Linda Smith Shapes Cat (and Human) Creations

Posted on by Diversions LA

Now at bG Gallery, The Cat’s Meow isn’t just an exhibition title – it’s a celebration of a show, a sweet, fun, impressive solo from artist Linda Smith. There are paintings, ceramic sculptures, and most impressively lush ceramic totems, slim towers that offer viewers multiple kitties or in some cases, humans, and pups, towering up to 6 feet in height.

Above, inside Smith’s studio

Each living creature offers a face full of wisdom and a presence that exudes that species’ essence. The cats look curious, intelligent, willful; the humans thoughtful, observant, or contemplative; while the puppies look ready to leap, play, or curl up on your feet. In short, each creature has a presence that draws the eye and the heart. There’s a magical quality to her works.; whether paintings or ceramics, Smith covers every surface with color and pattern, willing the viewer to experience the fun on offer, and enter into her world.

A joyous use of vibrant color is Smith’s style, along with a textural use of pattern that hums with energy and enthusiasm for her subjects. It’s that vibrance that makes her images come alive. Smith is as prolific as she is joyous, with a wide variety of whimsical, lustrous works that are expressive, charming, and utterly unique.

Smith describes her exhibition as consisting of “my new large ceramic totems, smaller ceramic sculptures and paintings I have created over the years. This show has recurring themes of mine, [such as] faces, figures, cats, birds, and dogs…my daily life expressed in an adventure of bold color and pattern.”

It’s a delightful crazy quilt of her life, saturated with a sense of excitement and jubilance. You could just call it fun. Stacked orange and blue heads are topped with a brilliantly plumed bird in one totem; in another, striped, dotted, and flowered humans rise watchfully.

Each work has the elements of a fantastical fairy tale brought to life, in which cats and humans coexist in an endlessly bountiful world punctuared by dots, dashes, lines, and patterns. Her bold use of yellows, oranges, reds, and blues brings a joyous buoncy to her images.

Whether small ceramic busts of felines,  or wild rainbow rays vibrating from and around a woman’s face with a playful outline of a cat above it, Smith speaks to happiness and hope.

Both are welcome subjects. In fraught times, happiness can be in short supply, but it’s doled out delightfully here. Smith captures the playful, inquisitive, and mysteriousness of the feline, along with the cavorting of canines, and a contemplative view of human nature, all in a cavalcade of color.

The exhibition held a press preview last weekend, but opens to the public this coming Saturday, September 6th, from 4 to 7 p.m. The artist talk and walk through will take place September 13th from 3 to 5 p.m.

If you’re looking for some unadulterated joy in your life, come take a romp around the art world.

  • Genie Davis; images provided by Linda Smith and bG Gallery

 

 

 

 

Not Shockboxx Rocks James Frost Solo Exhibition

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The always edgy, always inventive Shockboxx Gallery may have electrified its last exhibition a few months ago, but Not Shockboxx is alive and well, with its first exhibition by realist/surrealist (yes, the two can be one) artist James Frost bringing in robust crowds and welcome red dots.

Frost’s Don’t F&$%( ING Touch Me is a true tour de force. The artist describes the show as “everything I like” which apparently includes wolves and alien spacecraft, curled up cats beneath other spaceships, Barbara Eden, the Dali Llama, angel fish, lonely landscapes, music heroes, art gurus, and so much more.

His art is the boy screaming against the clamor of the city; the young man surrounded by a colorful aura.

The realism, the heightened use of color, the pop sensibility, the touches of the surreal – Frost’s art is entirely his, entirely wild, and entirely involving, as hyperrealistic as it is dusted with the surreal and serene. It jumps off the wall and engages the viewer with Frost’s mastery of craft, and the dare-I-say zany aspect of some of his subjects. This is pop culture sublime, smooth and sensual, vividly at high volume, if art could shout.

Its boldness to some extent contrasts with Frost’s own quiet, from sound muffling head phones (the artist speaks of being on the spectrum) to conversing through sign language skills.

Above, a detail from Interstellar, a personal favorite, with the absolutely perfect kitty under the beam-me-up spaceship.

His art, in other words, truly does speak for him and vibrates with both fantasy and the fantastical, threaded together with the artist’s own quiet spirit.

Frost says of his work “Every ounce of peace that comes to me comes from painting, so my hope is that you. get that magic I’d been missing for far too long.”

Indeed, to see it is to feel it. Go see the magic through September 20th.  It’s extremely cool work.

Not Shockboxx is open daily 10 to 4 p.m. and is lcoated at 636 Cypress in Hermosa Beach.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

 

Artist Suhail Noor Inspires Internationally Across All Borders

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Suhail Noor is an artist inspired by feeling, and those same feelings are transmitted directly to the viewers of his work, whether in oil, pastels, watercolor, or charcoal. His mediums are varied,  but his message is universal, of hope, beauty, and human connection, made from an artist living in Pakistan to the world.

Much of his work has a spiritual quality, quietly resonant, deeply moving. His passion for reaching to the core of others’ feelings while expressing his own makes up the throughline of his work.

According to Noor, “My inspiration often begins with a feeling—a fragment of a dream, a fleeting glance, the rhythm of nature, or the quiet poetry of human connection. There are moments that words cannot hold, and I find myself translating them into colors, lines, and textures. My art is a conversation between my soul and the world, where each piece is born from something deeply felt.”

Asked which medium he prefers to work in, he explains “Every medium speaks a different language. Soft pastels offer a velvety depth that draws the viewer into emotion, pen-and-ink allows for intricate detail and quiet intimacy, watercolors capture a delicate fluidity—like painting with light—and oil paints give richness and depth that feel timeless. My preference changes with the story I want to tell; I believe the medium chooses me as much as I choose it.”

The spirituality that is palpable in Noor’s art is expressed, he says, from the inside out. “For me, spirituality is not something I add to my art—it is the essence from which it flows. I approach each piece as a meditative act, letting intuition guide my hand. The colors, the flow of lines, and the symbols I use all carry fragments of meaning. I hope that, when someone stands before my work, they feel the same quiet reverence I felt while creating it.”

Noor has been an artist all his life, from childhood on, despite pauses along the way. “Returning to art has always felt like returning home—each time with a deeper understanding of myself,” he relates.

Self-taught, Noor says his art comes in part “like second nature,  as though my hands already knew what to do. But I’ve also learned through patient observation—studying nature, absorbing the works of great artists, and experimenting endlessly. Being self-taught has given me the freedom to follow curiosity without rules, to make mistakes, and to let those mistakes shape my style.”

He asserts that his work is more than just a visual experience alone. “It is a reflection of my inner world, a language without words. Every piece carries a story, sometimes drawn from my own life, sometimes from emotions that have no name but insist on being expressed. The colors I choose are not random; they are emotional tones, each one holding a certain weight or lightness. The textures and strokes are the pauses, whispers, and [the] emphasis in this silent conversation.”

He wants viewers to know that when they stand before one of his paintings or drawings “they are not just looking at pigment on a surface—they are standing in front of a moment I have lived, felt, and preserved. My hope is that viewers don’t just see the work, but enter it—lose themselves for a moment, and find something within it that feels like their own. If my art can stir a memory, awaken a feeling, or give someone a sense of stillness in a restless world, then I feel I have done my part as an artist.”

Noor is entering a phase that’s inviting him to push boundaries in this work by “exploring larger canvases, richer layers in oil, and fluid blends of watercolors and mixed media. My next body of work will focus on emotional landscapes, where color becomes mood and texture becomes memory. I plan to take these new pieces into upcoming exhibitions, sharing them with audiences who can experience them up close. Each project is a step toward refining my voice as an artist, while staying true to the emotional honesty that defines my work.”

Such devotion and lived experience in art suffuses Noor’s images with a sense of light and peace in much of his work; it is a study in soul, or as he puts it  “Art is where my emotions find a voice without words.”

Noor’s work is currently shown online; however he will have works exhibited in a group show in the Los Angeles area in 2026. And, having shown in Ireland and the UAE, as well as in Pakistan, he’s eager to send his work out anywhere in the world.

Souls, after all, do migrate freely, and we would do well in the art community to support their travels.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

Welcome to The Other Side at Garel Fine Art Gallery

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Through August 30th, Garel Fine Art Gallery in Manhattan Beach presents a richly meaningful exhibition, The Other Side: Art, Recovery, and the Human Condition.

Curated by contributing artist Robin Jack Sarner, the show features work by Kylie Ames, Jackie Leishman, Amy Lyu, Monica Marks, Anjale Perrault, Robin Jack Sarner, Katin Sarner, Kristine Schomaker, and Lynnie Sterba.  The wide varieties of mediums presented adds to a sense of heady exploration and meaningful exchange. There are mixed media images, paintings, sculpture, and read aloud at the opening event, even poetry.

While the exhibition can be viewed solely as a vivid, thoughtful look at the human condition, the show meaningfully focuses on a specific such condition: eating disorder survival. Each of the artists has been affected in one way or another, adding a deeper layer of meaning and felt experience to what is a vibrant, fascinating exhibition that thoughtfully and passionately explores both the collective experience and individual narratives that touch on strength and survival, often silent yet deep struggles, mental health, and healing.

Sarner describes the show as personally meaningful, “born from my own lived experience and the journey of helping my
daughter through hers. It is both personal and universal, an offering for those still struggling, those who’ve made it to the other side…”

While self-worth, healing, and mental health are powerful and important subjects, the show’s gorgeous textures, bright colors, and sense of community support are equally worthy.

Amy Lyu’s “FEAR” is extremely moving, a large acrylic on canvas work that literally and figuratively spells out the terrifying and compelling emotion of being afraid, pulling us in with purple lettering and soft pastel abstract images.

Kristine Schomaker, a tireless advocate for mental health and coping with disordered eating, is showing sculptural works that are literal pieces of her life, whether the multicolored jarred Yogurtland spoons enhanced with glitter, thread, and paint in her “Comfort and Joy,” or creations made up of her own cut up and stored painted works and life ephemera now in bags and jars on a kitchen worktable, “Picture Perfect.” It is perhaps the pieces of ourselves that come together to offer perfections/imperfections and comfort and joy to those ready to accept them. Schomaker also covered gallery front windows with iridescent dots – little marks of hope and happiness.

Kiley Ames’ series of figurative oil on paper or linen paintings, as well as her supple clay sculptures are also standouts…

Monica Marks offers her own rewarding clay and resin sculptures as well as found art and collage wall works in vivid shades.

Curator Robin Jack Sarner presents works that are both deep in textures and layers and also in a sense of revealed truths.

Each of the artists on view are strong — offering bold color, fascinating use of line, and unique mediums, as well as providing a sense of unearthed feeling and mystery-revealed throughout.

Gallerist Joanna Garel left; artist Kristine Schomaker, right.

So what actually is The Other Side? It is honestly any place that awaits through the succor of art, the healing of heart, or the serene moments when self and soul finally reveal themselves to be one. This is an exhibition about intimate feelings and the healing of community and creativity. It’s a meaningful presentation; kudos to Garel Fine Art for bringing it to the South Bay.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis and Monica Marks