Glowing Gems from S.P. Harper at LAAA

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S.P. Harper‘s Oracles of Effulgence glows literally and figuratively in her solo exhibition at LAAA’s Gallery 825 which opens September 13th. The exhibition is mesmerizing from the artist’s mysterous, gem-like geometric imagry to her use of phosphorescent material that makes these works literally glow in the dark.

Harper has used geometric form and gemstone images to dazzling effect in other series as well, each lovely and immersive.

However in her new show,  there is something resonately deep going on, a visionary transformation due to the way in which the works transition between daylit radiance and what look like bioluminescent forms in the dark.

Melding found objects with phosphorescent paint, Harper creates something entirely different, both reflecting a magical transformation and a hidden source, as if inviting the viewer to step into the depths of the earth and uncover some long buried and secret elements of the earth.

Riffing on cubism and the luster of gemstones, specifically diamonds as inspired by the artist’s diamond cutter grandfather, Harper shapes her own jewels as perfectly and precisely as nature forms minerals and crystals, or just as diamonds-in-the-rough are faceted and reimagined as stunning rings.

Diamonds are definitely this artist’s best friend, as she uses their shape and their sparkle to create richly dimensional, emotionally faceted work that is both elegant and luminous, alluring and delightful. She toys with the veiwers perceptions in a joyful and perceptive way– while we know the objects she presents here are not really aglow, they take on a life of their own, pulling the viewer into a compelling and intimate dance with a fantasy both familiar and impossible.

There is a subtle hint of throwback to the era of black light paintings and psychedelic trips– if that sort of hippie, happening past had been passed through a finely tuned filter and turned into fine art as delicately constructed as it is subversively joyous.

Harper has painstakingly applied multiple coats of an invisble phosphorescent paint. With gallery lights dimmed, each form leaps from the wall and illuminates the darkness; the gallery is tented off to fully reveal the magical mystery tour that Harper is taking us upon.

Harper’s use of transforming material is not new to her. She has painted and sculpted using recucled gemoterics in other series, utilizing media as diverse as discarded canvas and plaster scraps to reform materials into a kind of patterned contemporary vibrancy that is both unexpected and minutely rendered. The materials she utilizes in this exhibition include a shower curtain, wood salvage, and canvas. Her color palette here revolves on a series of dazzling blues and greens, an electrified ocean of  treasure.

And she knows her faceted styles, literally, titling works after their cut, Ascher, Brilliant, Princess, and Miner cut faceting, introducing viewers to her own magical knowledge of a creative skill few of us understand. Each image is immersive in this way, taking viewers into an emotional mine shaft in which gems are embedded, waiting for us to dig them out (pun intended) and take these treasures home.

The artist has explained her work simply and beautifully, saying “I paint jewels because they transfix and reflect.” Indeed they do.

Also exhibiting at Gallery 825 are Aileen Rodriguez Imperatrice with her new series Selective Memory;  Faina Kumpan with her whimsical and vivid fantastical sci fi figures in Are we alone? Aliens, mutants and visitors; and Tom Lasley with his evocative DioramaDrama.

Opening reception for all four solo shows at Gallery 825 is Saturday ,September 13 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The gallery is located in West Hollywood at 825 N. La Cienega. The exhibition runs through October 17.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

 

A Purrfect Show – Natural History Museum’s Cats Pounces Into LA

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Fierce! The Story of Cats, now at the Natural History Museum through February 18, 2026, brings an immersive, intelligent, and fun view of the fabulous feline to Los Angeles.

Saber-toothed cats had pretty impressive bicuspids!

Along with learning that the La Brea Tar Pits were once home to lions, and that cat friendships and mousing expertise long pre-dated the Egyptian culture’s deification of cats, the exhibit revealed not only cat history, but cat breeds, cat physicality, and cats as art and vestiges of good fortune.

There are clips from cat media (of course including last year’s Academy Award-winning Flow), video of Chinese New Year lion dancers, and even a gigantic sculpture of a Japanese “lucky kitty.”

Flow, above.

What and how cats see, below.

Add your kitty to the carousel of pretties…

In its West Coast debut, the show also features clever cat facts and silhouettes of kitties on the exhibition gallery walls; the ability to enter photos of your own cats as part of a slide show of domestic kitties; and a variety of cultural cat objects.

Seeing the size of various cat claws up close, and cat teeth, and cat fossils, the viewer gets a look at the evolution of cats, the array of feline family cousins and descendents. There are hands-on facts and fun, audio exhibits, and perhaps best of all, a wide ranging display of both taxidermied cats, art depictions of cats, and yes, stuffies of cats, all revealing the beautiful and diverse creatures that make up the feline family tree.

Learn how cats leap, all about their vision, their supple skeletal structure, the differences in fur, the commonalities among feline types.  Hear them roar, hear them purr, consider the reason cat claws contract, and the joy of a playful kitten.

From protecting crops to balancing the eco system in the wild, from predatory hunting skills to the healing sound of a purr, this lovely, multi-room exhibition (plus a gift shop with a lot of fun kitty-lover treats) is informative, fun, and packs a potent message about how important it is to protect cats great and small, their habitats and their homes.

The Natural History Museum is located at 900 Exhibition Blvd. in Los Angeles; open hours are 9-5 Monday-Sunday; Fierce tickets are $12 above the regular museum entrance pricing of $18 per adult admission. Go ahead, take a leap.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

Sur: Biennial at Torrance Art Museum Revs Up

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Sur: Biennial is an exhibition series that made it’s first apeparance in 2011, and is still going strong today. Highlighting the impact of Latin American culture in art, this year’s compelling works are bold and in some instances, wonderfully surreal.

Works on exhibit include those by Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Carlos Rittner, chris velez, Elena Manero, Jesus Max, The Lowrider Alliance, Migues Rodriguez Sepulveda, and Priscilla Mondo.

The Lowrider Alliance also presented four absolutely gorgeous cars outside the museum on opening night, each their own work of art from metal work details to vibrant paint.

The entire exhibition shines with a glorious light,  from those exhibited cars outside to culturally resonant photos taken by The Lowrider Alliance inside, to Carlos Rittner’s large and exciting neon, and chris velez ‘ glowing anime-style figure offering blessing from inside a tech version of a confessional booth.

velez also exhibits a wild update on the Sword and the Stone, with “The sword was never removed by a King it was thrust by a Saint” a sculpture that embeds a sword in a microfilm reader’s screen.

There are twisted, sinuous sculptures from Priscilla Mondo that despite their monumental size, seem to float on the gallery floor.

A massive oil and acryllic on sewn canvas painting by Carlos Beltran Arechiga, “Conjura,” (above) reveals fantastical pink and white figures that are both abstract and figurative at the same time; a smaller work by the artist was created in part by using different blends of coffees from Mexican Nescafe to Starbucks, each creating a different texture.  The latter work, “Balance: Fragil” speaks beyond texture to the treatment of workers at coffee plantations.

Jesus Max displayed a compelling series of hyper-realistic paintings that flirt with surreal elements; Elena Manero’s paintings are graceful stories come alive with nuanced color, and Migues Rodriguez Sepulveda also contributes outstanding work.

Last, but certainly not least, Lowrider Alliance contributions to SUR Biennial were curated by Art Limon (President, Lowrider Alliance) featuring artists Alfonso “Fox” Orozco, Estevan Oriol, G. Alfaro, Gil Ortega, Horacio Romero, Ignacio Gomez, Teresa Rodriguez, Vidal Herrera.

In the museum’s dark room, executive producer Dolores Huerta, presents Backstreet to the American Dream (2021), an insightful and intimate film about race, labor, and class in modern-day America, focusing on blue-collar entrepreneurs and Latino immigrants in a 90-minute presentation.

Gallery Two also offers a fascinating and immersive exhibition…

In Affective Territories, Alternate Belongings, video and multimedia works focus on technology, its growing importance and our reliance on it, as well as its outgrowth of and from our human world. The exhibit is exciting, provocative, and leads the viewer into a world we know about but often prefer to remain unseen.

Exhibiting artists include:  Allyson Packer and Jesse Fisher / United States, Camille Dumond/ Switzerland, Chrystele Nicot & Antoine Alesandrini / France, Holly Veselka / United States, Joe Harjo / United States, Laine Rettmer / United States, Margaret Noble / United States, Paul Moore / Northern Ireland (UK), Scott Massey / Canada, Sophie Dia Pegrum / British/American, Spencer Chang / United States, Woohee Cho / South Korea/ United States.

In short,  TAM has once again curated a terrific group of exhibitions that speak to the immediate world, the future world, and our ongoing history.

Vibrant with color, alive, and thoughtful, these shows are worthy of a very long cruise down Whittier Boulevard and into East LA — and an extended visit to the Torrance Art Museum.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis 

Innovative and Exciting Exhibitions at the Bendix

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While each of these splendid shows now at the Bendix in DTLA’s fashion district are worthy of their own review, time, and an imminent last weekend September 6th, waits for no one. So let’s take a look at the exuberant exhibitions currently at the Bendix, and mark your calendars for a viewing this coming weekend.

On view 12-5 p.m. at Durden and Ray is the winner of the gallery’s SPOTLIGHT24, the Durden and Ray member committee reviewed  solo exhibition proposals for the gallery. Winning artist Shannon Freshwater was born into a Las Vegas environment few visitors have seen, a mix of Mormon and Souther Baptist religion and hippie artists. Viewers will experience a witty yet ominous living room scene in the front gallery, while mirrored images dance with the viewers own in the second. It’s a garden of strange, surreal, slightly spooky delights using textiles, paintings, and unusual surfaces to render a world gone deliciously mad.

Persons Unknown is presenting another solo show that’s dusted with the whimsical and determinedly wild, in both texture and territory. The Museum of Human Touch imagines a future — that frankly doesn’t seem too distant — where our intimacy with screens has replaced physical experience. Only in this world, sculptures shaped from digital waste ranging from packing materials to discarded gadgets and ephemera are the unique visualization of reshaped human identity. , reshaping our bodies and identities. Featuring sculptures crafted from recycled digital waste such as obsolete gadgets, medical tubing, and packaging materials, the exhibition explores the seductive pleasure and hidden violence of our device-driven lives, challenging us to reconsider the fluidity, fragility, and possibility of the human body in a tech-saturated world. The boldly textural and delightfully weird are conjoined in a series of devastatingly and wonderfully weird works from Agustin Rosa.

At Tiger Strikes Astroid, and also closing this weekend is El Portal, a rich and wonderfully mind-opening exhibit organized by Ricardo Harris-Fuentes and Lauren Armstrong. Comprised of the workd of six visual and five performance artists, the theme is transformation and transcendent reality as assisted by the visionary experience of ayahuasca ceremony as its inspiration point. We had the pleasure of viewing a roof-top live performance by artist Sean Noyce involving a gorgeous metallic shield on exhibit in the gallery along with a consciousness pyramid sculpture, which Armstrong used in another galvanizing rooftop performance.  The group show is inspirational and aspirational.

Down the hall at 515, books are the mind blowers… in this large group exhibition, you can indeed judge a book by its artisically created cover, as artists shape visionary book favorites with covers that more than live up to the words on the pages between.  Artists were asked to pick their favorite books and create a cover to fit their vision, and wow, were these visions extraordinary. Just a fun and brilliant show, it will make you want to pick up a book and read it — and imagine your own cover to hold it. Fabulous use of sculptural materials and engaging visions of the meaning writ within the books. Special Collections II will be holding a closing reception from 7 to 9 p.m on the 6th. Take a look at the online library linked above and view its wide ranging artists, and go visit. These books will never be banned.

And last but not least, in Monte Vista Projects, a debut solo of bronze and porcelain sculptures, Invitation, by Renée Pepion is a feast of things floral, feminine, and unconventionally lovely, or as the artist describes the work “my way of processing what it means to be alive in a body.” Inspired by images of the Last Supper, this is a splendid exhibition of twists and turns both terrifying and terrific.

Get thee to the Bendix this weekend for these grand finales.

  • Genie Davis, images by Genie Davis