Ralph Ellison’s prologue to Invisible Man (1952) states “No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am invisible understand because people refuse to see me.” By contrast, Reflection Eternal: The...
"Celebrate the Bizarre," urges the header on postcards for "Morph" at Mash Gallery; and the 12 artists in this show surely do. More specifically, they revel in distorting human form for metaphoric and emotive effect. Heads are sundered, patched and obliterated; bodies...
The British duo, Gilbert & George now in their 70s, have been collaborating since the late 1960s. They have worked together for more than 50 years, creating at first performance-based works (they declared themselves "living sculptures") and later large-scale...
Lush foliage abuts geometric abstraction in Carolyn Castaño's vibrant paintings bursting with tropical flair. The Colombian-American artist amalgamates motifs from Latin America and the U.S so harmoniously that it's often difficult to pinpoint the origin of any given...
The dotty surfaces of Gerald Davis' paintings seem to flicker like tangled strings of tiny lights, amplifying the visionary eeriness of his eccentric renditions of classical subjects such as bathers. The LA painter's expressionistic pointillism recalls a wide range of...
Upon exiting the newest exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum, “By Day and By Night: Paris in the Belle Époque,” each visitor is invited to take a print of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Red-Headed Woman in the Garden of M. Foret. This print is especially fitting as a...
In the haunting group show The Nothing That Is, now at the Brand Library and Art Center, curators Yaron Dotan and Christine Rasmussen have shaped a powerful exhibition that takes as its inspiration a Wallace Stevens poem that suggests viewers behold “nothing that is...
At a distance, the paintings in Linda Besemer's show, "An Abundance of Errors," appear to be large-format prints of digitally derived geometric designs. Indeed, they were initially devised on a computer; but the paintings' true tactility manifests itself as you...
There are so many good shows right now at the Vincent Price Art Museum that it's impossible to choose just one. "Images of the Divine in Everyday Mexico" comprises retablo and ex-voto paintings from the early 19th to mid-20th centuries. Mostly wrought on small sheets...
You don’t need to read the press release to know that Russell Crotty has outer space on the brain. The work currently on view at Shoshana Wayne Gallery was inspired by a residency at an observatory, and it shows. In mixed media paintings from the last two years, a...
Titled "The Sick Rose" after William Blake's 1794 poem and engraving, LA painter Laurie Nye's current exhibition is like a garden of botanical specimens evoking romance and malady. Describing a rose afflicted by the pernicious love of an invisible worm, Blake's...
Iranian American stitch painter Ardeshir Tabrizi's new works on show at Roberts Projects reflect his remarkable journey to reconnect with his Persian roots. Born in Tehran, Iran, he left the county with his family at age four in 1986 during the Iran-Iraq War and...
“Blessed are the meek…” – Gospel of Matthew, 5:5 Has Theaster Gates truly “upcycled” his entire wardrobe as a spiritual gesture and a means of achieving transcendence? Perhaps he has. But in the most literal sense, Gates has taken the raw material of his sartorial...
The 22 representational paintings, drawings and prints comprising Vincent Valdez’ show, “It Was Never Yours,” symbolize American decline and apprehension with varying degrees of overtness. The Houston-based artist’s occasional flirtations with obvious content, such as...
It is hard to imagine living in Los Angeles and not being acquainted with the work of Kenny Scharf. His comic style, painted murals of interlocking faces, often derived from television and pop culture icons have adorned numerous buildings as well as individual’s cars...
References to narrations from the Old and New Testaments are hard to miss in the paintings of Naudline Pierre, as the fabulist spiritualism of her compositions presents an iconography of winged beings, gardens, serpents and sunrise convocations. More than one work...
Elyse Pignolet’s “You Should Calm Down” at Track 16 is a wry call-out of the misogynistic and patriarchal culture in the U.S. and the barrage of passive-aggressive phrases that women in our society frequently hear. It’s a collection of works that are distinctly of the...
If the minimalist impulse was to eradicate any trace of the artists’ hand, then at first glance the work of Robert Moreland seems to fully participate in that inclination. Upon closer scrutiny, it becomes clear that his animating spirit is much more related to a DIY...
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