Paper is a flexible medium. It is unconstrained frames and backings, untethered by nails or staples, and has become essential across countries and centuries. Still, in the canon of western art history, the primacy of canvas painting has pushed works on paper aside, and only recently have they been able to garner serious appreciation. However, with a wide variety of accompanying techniques ranging from ink prints to spray-paint, paper has been a wellspring of mastery for artists around the globe and throughout history. Four contemporary artists – Amadour, Artiste Ouvrier & Zeto, and Dennis Muraguri – have been brought together at Athenessa Gallery to explore paper’s extensive repertoire in an aptly titled show, “ART ON PAPER.”

Amadour, a recent UCLA graduate, was the original driving force behind my interest in visiting this show. Their works of ink on paper are enchanting landscapes of familiar locales: Brentwood, Kenter Canyon, and others. The particular flatness of Amadour’s paintings, coupled with their inversion of the traditionally white negative space to be black, creates a mysterious and ethereal aura around the works. The dense and acute works are striking examples of ink-on-paper and are promising for a young artist.

But while Amadour’s monochrome paper works are structured and clean, the joint efforts of graffiti artists Artiste Ouvrier & Zeto are delightful jaunts across art history and their own long careers. The works begin with Artiste Ouvrier hand cut stencils, the same kind he uses in his street art but now transposed to paper. Whether incredibly detailed renditions of cathedrals or reproductions of Alphonse Mucha, Ouvrier’s stencil work is impressionistic and masterful, but the work is only half done. Zeto, a graffiti artist working since the 1980s, paints over the works, adding his signature pink elephants and aping Murakami. Zeto’s additions add a level of whimsy and make clear the hand of the artist which is absent in stencil-based works, an effect which is heightened by the artisanal paper on which the work occurs.

Finally, we come to the large wood-block prints of Kenyan artist Dennis Muraguri. On large sheets of paper, Muraguri imprints scenes of Matatu culture: highly decorated and vibrant privately owned buses which compete for customers throughout Nairobi. The prints are intricately detailed, demonstrating Muraguri’s impressive wood-carving skills and technical prowess. The medium of printing is particularly notable, drawing connections between the commercial nature of Matatu culture and printing’s roots in mass media.

Athenessa Gallery
616 S. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, California 90036
Thru Aug Sep 28th, 2021