Featuring paintings and sculptures by 10 artists, this show creates a dreamlike atmosphere with the fluidity, delicateness and color palette of the works—the centerpiece is Se Oh’s white porcelain fountain, surrounded by a rug of rocks arranged on the gallery’s concrete floor. Bringing movement into the space, the water’s cycle alludes to the complexities of this earth’s system while also creating an ethereal image. The works interact with each other, some rooted in fantasy or abstraction and others grounded in reality; Michael Norton’s small circular egg-tempera paintings are like intimate portals into another world, while Hella Chitsazan’s dark, hazy paintings portray haunting domestic scenes. Perhaps most similar to the monster of the show’s name, or even the gallery’s name, is Nathaniel Kyung Smith’s portly ceramic sculpture, a mythological hooved figure with rippling limbs standing guard of the show’s reverie.

CHIMERA
la BEAST Gallery
831 Cypress Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90065
On view through June 10, 2023