Past and Perfect – Exhibitions at Durden and Ray, Wonzimer Gallery, and Persons Unknown

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Sometimes life just gets the best of you. You see great shows, post all the photos, and have no time to write the actual reviews. So here are three recently closed, truly wonderful exhibitions that deserve mention. Look for these galleries and artists in upcoming exhibitions throughout the year.

Wonzimer Gallery – We Insist On Growing – Cheyanne Washington 

Cheyanne Washington’s solo exhibition, We Insist On Growing, combined fiercely textured, exciting and sinuous forms wtih the astonishing use of her own natural pigments. If ever an artist deserved the description “alchemist” it would be Washington. Paintings, banners, and a wonderful sculptural work comprised this beautiful exhibition,  the title of which resonates with what the artist calls “the resilience and persistence found in nature.”

There’s a gravitational pull to these works, a life force that seems to arise from nature itself, embodied by the earth-rendered paints and clay. Washington shapes figurative art that exudes a sentient, sensual connection to the natural world, and transcends both its materials and subject, creating work that is serene and absorbing. Both paintings and ceramic works elevate the viewer’s grasp of nature, and relate to the intrinisic joy of creation itself.

If Washington insists on growing, then viewers everywhere should insist on watching her do so.

Currently at Wonzimer: (above) a solo exhibition by Gary Brewer, Everything is Radiant through May 15th, paintings and sculpture.

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Durden and Ray – Tieze – Group Exhibition

Curated by the powerful trio of Arezoo Bharthania, Dani Dodge, and Hagop Najarian, Tieze was the always-inventive collective gallery’s response to the bedecked halls of the Frieze art fair. Fresh and vibrant, the exhibition featured work by Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Arezoo Bharthania, Jorin Bossen, Gul Cagin, Sijia Chen, Joe Davidson, Dani Dodge, Vita Eruhimovitz, Jenny Hager, Regina Herod, David Leapman, Atilio Pernisco, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic, Carolyn Mason, Hagop Najarian, Ty Pownall, Max Presneill, Dylan Ricards, Stephanie Sherwood, Curtis Stage, Valerie Wilcox, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, and Steven Wolkoff.

From the swirling movement of figurative abstracts by Najarian to Wolkoff’s paint sculpture, magical video from Petrovic, asonishing sculptural works from Pownall and Davidson to small but mighty sculptures utilizing Monopoly pieces by Dodge, there was a medium and a message to compel the eye of any viewer. It would be hard to pick just one favorite among a myriad of stand outs. Bhartania and Hager showed vibrant, multi-layered paintings while Wilcox showed a delicate looking paper cocoon of a sculpture. A far cooler and more cutting edge group exhibition than was present at any of the commercial art fairs this year, the exhibition artists were all Durden and Ray artist/curators, participating in the only show each year dedicated to highlighting all of the Durden and Ray artists’ work as a group.

Currently at Durden and Ray (above): Smiling in Chaos – Group Show – Co-curated by Gonzalo García Gaitán, Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltrán Aréchiga through May 18th,  a collaboration between Columbian collective Si Nos Pagan Boys and Los Angeles based artists, all of whom use humor and levity in their work as a form of resistance.

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Persons Unknown – Into the Hamper’s Belly – Group Show

Into the Hamper’s Belly featured four artists working in sculpture, installation, and painting. The group exhibition was devoted to those who “revel in ongoing processes of accumulation and transmutation…[and] a sense of porous frementation.”

Artists Inga Hendrickson, Rachel Elizabeth Jones, Caitlin Servilio, and Corrine Yonce used a variety of atypical art materials ranging from cardboard, cement, pigment, foam, silicone, wax, plastic, sand, and even clamshells, to create an exhibition of diverse artists and art forms that nonetheless presented as a whole; a mystical and organic installation that merged into one being within the cutting-edge gallery floor.

And in the back studio space, the beautiful work of gallerist and artist Ariel Oakley Pelletier.

Currently at Persons Unknown (above): Fumbled Worlds – The Invented People of Alfonse Aletto – through May 20th, a survey of painted works from a prolific self-taught artist.

Look for these galleries and previously exhibited artists as well as current shows ASAP.  Great art is a joy we should all be sharing — especially in today’s precarious world.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis and provided by galleries

Prime Territory at MOAH Cedar

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Through January 22nd at MOAH Cedar in Lancaster, Dani Dodge holds forth with an installation that soars as widely and wildly as a desert sky. Prime, like many of the artist’s exhibitions, is immersive. So much so here, in fact, that viewers might almost catch a whiff of desert sage andthe fragrance of a Joshua Tree in bloom.

The exhibition, which fills all three galleries at Cedar, is comprised of three parts.  The main room is layered with translucent panels, on which Dodge has created gold leaf and delicately painted acrylic work depicting an ephermeral, mirage-like shimmer of desert images. The experience is a walk-through installation, with viewers able to walk behind and within the panels. Adding to the experiential nature is a soundtrack of cello music the artist created herself and recorded sounds of desert animals at dawn.

Along with the gauzy painted panels, a sculptural form created from a twisted mattress spring hangs in the center of the gallery, with the panels waverying around it. It stands as a kind of monument to how human inhabitants intrude on the quiet grace of the desert, and how the desert itself may banish that habitation in its own good time. 

The artist has provided pencils and slips of paper on which to write what types of places bring them peace – as the desert brings piece to Dodge. Safety pins are also provided so that viewers can pin what they’ve written, adding them to their thoughts to the exhibition itself.

 

Across the hall,  Dodge displays images from three separate bodies of work, as seen above. These include a quite wonderful video installation of desert animals captured during her 2019 artist-in-residence stay at the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve in Lancaster. Here we see animals from jackrabbits to coyotes and desert mice as they come and go during the night.  Also on display is a wonderful, glowing collection of painted gold leaf and photography that was part of an earlier exhibition held at Black Rock Gallery in Joshua Tree.

The artist’s love for the shape, form, and fragility of the Joshua Tree is resurrecting. Dodge is intent on helping to preserve the land, creating a sense of hope that with her passion directed at preserving them, these wonderful living flora can survive man’s worst intentions. There is also a second recovered metal mattress spring displayed in this gallery, its form twisted by nature and time after being discarded in the desert.  

If you love the desert, love immersive finely wrought art, or simply want to experience desert wonder without trudging through the sand, Dodge’s exhibition is a must-see. The fine spiritual sense of her work here is both uplifting and poignant, speaking to the ruthlessness of human contact on the desert, the fragility of the desert itself, and the ways in which we can help to preserve it, if we love those aqua skies and golden sands, those brown hills and small brown creatures that inhabit them, those glorious, uplifted arms of the Joshua, and the land’s spectacular, raw sunrises and sunsets.

Above, Dodge with MOAH’s Robert Benitez (left), and Jason Jenn (right).

Like the artist does herself, we can come visit the desert every  January and pay tribute to it, and this year, we can also head to the Cedar galleries to see how Dodge has done so. The exhibition runs through January 22nd.

It also includes a series of lovely desert images created by children participating in activation classes the artist provided at the Preserve throughout her residency.

MOAH: CEDAR Center for the Arts

44857 Cedar Avenue, Lancaster, CA 93534

Open Tuesday and  Wednesday  |   11 AM  – 6 PM

Open Thursday – Sunday   |    11 AM  –  8  PM

  • Genie Davis; photos, Genie Davis

Lyme Away 4: Heading to Germany for Treatment

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Featured image, Nurit Avesar; image above, by artist Dani Dodge

We are sponsoring this event along with fabulous folks at TAG Gallery with the help of artist and gallerist Rakeem Cunningham and neon artist Linda Sue Price – whose exhibition will be reviewed here next week – and will be on display during this event!

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Above, artist L. Aviva Diamond

And what is the event?
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Above, from artist Dwora Fried
At TAG Gallery in mid-city, Sunday, July 21, 3-6 p.m., enjoy an afternoon of food, drink, and of course, ART at Lyme Away 4: Heading to Germany for Treatment – Help Nicole Saari Win the Fight Against Late Stage and Congenital Lyme Disease. It includes a silent auction and raffle featuring dozens of AMAZING art works donated by prominent Los Angeles area artists to raise funds for Nicole‘s medical care for chronic tick-borne disease.
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Above by artist Francisco Alvarado
Live music by Adam Even and enough great art and other auction goodies to help you knock off your entire holiday shopping list – in July.
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Above, artist Glenn Waggner
There will be over 80 pieces of art, plus gift certificates for everything from massage to beautiful home decor components from Liz’s Hardware.
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Above, artist Cynthia Friedlob
Despite an ongoing epidemic in the U.S., late stage Lyme disease is not recognized as a condition by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), so little to none of the complex treatments – which can cost $1,000 a week – is covered by insurance; with Nicole unable to work, this family still NEEDS HELP. The St. Georg Klinik in Germany, which her doctors find promising, alone is a whopping $35,000 for the three-week program.
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Above, artist Diane Cockerill
Fundraiser event
Sunday, July 21st, 2019 at TAG Gallery from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. located at 5458 Wilshire near LACMA. Street and lot parking!
Don’t miss it!
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Above, Jodi Bonassi

My Ugly/Beautiful Friends: Nothing but Beautiful from Dani Dodge

Posted on by Diversions LA

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artist Dani Dodge, above

Now at Shoebox Projects through April 14th, Dani Dodge offers mixed media works in a tribute to the Joshua Tree that is profoundly moving and beautiful.  The exhibition, My Ugly/Beautiful Friends, is comprised of two compelling parts.

Dani Dodge at Shoebox Joshua Trees

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With “Wielding Swords,” Dodge deconstructs the Joshua Tree spikes into separate stories of survival, love, and loneliness. Much like the human body, these spikes age; they metamorphose, going from upright to drooping to being absorbed as a protective coating for the plant itself.

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Here, working with mixed mediums in dimensional wall sculptures sheathed in thick plastic that are alternately chartreuse, clear, and hot pink that also forms the shapes, Dodge offers seeds, beads, glittery fabric, even film shoot permits as a part of her reprsentations.

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There is – or was – (Dodge is selling out this show) – an entire wall, a quilt of sculptural images on display like a surreal forest of these fierce and wonderful desert leaves. 

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Beautiful and evocative as this work is, the other part of her exhibition resonates even more strongly.

In “Symbiosis 1-12,” the artist explores the Joshua Tree’s ugly/beauty and its symbiotic relationship with the yucca moth, on which the trees rely for pollination; in turn, the moth depends on the Joshua Trees for their survival.

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Using her own photographs, adding her own notes and painted art work, she adds a moving depth to the story of the trees, their strange beauty and toughness, and the somewhat bizarre moth itself which sports tentacle-like fronds from its mouth.

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Dodge explains her process in creating these works. “Over the past four months or so, I had been photographing these plants that captivated me while doing residences at the Mojave National Preserve and the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve in Lancaster, Calif. I loved the photographs, but as an artist I wanted to say more about the plants than I could capture in a photo. I wanted to simultaneously emphasize their strength and fragility at the same time I explored their awkward beauty.”
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And so Dodge added additional, lush elements. She rims some of the trees with gold leaf; utilizes spray paint; incorporates beads. She used hand-cut stencils, paint pens and acrylic paint to incorporate the yucca moth into her works, and to further place emphasis on what she calls the “ugly/beautiful nature of my friends;” she crafts what she calls “S.O.S. notes” for their survival.
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These are deeply moving works, reminiscent of religious icons in her treatment, not just because of the touches of gold, but in her reverence for these mysterious, otherworldly trees. 
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“When I wanted to push past what the photographic image could say, I decided to use a symbol of beauty and wealth: gold. Specifically gold leaf on the sides of each work and then incorporated into the photograph in some of the pieces,” she says. “Each time I go into the desert, those arms welcome me. I wanted the gold to symbolize the beauty some do not see in the branches of these plants that were called hideous by some early explorers.”
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According to the artist “This installation is an ode to the Joshua Tree’s ability to adapt and survive for so long, and a prayer that it may continue.” That prayer may be necessary indeed due to both climate change and the trees’ slow reproduction and dispersal rate. 

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She adds “To me, the Joshua Tree simultaneously symbolizes survival and fragility. It demonstrates the power of adaptation, while also illustrating the danger of climate change (even) to the most adaptable species. This plant also is one of the most ugly/beautiful pieces of nature on our planet.”

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Photo above by L. Aviva Diamond

The Joshua tree was given its name by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. Its unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer. Joshua’s own name has a meaning: Yahweh is salvation. And to many, including Dodge, the trees represent their own form of salvation, redemption, and resilience.
“To me,” she says, “those akimbo branches are like the arms of broken souls welcoming me into their fold.”
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Photo above by Thalassa Dimitra Skandali
Dodge creates immersive, surrealist environments and installations from Los Angeles to Stockholm. A member of the Durden and Ray collective in Los Angeles, and alumnae of A.I.R. gallery in New York, you can read more about her at http://www.danidodge.com
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And go see this show with a prayer in your heart and wings on your feet. We did.
Shoebox Projects is located in DTLA at The Brewery Complex in Lincoln Heights.
– Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis; two additional photos: by L. Aviva Diamond, and from Dimitra Skandali, as noted above.