Articles
Brilliant Veils Amir H. Fallah Creates Vibrant Artworks That Question Cultural Boundaries
Entering a room of portraits by Amir H. Fallah, the first thing you’ll notice is that you can’t see their faces: the figures are cloaked. In one, the subject sits draped in a richly patterned blue-and-purple shawl, cradling what looks like a gilded African head in its lap. In another, a figure with purple arms strikes a pose seemingly drawn from ancient Near Eastern art, swathed in a lustrous cloak with a dragon design, the creature’s snarling face overlapping the subject’s. “I think of all of my work as kind of psychological portraits, and not literal portraits,” Fallah says. “Is a portrait someone’s physical likeness, which really doesn’t...
On the Nose Helen Chung Talks Anatomy
The afternoon we agree to meet for a quick Q&A over drinks, Helen Chung arrives at the restaurant slightly late (though not much later than me)—fittingly enough, from a commissioned portrait sitting. Engaged by the process, conversation and the resulting portrait itself, the subject has kept her somewhat longer than originally anticipated—commissioning a second portrait on the spot. Portrait painting can be a complicated business—complicated by the artist’s knowledge, acquaintance or relationship with the subject (and vice-versa), the subtle push and pull of the process itself, the subject’s own self-knowledge or awareness, or sheer...
Frames Within Frames The Photography of Grant Mudford
Grant Mudford is a photographer with an extensive publication and exhibition history. Born in Sydney, Australia, in 1944, he studied architecture at the University of New South Wales (Sydney) and moved to Los Angeles in 1977. Since the 1980s he has functioned as a commercial photographer and became well known for his architectural and editorial work, along with his portrait photography. Last summer a show at PRJCTLA titled “Grant Mudford: Rosamund Felsen, A Photographic Essay” presented 80 of his portraits of artists associated with her gallery. Filling the walls were large-scale black-and-white photographs of noted LA artists from the...
Spiritual Healing Luis Sahagun's Cathartic Family Portraits
As a practitioner of curanderismo, an ancient Meso-American system of folk medicine, Mexican-born, Chicago-based Luis Sahagun regularly performs limpias, traditional cleansing or “soul-retrieving” rituals. As an artist, he has applied this practice to the creation of portraits of people, living or dead, who are the chosen beneficiaries of his healing efforts. For a recent exhibition at Charlie James Gallery, he turned the LA gallery into a chapel of sorts, with its shrines consisting of healing portraits of family members, including himself. In his role as a curandero, Sahagun seeks advice from the Mexican Medicine Wheel, which is divided...
Africa Around Town “Adornment | Artifact,” Curated by jill moniz
The Getty Villa’s exhibition, “Nubia: Jewels of Ancient Sudan,” offers a stunning display of jewelry and items of personal adornment excavated from burials of royalty and aristocratic individuals from a region that spans what is today southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Almost 3000 years of ancient history are presented in exquisite examples of metalwork in silver, bronze and mostly gold, reflecting the abundant and coveted gold mines of Nubia. At one point, I found myself in front of a gypsum relief of what appeared to be hieroglyphics carved into a stone temple wall. Closer inspection revealed it was LA artist lauren halsey’s image of an...
