10th Annual Spectrum Gestalt Kicks Off Summer at bG Gallery

Posted on by Diversions LA

 

It’s the 10th Annual Spectrum Gestalt and we arrive at Bergamot Station and watch as guests spill out of bG Gallery with an energy and crowd that is just as colorful as the exhibition. Many of the attending artists are dressed in their respective color palette and I am no exception.  Joined by my two young boys, I made certain to have a serious talk before entry. You know, the Do Not Touch Anything talk, matched with the No Running in the Gallery talk. My intent eyes linger affirmingly on the littlest, spunkiest of the duo and is followed by a required “Yes, Mom,” before we proceed. We work our way through the crowd and into the gallery and are immediately hit with powerful waves of color. I look to my 10-year-old and find him wide-eyed, jaw ajar. We pause and allow the chromaticity to settle in.

The exhibition is arranged in a classic salon style that flows in the respective sequence of each hue in the rainbow. It’s almost impossible not take a step back and look at the installation in its wholeness. Each band of color is refracted with a range of art styles and media that take the viewer on an electromagnetic & multi-dimensional journey. From visually captivating paintings and detailed drawings to tactile works of embroidery and sculpture to photographic feats that all bode their own greatness, yet meet the viewer’s eye on a level playing field— gestalt indeed.

Spectrum Gestalt was the exhibition that initiated bG’s inception at Bergamot Station Arts Center 10 years ago. Gallerist, Om Bleicher, shares that although they had a location on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica and another in La Brea, when a space at Bergamot presented itself for a one-month pop-up, the opportunity to make a big splash in this creative hub was one not to be missed. Bleicher aimed to activate the space by involving as many talented artists as possible, knowing that the scale of people taking part would amplify and even permeate bG’s presence. The timeline to prep for such a show was short. So much so, that artists were asked to make their own art labels in the color of their work. But it all came together and the scale of people that attended the launch of Spectrum Gestalt energized bG in a new and exciting way, and a sense of place here at Bergamot was born. To be nestled amongst over a dozen fine art galleries that gather both artists and collectors from around the globe was undeniably alluring, and the one-month pop-up subsequently turned into a permanent lease signed & roots were formed. Now, 10 years later, this flagship exhibition serves as an annual reminder of bG’s beginnings at Bergamot.

Chromatecton #5, Sung-Hee Son

This year’s exhibition was heavily reliant on the curatorial direction of Sung-Hee Son, who is an artist her own right. While the unification of impact was achieved, there was a rhythm found in the grounding consistencies presented. Whether through the color wave itself, or the fact that several artists had multiple pieces throughout the exhibition, there was opportunity for the viewer to seek out congruencies that offered an overall fusion.

An Act of Hypnosis, Michelle Kingdom

Established artists such as Michelle Kingdom showcase narrative embroideries in keeping with her recent bodies of work, while emerging and student artists like Trevor Coopersmith shared a handful of playful ceramic wall-hung sculptures sprinkled throughout.

Linkage, Trever Coopersmith

Houlihan, Tamara Tolkin

I found myself absolutely enthralled with both the painted and threaded lips of artist, Tamara Tolkin.  Pretty in pink, the toothy pout of one piece is acrylic on canvas and another is a textile dream of wool, cotton, and linen that speaks to my inner (and let’s be real, outer) appreciation for detailed, yet playful precision.

Laffy Lemon, Isabella

Fig and Water Drop, Paul Art Lee

Windows and Doors 1,  Angela Kent.

No matter what color you find yourself among, the subconscious intuitively stirs. And although my work hangs along the wall of black, I find myself smiling at all the yellow.

Catch your favorite pantones at the closing reception this Saturday,  July 1st 5 – 7 P.M., before all the colors in the rainbow are wrapped up and hauled out until next June.

bG Gallery 2525 Michigan Avenue, #A2, Santa Monica, CA 90404 | Gallery hours Wed-Sun 12 – 5 P.M.

– Written by Aimee Mandala; photos by Aimee Mandala, Paul Art Lee, Zoe Silverman

 

Linda Smith is the Cat’s Meow at bG Gallery

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With Power and Pattern now at bG Gallery, Linda Smith has created a lively, joyous and vibrant exhibition that’s as much fun as it is beautiful art.  As a major feline fancier, the pieces I was most drawn to were her alive, witty, fairy-tale-like cats.

Color and texture are the big takeaways from this well-curated show, which serves as a retrospective of sorts, moving seamlessly from acrylic on canvas works created in the 1980s in brilliant oranges and reds, intercut with ribbons of perriwinkle blue, to her massive high-fire ceramic cat totems from 2022.

In all of her works, whether small figures of humans, women’s faces, those delightful cats, yellow dogs – whatever the image may be – along with their inherent sense of joy and celebration, there is a sense of the totemic, as if these figures reprsented something truly powerful in the real world.

Indeed, the best of all art is a totem of sorts, a way to show our humanness, ward off evil, offer up beauty to the gods of light with which to sanctify our souls. Smith’s work embodies these magical, fantastical qualities while presenting images that are deeply grounded in the beautifully mundane images of life, the things that we do and experience as humans.

This sense of the experiential, warm and welcoming, yet mythologizing the recognizable, is present in all Smith’s work here. It is in the quilt-like pattern surrounding the titular “Mother & Child” acrylic work (at the top of which the letters “Mom” seem to shape a mountain peak pattern in pink). It is palpable in her “Small Cat Totem” shaped in four pieces, a cat head topping a work that includes two other images of cats painted on separate cast pieces of the totem; as well as in Smith’s wonderful mosaic “Woman, Cat & Dog.”

Color of course is key to Simth’s work as well, in the dazzling turquoise of her tattooed “Woman with Turquoise Shirt”  scuplture, and in the many hued human, bird, adn dog faces intersepersed with big blue polka-dot like patterns on her “Totem #5.”

Each work also seems to contain a sense of homage to the spirits of animals (including the human animal.) This is due in part to the massive size of the some of the totem ceramic works, “Totem #5″ for example is 72 x 16 x 16, the ceramic stacked carefully over steel rod and base.  Smith’s art is reverential in a way, that reverence illuminated with a sense of whimsy and wonder, of the magic of life itself, the colors that shadows can cast on many hued faces, on the furs of our feline and canine companions, in the harsh but vivid red, black, and white of her diminuitive but powerful 6 x 6” “Political Paintings” series.

Charming, beguiling, but also intense, Smith’s art commands attention, requires an awe-fused respect, and most of all, above all, engages the senses with the wonder and spirit of play. That’s the true power in her many-hued patterns.

Commandingly exhibited with her totem work in the foreground of the gallery, Smith’s exhibit lights up the bG space with a delighted passion in her subjects, and for her viewers.

Be empowered yourself. The exhibition is at bG through November 14th. The gallery is located at 2525 Michigan Ave. Space #A2 in Bergamot Station, and is open Tuesday through Saturday.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

Quaranta at BG Gallery Reveals Dreams of Pandemic Art

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Susan Lizotte

Quaranta, just closed at bG Gallery in Bergamot Station, but viewable online, is a dynamic group exhibition with a powerful group of LA-based artists.

Curators

Susan Lizotte and Jenny Hager (above) co-curated a beautiful show with an inherent and wildly colorful rhythm, one of introspection and resurrection, of internal vibrance and vivid takes on the external world.

Both alluding to and inclusive of work produced during the beginning of the pandemic and quarantine times, Quaranta offers a wide range of work that reveals not only the artists’ psyches during that time period, but the diverse and experiential quality of the Los Angeles area artists who produced it.

Dani Dodge

The work includes the glorious gold leaf-infused mixed media images of Dani Dodge in her tragic yet life-affirming “Mojave Burning…”

Luciana Abait

the vibrant colors of Luciana Abait in “Pink Sky-Orange Mountains,” in which a reflective body of water and an ice formation reflect these hot, bright shades…

Gay Summer Rick

twilight drenched yet still glowing work from Gay Summer Rick…

Susan Lizotte

lustrous new map work from Lizotte, above; rich layered abstract from Hage, below…

Jenny Hager

and, an intricate landscape piece from Sijia Chen that summons a sense of profound wonder in its multicolored patterns.

Sijia Chen

There is lush sculptural work from Steven Fujimoto in the mandala-like pattern of his “Tide Pools” …

Steven Fujimoto

and the fascinating four-part reworking in watercolor of a classic image from Lena Moross.

Lena Moross

Other excellent pieces come from Douglas Alvarez, with his lovely still life depictions of fruit, and Ray Beldner’s tribal-like geometrically patterned rocks.

Douglas Alvarez

Tara de la Garza’s raw sculptures, Alex Shaffer’s perfectly lit, graffiti-filled LA street scenes, and the fascinating patterns represented in diverse pieces from Diane Meyer, Curtis Stage, and Alexandra Weisenfeld complete the exhibition.

Curtis Stage

The curators’ description reads “Work produced during the Quarantine, by nature, is a visual documentation of artists’ emotional response, either directly, or indirectly.” That response is one of vivid palette, repeated patterns, totem-like shapes and colors, an inner world of brightness, texture, contrast, and form that both mourned and celebrated an outside world. Both curators exemplify this in their own very different works – compelling in color and depth.

Tara de la Garza

As we drop our protective cocoons and become masked butterflies, it’s wise to remember the year 2020, and the time of emotional gestation, both physically limiting and emotionally draining, yet somehow as crazy perfect as dreams become art. Quaranta’s perceptive take on this period and strong mix of important, LA-based artists brings that art dream full circle to external viewers.

If you missed Quaranta at BG in Santa Monica, view the online exhibition here. 

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

 

Gay Summer Rick: Transporting Viewers in Beauty

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Gay Summer Rick is a quintessentially Los Angeles artist. It is in her color palettes, in her images, in the innate glow of her work. Even when she is not creating works that epitomize Southern California, her LA-state-of-mind fuses her images with something recognizable, wonderful, and soulfully West Coast.

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She says “The work will likely transport the viewer to a very calm and quiet place. My paintings are impressions from moments on my journey. I have discovered an unexpected beauty in commonplace elements within the urban landscape.” She adds “Once I took the time to really see and experience that, the tension associated with being stuck in the middle of the freeway, or circling over a city for landing, endless delays, noise, etcetera, the positive elements outweighed those stressors and beauty won.”

Rick says that her color palette changes depending on where she hopes to take the viewer and the feelings she wants to share.

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“I have a thousand images running through my head that I know I will paint. They are the impressions I have taken with me of moments in time in places I’ve been, primarily throughout Los Angeles and New York.”

Sometimes the paintings are saturated in color, and warm, and sometimes they are muted with light, and cool, she relates. “It just depends on what feeling I was left with from that moment in time, and what I would like to share with the viewer from that experience.”

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Rick says she’s always lived on one coast or another, east or west. “There’s something about the moisture in the air where cities meet the sea, the diffusion of light through mist that, for me, has a calming effect. Being at the ocean gives me the ability to tune everything else out, breathe, and focus.” 

This sense of simply breathing and being is intangible and yet present, a thread of communion with the viewer through her work.

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“Perhaps it has something to do with the scientific phenomenon of the ‘Blue Space’ effect and the change in negative ions from open water. The coast has always had this effect on me, and this carries into my work. From my studio I can see the bay, and even in my cityscapes that quality is definitely present in my work.”

She embraces a sense of peace in her process and her creation.  “As loud as the city or the ocean may be, the light and atmosphere that comes through in my work is always quiet and calm. There’s something about the water. I’m drawn to it.”

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Rick has a new body of work opening October 13th at bG Gallery’s new location on Ocean Park Blvd. at 30th in Santa Monica. Titled Skyways and Highways, her new body of work includes her well-known urban and coastal atmospheric land and cityscapes, but includes images culled from “the sky with a window-seat view over the landscape. The view is gorgeous up there,” she enthuses.

Her inspiration for this body of work came in part from a change in flight patterns over the past year that found her looking up at air traffic and shaking her head, initially.

“I’d be sitting in a friend’s backyard in Los Angeles and we would have to stop talking because jets were flying low in this new concentrated pattern overhead. But then I thought about how my view of highway traffic changed as I began to notice just how beautiful the view from the highway really was, with headlights and tail lights, the colors of road signage, and the silhouettes of palms, power lines, and light poles against the sky…So, I thought about my most memorable trips, looked back through many photos and video from flights I had taken, and I even rerouted some planned travel, carefully choosing which side of the plane on which to sit, to ensure that I had the best window-seat views over places I thought I might like to paint.”

She adds “When I look at these paintings I feel like I am traveling. For me it is almost Zen-like.”

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Along with this upcoming show, Rick currently has paintings of fireworks and surfers in a group exhibition, Love in Color 2 at Art Project Paia on Maui in Hawaii, which runs through November. She’ll also be a part of a group exhibition, Out and About, opening this coming weekend, September 22nd at Rebecca Molayem Gallery on Fairfax in Los Angeles. 

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As to the dreamlike nature of her work that many viewers note, she says “Because it is all about capturing the feeling of a particular moment from some place I’ve been, I include elements that make a place recognizable, sometimes by only a small detail. It is never an exact representation, but it is exactly my impression of a moment in time.”

In regard to her process, Rick stresses that her work makes use of an environmentally responsible process. “I use oil paint and palette knives to create my paintings. No brushes, no toxic solvents. This process not only helps me tell a visual story through layers of paint that create a history and a certain vibration in the juxtaposition of colors, it also helps me achieve a goal of being a good steward of the environment.” It takes the artist one to three months to complete a painting.

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Asked for a few words that describes her work best, Rick considers before replying “Calm. Quiet. Mnemonic. And, I’ll throw another in because I keep hearing it from people when standing in front of the work: luminous.”

Come feel the glow.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist and by Genie Davis