Urban Paradise
March 20 – May 13, 2021
Wednesdays and Saturdays, 12 – 5 PM or Open Online 24/7
is an exhibition by 10 artists: Bonita Helmer, Colin Fraser Gray, David Smith, David Eddington, Derek Boshier, HK Zamani, James Scott, Jeremy Kidd, Max Presneill, and Philip Vaughan.
Towers, domes, temples, and churches form a community in close proximity that has many benefits: the ability to share infrastructure and facilities, their centers of excellence, the galleries, universities, and other cultural institutions, places giving a chance to breathe and reflect, services, specialists, jobs, a lower environmental impact, a catalog of goodies. The city contains more than we will ever know.
With the pandemic’s proliferation, we are unable to partake in the valuable facilities this large metropolitan area provides. A busy city also comes with its issues even in less iffy times, we endure many of the disadvantages which consequently are thrust to the forefront: pollution, traumatic incidents, growing homelessness, racial tensions, even our overexposure to social interaction, accosted from all corners, it seems a civic spawning ground for monsters.
Los Angeles is beautiful, but a grim beauty; we allow ourselves to become desensitized to the daily pressures. A city machine for living purely in the present tense, do people really thrive when they cluster, now we have a wake-up call, for in many ways we deserve worse, we have raped and mindlessly pillaged the planet, suburbia sprawl’s into the surrounding landscape breaking down the interface between flora, fauna, and humans.
We are anticipating the fading of the pandemic; the duration has been protracted with massive numbers falling by the wayside, no opportunity for consolation for the dying or the grieving. Humankind is flawed; we all bear the blame for our demise.
Big issues, a small way, reflection on this past period and the craziness of city life; this exhibition is a transitional platform, a look at how a group of artists has confronted these dark times, exposed nerve-endings and vulnerability to create an optimistic epitaph to city dwelling with lessons learned, the silver lining of Covid19.
