Silke Otto-Knapp’s paintings of cascading, roaming bodies feel as if they washed up on the shores of my mind like sedimentary particles— suspended and unsettled bits of matter that float and sink. Memories behave like mollusks, secreting trails of life, fading traces...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Silke Otto-Knapp
PICK OF THE WEEK: Keegan Monaghan Parker Gallery
Keegan Monaghan's paintings feel like the moldy nooks and crannies of a house or a well-worn shoe, rendered in epic and compact proportions. Their compositions shiver with an eerie affection akin to the apparitional creaking of my old, poorly insulated apartment. The...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Gary Brewer Wonzimer Gallery
Immersive and sensual, the richly floral images of Gary Brewer’s “Voluptuous Charm of the Monumental Image” is a kaleidoscope of color and form. These are works bursting with life, subtly O’Keefe-like—though still uniquely Brewer—evoking the mysteries of nature, the...
Fire and Water The Beautiful Tragedies of Calida Rawles
In 2004 Calida Rawles moved from New York to Los Angeles, and she found an art scene brimming with life. Trained as an artist, she longed to become part of that world, and asked herself whether she would become a collector or a painter. She decided to give herself the...
Decorum and Decay Watching Astra Huimeng Wang Watching You
On a sweltering September afternoon, I visited artist Astra Huimeng Wang as she was in the final stages prepping for her first solo show of paintings at Make Room LA. Her studio is nestled above a discount clothing store in LA’s Fashion District, where crowded shop...
Beautyful Migrations The Diaspora According to Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Njideka Akunyili Crosby is having quite the year. Her figurative paintings are on the walls of esteemed museums and institutions across the country, often featuring portraits of herself, friends and family. Akunyili Crosby’s unique style consists of painted, drawn and...
Layering Subjectivity Q&A with Zoe Walsh
Zoe Walsh is a Los Angeles–based painter originally from Washington D.C. They received their BA from Occidental College and Masters from Yale University. Represented by M+B Gallery, Walsh has exhibited their work in group shows around the world. In 2019, they were...
APPRECIATION: Carole Caroompas (1946–2022) The Cantankerous and the Lovable
Carole Caroompas, an artist and widely admired teacher whose work encompassed painting, drawing, collage, prints and performance, died on July 30, 2022. In 2007, Western Project, which represented Carole for many years, published a catalog in which various artists,...
OUTSIDE LA: Natalie Strait NY: Charles Moffett
In "Monsoon Season," her first ever New York solo show, on view at Charles Moffett, Natalie Strait presents new paintings of women that explore climate change, gender, queer culture and the experience of being a woman today. The women in Strait’s paintings are all...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Fawn Rogers Wilding Cran Gallery
Fawn Rogers' exhibition "Your Perfect Plastic Heart" at Wilding Cran Gallery presents a series of paintings depicting oysters and their gooey erotic membranes. At first glance, these works struck me as a cross between Marylin Minter and Chloe Wise–glittery...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Luis De Jesus Los Angeles Evita Tezeno; Laura Krifka; Nancy Evans
Three fine solo shows of paintings offer personal perspectives as unique as the artists who created them: Laura Krifka, Evita Tezeno, and Nancy Evans. Krifka’s “Still Point,” is a beautiful tribute to light, the human body, and the human heart. With domestic settings...
RICHMOND, VA: Diego Sanchez VISUAL INFORMATION
“One of the things I teach my kids is to be playful in their approach,” says painter and teacher Diego Sanchez. This freedom to experiment takes the pressure off and opens up the work in unexpected directions. It’s an attitude that has served Sanchez well in his own...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Sandow Birk Track 16 Gallery
Highly prescient, somehow whimsical, Sandow Birk’s exhibition “Los Angeles and Her Surroundings” explores what can only be described as late-stage capitalism in Southern California. In 40 drawings that have whiffs of nostalgia, environmental and architectural...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Roberts Projects Group Show "Wish You Were Here II"
Now that we are finally emerging from the stronghold of isolation in the wake of COVID-19, the familiar phrase “wish you were here,” takes on new meaning. In Roberts Projects second visual iteration of this phrase, the nine artists in this exhibition reassert the...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Museum of Art and History Lancaster Group Exhibition “Activation”
Comprising seven different exhibitions, “Activation” is an exciting series of works from six individual artists as well as a selection of activist graphics. Featured artists and their exhibitions include Mark Steven Greenfield, April Bey, Carla Jay Harris, Keith...
OUTSIDE LA: Emily Oliveira Geary Contemporary, New York
Hidden amid the bustle of the Bowery, one of New York’s most chaotic streets, is Geary Contemporary, a gem of a gallery that has been quietly making a name for itself with engaging exhibitions of emerging artists. In its latest show, Red Velvet, Orange Crush, Geary...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Sonya Fe Riverside Art Museum
Sky-rocketing gasoline prices accompanied by worries of war in Ukraine even as the planet attempts to turn the pandemic corner is more than enough to hold happiness hostage. However, Sonya Fe’s exhibition “Are You with Me?” at the Riverside Art Museum recaptures the...
Julian Stanczak: The Light Inside Other Horizons, Other Lights
I had some idea of what to expect when I walked into the Julian Stanczak show at the Diane Rosenstein Gallery a couple Saturdays ago (this is the artist’s fourth exhibition with the gallery). Almost from the outset of his career, Stanczak was identified with the ‘Op...