Nemesio Antúnez (1918-1993) possessed a remarkable talent for crystallizing the spirit of certain locations and scenarios. In his small but captivating pictorial selection currently on view at Couturier Gallery, the Santiago de Chile-born, Columbia-educated artist...
What do we have when those closest and dearest to us pass away and what do we do with the things that were once theirs? Richard Turner's installation Air Becomes Breath, 2017, takes that question on and has turned the clothing of his recently deceased wife, Sylvia,...
"Still Remains" is a small but provocative installation of twenty contemporary landscape paintings by Cody Norris in which the artist responds to the epic disfigurations and loss of wild nature due to extreme weather. Employing a neo-fumage technique, Norris’ work...
With salmon walls, magenta carpet and eccentric ornament, Ariana Papademetropoulos has transformed Wilding Cran into a life-size dollhouse where you are the doll and everything is slightly off-kilter. Her show's title, "The man who saved a dog from an imaginary fire,"...
Along a lonely stretch of Main Street extending from Union Station to the Brewery Arts Complex, largely defined by seafood warehouses and girded by railroad tracks, sits Werkartz, a co-working pop-up venue and production space aligned with a new gig economy in which...
Monique Prieto's new paintings radiate magnetic simplicity. The abstractions in her elegantly spare show, "Luster," glow as though lit from within. Each of the four diptychs currently on view at Chimento Contemporary features a pair of organic shapes, one on each...
Kajahl's paintings vivify ancient statues, presenting them as dignified, mysterious multicultural personae. Embodying Western clichés from bygone eras, the characters in his current show titled "Unearthed Entities" include alchemists, explorers and conquerors. While...
Linda Vallejo's show titled "Keepin' It Brown" affects an antique store atmosphere. Folksily arranged ceramic figurines stand atop pedestals. Walls are adorned with framed pictures of celebrities and pieces appearing as needlepoint. Embedded in this homey pop-culture...
In “line-of-site,” Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher have crafted an installation about geometry and perception. It is minimal and simultaneously maximal, suggesting expansive possibilities with limited materials. The brothers (who are fraternal twins) have filled...
Sometimes a drawing is not a drawing. For example, when an artist transcends rendering and goes for something entirely more direct. In the case of Flora Kao and her unique, evocative architectural rubbings, her method of depiction is itself a tactile, durational,...
Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009) is renowned for his landscape architecture; but 28 drawings currently on view at Edward Cella indicate that he might just as adeptly have applied his creativity towards fine art. Executed between 1943–2006, these drawings, which seem...
It's amazing how much effort, skill and intellect Neil Raitt directs towards donning the ornate trappings of kitsch. Visitors enter his installation through a painstakingly contrived threshold whose tree-shaped outline resembles that of a rearview mirror air...
"Bhabharosi," the title of Simphiwe Ndzube's show and several works therein, is a neologism the artist coined from the words "barbarous" and "rose" in isiXhosa, his native language, to refer to his protagonists. As insinuated, a mood of bittersweetness transfuses the...
While Americans condemn Mexican lawlessness, much illegal drug trade south of the border is driven by U.S. demand. In his PST: LA/LA show titled "Artempatía" (Empathy Art), Mexico City artist Emiliano Gironella Parra imports a sampling of the horrors we usually only...
Known for his immersive cake-like installations, Scott Hove’s latest makings offer wry commentary upon the demise of today’s political, economic, and ecological landscapes in “Last Ticket for the Beauty Train,” a two-part exhibition presented by KP Projects. On...
County fairs usually aren't noted for their art; but this year's is an exception, with Millard Sheets Art Center hosting a fine PST LA/LA exhibition, "Judithe Hernández and Patssi Valdez: One Path Two Journeys." Hernández and Valdez were, respectively, members of...
There are two points of entry into Fran Siegel's exquisite exhibition, "Lineage Through Landscape: Tracing Egun in Brazil." One is purely visual: admiring the unique way the individual drawings and collages are sewn together and suspended from the ceiling; noticing...
In his short video Tales from the Wig Museum (2017), on view at Blum & Poe gallery, Jim Shaw appropriates the style of the opening narration from Rod Serling’s television series The Twilight Zone. In this piece, a wig-wearing narrator delights in relating alluring...