Temperatures might have cooled slightly—just slightly—this week, but the art scene remains hot and happening.

Sharon Barnes at SoLA

Saturday evening at SoLA, a packed house of art lovers and exhibiting artists mingled over two strong shows. Pulse of LA in the main gallery, a juried exhibition sponsored by the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art, presented a vision of how women artists are “taking the pulse” of the world. In Gallery 2, New Work by Sharon Barnes, a participant in the SoLA Portfolio Review Projects for artists of South LA, offered mixed media paintings and sculpture with an edgy, political and social bent. Attendees sampled a variety of beers and wine and a buffet of cheese, hummus, and brownie bites while studying vibrant works from an array of potent female artists, including a stunning found-material sculpture by Monica Wyatt.

Monica Wyatt

At Denk Gallery in DTLA, an energized crowd of collectors and visitors studied the fascinating collection of dimensional artworks in Conceptual Craft II. 12 LA-based artists displayed works focused on fabrication and shape as well as concept. Visitors studied intently pieces such as Josephine Wister Faure’s peep hole works that invited viewers to peer inside mounted boxes to view astonishing and minute dioramas.

Josephine Wister Faure

On the gallery’s patio, The Green Truck provided exceptional noshes of vegan spring rolls, banh mi, and Caprese skewers; gallery goers lingered over wine and food at high-topped outdoor tables with the last of the twilight.

Chelsea Boxwell and Sarah Collins

Also downtown, PØST Gallery’s Kamikaze series of pop-ups continued with the tasty exhibition Let Me Eat Cake, curated by artist Kristine Schomaker. Delicious looking ceramic desserts, woven metal sculptures, and hyper-realistic graphite drawings of cupcakes were among the many delightful works on display. As sugary sweet and lighthearted as many of the images were, there was a darker depth: as a society we easily self-medicate with some of these foods, as much as we enjoy consuming many of them.

Pam Douglas

Dani Dodge

Catherine Ruane

Visually bright and exciting, the sculptures, paintings, drawings, and mixed media works were also dotted with edible displays: a box of homemade baklava—with printed information about its family meaningfulness—and a metal sculpture, studded with gummy candies, were also on display and ready for attendees to taste. In the hall outside the gallery, a buffet of desserts from gluten-free chocolate cookies to biscotti, Reese’s cups and an elegant white and pink cake allowed the busy crowd to take a time out from devouring art and indulge in sweets.