Intertextual play between the external world of nature and the internal world within the human psyche reigns supreme in Heather Day’s exhibition “Ricochet” at Diane Rosenstien Gallery. The large-scale abstract mixed-media works are delightfully fresh, with swaths of...
In a suite of charcoal, acrylic and 24K leaf paintings on canvas, Ferrari Sheppard blends compositional citations from the Western art historical canon with an affecting, humanistic narrative of diasporic Black life. Across the mostly large-scale works, Sheppard...
In her solo show “Your Words in My Mouth,” Camilla Taylor has created a body of work which, beautiful as it is, aches with bitterness and sorrow. While the sculptural works are ebony, white and gray standouts, the exhibit’s opening salvo includes a series of 10 x 8”...
In the world of appointment-only gallery visits, many have bemoaned the more restricted experience, and galleries themselves have completely reinvented the way that they conduct themselves. They are no longer able to attract visitors off the street nor draw large...
Colleen Hargaden’s latest exhibition at Hunter Shaw Fine Art is many things: a tool kit to survivalism and self-reliance in reaction to the ever-intensifying symptoms of a dying planet, and a prompt to question what the future of art-making may look like by combining...
Hometown Proud, the debut documentary by Tyler Stallings and Naida Osline, speaks volumes to our current political and cultural environment. The project grew out of their interest in exploring social issues through their individual practices, for Stallings, as a...
Flamingo’s Dream has never missed a church social, eats all the watermelon at the weekly buffet, shoving the rinds in her purse to take home to her poodle. Flamingo never goes out without makeup, “putting her face on,” hoping to catch the eye of a bad boy, a...
It’s not that difficult to be contemporary. Be it through art, or writing, or simply conversation, we’re almost always discussing what’s right in front of us. It’s another thing all together to create something which takes on an entirely new meaning decades after...
What stories do monuments tell? Is there more than one story, more than one point of view? Can monuments be moved from one location and placed in another? Confederate statues taken away from the Kentucky capital go where? How can they be recontextualized? During the...
Careening from a blotted and splattered background into what almost appeared to be real objects floating on the surface, the paintings cavort around a plethora of meanings in Max Presneill's latest body of work titled "In Case of Emergency." The overall sense is that...
The two shows currently on view at the Night Gallery – Wanda Koop’s “Heartbeat Bots” and Michelle Rawlings’ “In the Garden” – represent opposite ends of the spectrum of contemporary art. The larger show, “Heartbeat Bots,” introduces us to a fantastically vibrant and...
There are many stories that we have told ourselves in order to make our world make sense. These modern myths range from Columbus’ “discovery” of this continent to the very idea of the American Dream. These stories are taught to us from birth, intrinsically attached to...
Ed Clark "Expanding The Image" marks the first time Hauser & Wirth has shown the abstract painter's work at their Los Angeles location. The exhibition consists of Clark's formative work from the 1960s and 1970s, and complements an exhibition Hauser & Wirth...
In Robb Putnam's "Unattended Creatures," sad-faced bears and rabbits, some with no faces at all, make up most the sculptural works, while another exhibition at Walter Maciel Gallery, "Escape," by John Bankston, combines several different series of paintings and mixed...
We catch up with Nadezdha Tolokonnikova by phone while she’s in LA recording. “Pussy Riot is a movement and we have different creative initiatives,” she says. One of them involves the group getting more seriously into music leading to an album slated for sometime in...
Catalina Island Museum has the distinct honor of being the first Southern California museum to successfully extract me far from my quarantine pod with the promise of engaging art in situ. The irony of a relatively risky and difficult choice for my inaugural post-COVID...
Stockholm-based artist Joakim Ojanen's delightful exhibition of paintings, drawings, and ceramics at Richard Heller Gallery is aptly titled: "A Show for the Lonely Distant Baby Souls." According to the artist, it is "a celebration of the human being." He goes on to...
I’ve always had a deep love for art that dripped with symbolism. Art that encodes stories within their frame or form, all while being aesthetically appealing, draws you into a dialogue with the artist and your fellow viewer. It’s a bit like an inside joke; if you...