Tasty Street Food Cinema Ahead

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Now in its eighth season, Street Food Cinema offers the largest outdoor movie series in LA, with over 50 films this year, and will be finishing up its 2019 season October 26th.

In short, there’s no time like the present to enjoy a long summer season at one of the many iconic settings where Street Food Cinema hosts its film events. With venues ranging from Will Rogers State Historic Park in the Pacific Palisades to Beverly Hills’ Pan Pacific Park, the L.A. Arboretum in Arcadia, and on to Manhattan Beach, Pasadena, Culver City, DTLA, Glendale, and Eagle Rock, late summer and fall should be ideal times to take in an outdoor flick no matter where you reside in the Southland.

 

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Founded in 2012 by the husband and wife team of Heather Hope Allison and Steve Allison, cineaphiles love the top-notch tech production that includes high-definition DLP projection on a 50′ screen with QSC speakers and subs.Attendees enjoy food trucks, live music, interactive games and of course a wide range of film choices every Saturday night.  

The Allison team, operating under their company name of Til Productions, have recently expanded to Phoenix and San Diego, and hope to continue expanding their new-concept of “dinner and a movie” to other cities, soon.

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The food trucks on offer are just as eclectic as the films and locations, including everything from cutting edge Chinese to donuts worthy of the designation “lush.” You’ll find choices such as Cousins Maine Lobster, Pinch of Flavor, and The Fat Queso; there’s excellent Kettle Corn, too.

Dine while musical artists perform before the film, including hot local acts like Katie Welch and So Many Wizards scheduled for the current season.

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This Saturday, we’ll be getting our inner space geek on with a screening at the Downtown Historic Park on the edge of Chinatown. The grassy setting offers a sparkling spread of city lights as a backdrop to a big-screen presentation of the Star Wars series classic, Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back. Also on the bill, the guitar-pop sound of The Flusters. The band played at Coachella in 2016.

Elsewhere in LA this weekend, Monsters Inc. will screen in Griffith Park along with a musical performance from The Eiffels.

On Sunday the 11th, Breakfast at Tiffany’s will add sparkle to the Heritage Square Museum grounds in Santa Monica.

Whether your cinematic tastes run more Fight Club or more toward a double feature of Toy Story 2 and 3, or the pulsing score of Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s time to take a taste of the eclectic Street Food Cinema.

Find the full schedule here. And stay tuned for our on-site review.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by Street Food Cinema

Looking Ahead: Echo Lew and Chenhung Chen in Time. Timeless. at OCCCA

Posted on by Diversions LA

 

Coming September 7th through 28th at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, Time. Timeless features the fluid and ethereal works of Chenhung Chen and Echo Lew. The exhibition offers a look at the fascinating repeating patterns that comprise the universe, turning the prosaic features of daily life into a profound experience.

 

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Los Angeles-based international contemporary artist Echo Lew creates meditative work that immerses the viewer in a world of lines, time, and light. In this exhibition, Lew continues his exploration of the mysterious and wondrous link between time and line. He posits a mesmerizing link between the chance arrangements of hair on paper with the gestures of dancers and lights captured in his previous series of photographic work.

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Using a single strand of his own fallen hair on a 6-inch square, he creates swirling, sinuous images that reflect the same sense of magical movement that his photographic works depicted. But here, rather than catching the long exposure of moving lights with his camera, Lew shapes almost ethereal lines from his hair, lines as varied and similar as each day of the year. The prolific artist worked daily for 365 days to create a single image using this unusual medium.

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He was drawn to this work through the vicissitudes of time itself. According to Lew “Time is my style.” Citing his practice of Zen Buddhism and daily meditation, he has taken the modern habit of creating timelines and both interpreted and subverted it into an evolving and intimate take on the power of the line itself, on the body’s aging process, and the spiritual movement of the human soul.

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That rigorous discipline is paired perfectly with Lew’s view of art as “an experimental adventure, a profound form of play.”

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Above photo by Jeffrey Sklan

Also based in Los Angeles, Chen uses mixed media to express both her fascination with American DIY culture and her perception of the inner existence. While Lew works exclusively with one medium, Chen uses many recycled materials in her three-dimensional work, including copper wire, cable, and electronic and computer components that harness power just as humans are conduits of their own spiritual power. As Chen notes “The cable conducts electricity, just as humans do…we are conduits of that Power.”

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Both artists offer insightful, disciplined, yet richly playful works that radiate  concepts of time, line, and a world outside human comprehension.

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OCCCA is located at 117 N. Sycamore Street in Santa Ana: the opening reception, from 6-10 p.m. September 7th takes place in conjunction with the Santa Ana Artwalk.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artists

Kate Carvellas Uses Found Objects to Create Lyrical Art

Posted on by Diversions LA

Kate C 1Working in a wide range of sculptures and mixed media wall art, artist Kate Carvellas uses found objects to create art that hums with energy, color, and fun. It’s both poetic and edgily whimsical, it tells stories that resonate and sing with substance, history, and the simple joy of creating “something” significant from “nothing” much.

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In this exhibition, which closes July 27th at SoLA Gallery in South LA, the forms she shapes – whether sculptural or in her vibrant montages of found materials – are filled with energy. There is a real sensibility at work here, offering images that, as the title of this piece below suggests, serve simply and profoundly as an “Ode to Joy.”

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Curated by SoLA gallerist Peggy Sivert Zask, each of the artist’s works were created within the last year, with many being shown for the first time.

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Many of the pieces use objects Carvellas finds on the ground, at yard sales, in thrift stores and flea markets.

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Connecting these disparate elements she creates sculptural forms from them, revitalizing them and reimagining their contexts. She combines these objects with painted work, forming dimensional wall art and sculptures that pull the viewer into a completely new and wonderfully startling visual landscape. The free-standing sculptural works displayed here are equally filled with a compelling worldview. There is an element of the fantastical, of having fallen down a delightful rabbit hole into another dimension – one where art itself is theatrical, fun, and spontaneous.

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Not that these works aren’t carefully and masterfully shaped, but they have a feel of having risen fully formed from the artist’s rich imagination. Calling her work “both intuitive and material based,” Carvellas says she loves using materials that are unexpected, “especially objects that others might consider unusable, and by incorporating them in my work, I elevate them from their original state, giving them new life and meaning.”

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The pieces feel alive, and exciting, almost as if Carevllas has has literally as well as figuratively brought them to life. The works evoke both modern sculptural form and folk art, steam punk and fairy tales. In short, they are truly and honestly entertaining, fascinating, and open-hearted. The works are generous, giving both beauty, visual wit – she offers a play on objects, rather than a play on words; and a redemptive look at how the everyday object can be in a certain artist’s eye, profound, and stimulatingly surreal.

 

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Come take a look at this richly rewarding exhibition in its closing moments, July 27th starting at 2 p.m. at SoLA Gallery, located at 3718 Slauson Ave.

And, in the front gallery, be sure to take in the Pulse of LA 2019, the second annual juried exhibit showcasing the work of Los Angeles women artists, juried by Holly Tempo, offers a look at a wide range of works from paintings to photography.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis, Kate Carvellas

Nurit Avesar: An Abstract Blossoming at Beyond Baroque

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At Beyond Baroque through July 28th, Nurit Avesar’s In Your World, gets into your heart.

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The astonishing show is somewhat of a departure for Avesar, who says her work is usually personal in nature.  She describes this current body of work is as being about global warming, and work that addresses universal issues.

“Instead of painting from memory or internal sensibility, I used photos from the news as referances and read a lot about scientific predictions regarding global warming and environmental changes. The current political situation has affected my work a lot, especially the illogical denial of scientific evidence, the clear lack of leadership and greed that influence politicies, and the refusal to address crisises that we are already experiencing, such as fires, floods and devastating storms.” Avesar adds that she finds painting a way to deal with her frustration and anxiety about the looming changes the world faces. “The work is more somber than earlier work and has urgency to it. I hope that by displaying this body of work, it will help create a platform for a larger audience, and bring up the unpleasant conversation about global warming without turning into a personal attack.”

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Avesar’s work has a lustrous and rich quality that draws viewers into a seemingly liquid, motion-filled space. There is a grace and fluidity to her images that transcends the canvas on which she works.

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“My new large work is mostly on unstretched canvas, rather than painted on a stretched canvas. It is presented in less formal way. I find it to be more effective because it is more organic. Also, I have introduced some new materials, such as plastic, and wood branches because of their relation to the subject of the environment.”

 Avesar says she’d like viewers to engage in a coversation about the environment from seeing her work, and on what we as individuals can do to assist the planet. “During the artist talk, people came up with ideas about what we can do to help improve the environment, such as planting gardens, trees, and demanding changes from our elected leaders, especially local ones. I hope that an exhibition like In Your World can bring about the necessary conversation regarding changes in public and political attitude,” Avesar attests.

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The artist says she would like keep  creating work about this subject. “I believe that global warming is the biggest issue we are facing. The need to change our energy sources is immense and will bring political struggle. Not addressing it, aside of the ecological and environmental disaster, will bring about wars, large scale migration, and sufferings. In future exhibitions, I would like to include installations as well.” The textural aspects of this new work adds to the resonance of it; future installations would be even more immersive in nature.

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Her color palette glows and is lush and dense; vivid without being harsh. Avesar says she recently went through several changes which are reflected in her palette. “I moved to the city, and I am affected by the political environment. Those changes are most likely affecting my palette and texture. Also, the subject matter of fires and floods changes my palette.”

The visceral, beautiful work creates a sense of the fraility of our world and it’s resilliance – if art can save us, it can save the world itself. Start with a look a this artist’s layered work.

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Beyond Baroque is located at 681 Venice Blvd., open by appointment and Friday and Saturday, 3-9 and Sunday, 2-5. Free parking. There will be a closing event on Saturday July 27th from 4-6 at the gallery; don’t miss this beautiful and resonant show.