August 28 – September 22, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 1, 2018 (6 – 10 P.M.)
Artist Talk: Saturday, September 15, 2018 (3 P.M.)
PAM DOUGLAS – Artifacts of Grace
(Los Angeles, CA) TAG Gallery is pleased to present Artifacts of Grace, a solo exhibition by Pam Douglas whose body of work inspires human connection and resolve within female figures inhabiting found palm fronds and tree branches. Having broached sculptural substrates to paint on for the first time, Douglas fuses the materials’ physical qualities to highlight the human form. The works confront viewers as complex objects of narrative, emotional, and physical contradiction. Douglas envisions her works as part of a larger dialogue raising aware- ness of not only immediate humanitarian crises, but as embodiments of women’s stories worldwide.
Douglas comments, “Children wrenched from their mother’s arms compelled me to my newest work “Stay With Me”. I tried to express optimism in this series but the horror at the border hurts too much. I didn’t want to illustrate issues or use my art as one more in a chorus of complaint. So most of this series reaches beyond this moment. But we are in a startling time. We’ve heard the cries of imprisoned children, and these works express a profound urge to avow our power and a refusal to be repressed.”
Pam Douglas is a Los Angeles based artist whose works have been included in the California African-American Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), has been covered by Sharia Nys Dambrot in the Huffington Post, and by Scarlet Cheng, contributor to the Los Angeles Times.
K RYAN HENISEY – Mythologies
Award-winning watercolorist K. Ryan Henisey presents a new fine art collection in his debut solo exhibition at TAG (The Artist’s Gallery), during an Artists’ Reception on September 1, 2018, from 6 to 10 P.M in Los Angeles. Mythologies—selected watercolor, mixed media, and digital works—retells Queer myths from Classic and glob- al mythology using contemporary self-portraiture. Henisey’s paintings are on display in the gallery from August 28-September 22.
“As a boy, I used to speak to the wind,” says Henisey from his home in West Hollywood. “Mythologies is my Zcelebration of the Wind. These fine art pieces examine queer stories to reveal the mysteries of our divine selves. I am proud to share that the works were inspired by LGBT-themed global myths and my passion for the god of the West Wind.”
“The Wind may have been an imaginary friend, if you can name the air such a thing,” says Henisey. “But what inspires me most in the Hyacinth myth is the tragic loss that Zephyrus brings upon himself. Like Apollo, the Wind loved a human, and in his passion—knowing the consequences but choosing them any- way—killed him. In the myth I recognized a part of myself and it’s that recognition I want to inspire in you.”
Other notable figures that appear in Mythologies include Apollo and Hyacinth of the tragic tale, Xochipilli the Prince of Flowers, and Saint Sebastian.
In addition to his queer-themed gallery work, Henisey is engaging Instagram’s Queer communities with surprise selfie renderings. His current set is focused on trans men. The artist may draw you next.
Boris Litvinov – End of Privacy
Feeling called to action in the last year, artist Boris Litvinov produced a body of work drastically different from his typical stonework. The work entitled End of Privacy finds Litvinov discarding the traditions of stone carving in favor of found objects and a microelectronic material palette. New pieces such as “Putin Web” grant physicality and tangibility to the American election hacking; the piece depicts a well-oiled propaganda machine comprised of wires and iconography relevant to various social media outlets. End of Privacy is a dive into social media’s function as instrumental tool in the spreading of false information, propaganda, and “fake news.”
Previously living under the totalitarian rule of the Soviet era, Litvinov and his family aimed to live under the con- cept of a free society governed by a true, functioning and healthy democracy. However, since the last stolen election, there has been an alarming increase in the number of hate crimes, calls for violent rhetoric, basic human decency, and empathy from the current administration and president. There has been a systematic, unabated obfuscation of reality, an assault on facts and truth, chaos disguised as political strategy, tax cuts for the rich, overt and blatant obstruction of justice, treasonous behavior domestically and internationally, disregard for and complete ignorance of the content of the foundational document of this great country – all committed by or because of one person whose only concern is for himself.
End of privacy forces us to look at our own role in the propaganda machine and how our own social media presence may contribute to an atmosphere of toxicity, lies, and hostility.
Karen Sarrow – FEM
Karen Sarrow’s new exhibition entitled FEM is comprised of a series of political paintings depicting struggles and environmental activism. The piece After 9-11 was painted during the Obama Administration, partly cele- brating how the country had come together to elect a new President, reflected by the purple morning glories, and mourning the recent history of the Iraq War and violence in the Middle East. The future is obscured by the present immediacy of a chain link fence, with the fog of war and the tragedy of 9-11 in a faded vision inside the fence.
Chain, painted prior to After 9-11, was more focused on the position of Sarrow as a new mom, acknowledging that society held the ideals of corporations, religion, energy and chemical exploitation higher than the health of families, children, and the environment.
