this fall. One of the shows currently presented is Lori Pond’s Menace.

The show is a riveting collection of photographs that depict darkened, wild animals that frighten and compel at the same time. These images are actually taxidermied creatures, photographed in sunny shops, manipulated by the artist to manifest images that could terrify – except they really can’t.

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It’s the duality of these images, from cape bufalo to bear, opossum to wolf to bird, that is so riveting: why do they frighten us? Are they impotent or do they still contain the potential to terrify, if only in our minds. This is the first solo show that presents this particular body of Pond’s work. Another series of Menace images recently debuted in Philadelphia.

According to Pond, “There are different pieces in this show than there were back east. There are some new ones which I did after the Philadelphia show. I found a taxidermy shop there in April and took some new shots – two of them went into the show.”

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There are other differences in the current exhibition here on the West Coast as well. “The Philadelphia show was held in a university gallery. That was a completely different audience. Here I was also able to display the images as they should be displayed, against black walls. I commission a friend to make an underscore that provides an almost subliminal musical message,” the artist reports.

Feeling menaced? Or seeking out a little Halloween-time primal fear? These instinctually harrowing photographs can be found at 825 La Cienega in West Hollywood.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke

 

 

Turtle Wayne and Catherine Kaleel at Daniel Rolnik Gallery

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Daniel Rolnik with Turtle Wayne - all photos: Jack Burke
Daniel Rolnik with Turtle Wayne – all photos: Jack Burke

The Daniel Rolnik Gallery is something of an anomaly on Ocean Ave. in Santa Monica. It’s cutting edge, ever-changing catalog lets visitors browse art as they would records at Amoeba Music, and the small space showcases some mega talents.

Rolnik Gallery
Rolnik Gallery

Owner Rolnik has been at this beach-side location for a year. “I go on road trips and I find artists I love. From Portland to North Carolina to Dallas to Anaheim, I find great works and exhibit them,” he says. In his browsing bin of artists currently there’s Otis Parsons’ instructor J.T. Steiny working in water colors to memorialize a departed pet, Catherine Kaleel’s zany “Romantic Donuts” series, the block prints and paintings of Krossd, and the holographic images of Tripper Dungan. He features low-gram movement artist Jessika Adams and Jeremy Novy who works on wood.

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“I know what I like and I go for it,” Rolnik says. “I’ve written for thirty different art magazines, the L.A. Weekly, Jewish Journal. I was called the world’s most adorable art critic, but so much that I loved was unobtainable. I’m trying to change all that, walk out here and get something you can obtain.”

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Turtle Wayne, with 80,000 Instagram followers, is one such obtainable artist. He creates whimsical pieces centered on, yes, turtles. His solo show features originals, prints, sticker packs, shirts, and sketch books.

Turtles by Turtle Wayne
Turtles by Turtle Wayne

“I draw turtles. I draw anything or anyone turned into a turtle. It’s become my identity, it’s how I relate to the world. I put poetry and humor into my work,” Wayne attests.

Based in San Francisco’s East Bay, he was drawing turtles only as a warm-up for other commissions, and the concept started as a joke. “But now,” he notes, “I have close to 2000 turtle pieces posted on Instagram. And you can see thousands of turtle ideas that people can suggest. People like turtles – that’s the whole interaction.”

Rolnik with Catherine Kaleel and her romantic donuts
Rolnik with Catherine Kaleel and her romantic donuts

Catherine Kaleel says the point of her pieces, which include detailed images of nostalgia-infused cassettes is “good humor. Everyone can relate to my work. I’m pretty much laughing the whole time I’m making my pieces, it’s sort of my Prozac creating these paintings.” Currently in the masters program at the Laguna College of Art and Design, the SoCal native has crafted nostalagic images since 2011.

“I don’t feel like fine art and low brow have to be separated. My work is a combination of the two,” she explains.

Kaleel, Rolnik, and visitor Tyrone
Kaleel, Rolnik, and visitor Tyrone

It’s a combination that works for the Daniel Rolnik Gallery itself, where new works and exhibitions pop up with frequency and panache. Check out Turtle Wayne and other artists daily from 3-10 pm at 1431 Ocean Ave. Ste. 1800 in Santa Monica.

  • Genie Davis; all photos: Jack Burke