Forest Bathing / Shinrin Yoku

Loren Philip and Tomoaki Shibata

Year One
November 9-27, 2018

Curated by: Peter Frank

Castelli Art Space
5428 W. Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 

by: Sandra Vista

Forest Bathing/ Shinrin Yoku

The twelve large scale collaborative paintings, on drop cloth, are installed to envelop and bathe the participants in a forest of barrier free sensations.  Philip said that most of the paintings began with intersecting lines of black ink.  The broad gestural movements defer to previous abstract expressionists like Franz Kline and Jackson Pollack and Automatists/Surrealists like Joan Miro and Max Ernst.  

For the past two years Philip and Shibata have worked in Philip's studio between four and eight hour sessions.   They riffed on each other's unconscious- dynamic marks until they felt each painting was complete.  The cooperative paintings still allow for each artist's personal marks and palettes to be represented.  Philip's signature, cobalt/ultramarine, lavish slathers float throughout the paintings.  Shibata's delicate line drawings of caricature-like figures appear at varied scales.  Notably, Shibata's marks are poetry and music that have been developing throughout his creative lifetime.  

Forest bathing / Shinrin Yoku is a form of forest therapy medicine that allows for people to simply bask in the atmosphere of a forest.  When I saw a photograph of myself at the exhibition, I recalled what it felt like to breathe the healing air with trees that have existed for many human lifetimes.  The psychic emotional exchange that the artists shared during the development of each painting is a taste of this experience. 

John Valadez - Los Angeleno Artist Treasure "Tesoro"- Puro de Verdad

John Valadez - No One More Magical
November 1-7, 2018 

Castelli Art Space
5428 Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90016

curated by: Isabel Rojas-Williams

by Sandra Vista


Los Angeleno Artist Treasure "Tesoro"- Puro de Verdad

"Piernas Anime" 2017 oil on canvas 108"x 70"

Valadez is a ceremonial "keeper of the flame"- an artist who documents the sky and the earth of people of Los Angeles.  Primarily, Valadez focuses on the communities of East Los Angeles-the Los Angelenos with a defined Mexican-American style.  He says he is never going to retire.  It would be impossible for him stop the fire from burning.  His insightful, heart wrenching, art work, serves to feed him, the community he represents, and the art devotees privileged to experience his art work.  In "Piernas Anime", (Legs Anime), the "beach girls" are walking off the canvas, plopping their high heels and wedges into the wet sand.  West side surfer girls have particular styles-perhaps Roxy and Vans.  These girls, that appear to vacillate from the past and the future, give us a glimpse of an alternative beach attire that is puro Los Angeles tambien.

Valadez' current exhibit invites us to see varied mixed-media, collages, digital prints and paintings.  There are collages, on faux newsprint, of "pulp Mexican novellas" with traditional Mexican iconography of Dia de Los Muertos.  Additionally, there are digital prints of downtown Los Angeles bodegas, Pop-graffiti on doors and buildings, and illuminating deference for the Native American and Chicano culture.  

John Valadez, Isabel Rojas-Williams (curator), Carlos Iglesias (director)

One of Us