LONG BEACH AVE LOFTS DTLA OPEN STUDIOS ARTISTS' PHOTO ALBUM 2017

I moved from Venice Beach to Long Beach Lofts in January 1999.  I survived Y-2K lying on my sofa watching the New Years Rockin' Eve in December 1999.  I am still making art-making even more the past three years.  It is time to get an additional space for the overflowing of right brain discharge manifesting into matter.  My dear friend David DiMichele gave me the advice to move here with the notion that after a year I could return to Venice Beach if I wanted.  "You mean I can move back? " I said. "Yeah..." said David.  Almost 19 years later, I remain.

Sandra Vista

LONG BEACH LOFTS FOURTH ANNUAL OPEN STUDIOS .  THIS EDIFICIO WAS BUILT IN 1906-LOT SIZE 1.66 ACRES-116,988 SQ FT-74 STUDIOS-CATS AND SERVICE DOGS

THIS COULD BE YOU RIGHT NOW...

CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING AT LONG BEACH LOFTS

MICHAEL MANNING -STUDIO #323

MICHAEL MANNING WORKSHOP

LYN GAZA

LYN GAZA ARTWORK STUDIO #323

SANDRA VISTA STUDIO #116

SANDRA VISTA AND MAT GLEASON----NETWORK KIDS-NETWORK

SANDRA VISTA ART WORK 

BEAU ROULETTE  STUDIO #122

BEAU ROULETTE'S PHOTOGRAPHY 

STACEY WEXLER STUDIO #207

STACEY WEXLER & LONG BEACH ARTISTS

STACY WEXLER ART WORK

COLIN MANN #213

PAUL  ARNOLD STUDIO #217

CAMILLA TAYLOR STUDIO #223

CAMILLA TAYLOR ARTWORK

CAMILLA TAYLOR ARTWORK AVAILABLE DURING OPEN STUDIOS

GIL NEVO STUDIO #306

ARTWORK

MARY LITTLE STUDIO #310 ARTWORK

MARY LITTLE AND ARTWORK

LAWRENCE FODOR STUDIO #317

LAWRENCE FODOR WITH ARTWORK 

MAYUMI BRADSHAW STUDIO #322

MAYUMI BRADSHAW SPIRITED...

CHRIS COLLINS STUDIO #325

CHRIS COLLINS STUDIO #325

CHRIS COLLINS ART WORK

JENNIFER JOSEPH (CENTER)

JENNIFER JOSEPH STUDIO #325

RICARDO HARRIS FUENTES STUDIO #326

RICARDO HARRIS FUENTES ARTWORK

STEPHEN KENN STUDIO #120

STEPHEN KENN DESIGNS

STEPHEN KENN DESIGNS

MARIO REYES STUDIO #127

SIMON TUKE STUDIO #113

GANGBUSTERS @ MIKE KELLEY GALLERY-BEYOND BAROQUE

GANGBUSTERS- A GROUP SHOW
FEATURING: 
  
                            Tami Bahat
                            Maura Bendett
                            Bob Branaman
                            Diane Cockerill
                            Bryan Ida
                            Juri Koll
                            Loren Philip
                            Catherine Ruane
                            Diane Silver
                            Mike Street
                            Gay Summer Sadow Rick
                            Ron Therrio


                          

Beyond Baroque /  Mike Kelley Gallery
681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
310-822-3006
September 10- October 4, 2017


Beyond Baroque has deep, historical roots in the value of community building.  They have been responsible for supporting Los Angelenos for sometime now.  Beyond Baroque is composed of artists, educators, patrons, collectors, businessman and many more. The Mike Kelley Gallery is dedicated to a local boy who made good and then went to heaven. It is characteristic of the acknowledgement and love for dedicated artists.

Venice Beach is known as a creative neighborhood.  Art studios were more affordable in the 1960's and 1970's.  Some of the artists in this exhibition were around back in those days. All of the artists are defined as fully committed artists to their craft, creativity, and global perspectives. This venue is open to the public and provides an inviting, leisurely way to view artwork with the pride of Los Angeles' regional artists.

Gay Summer Sadow Rick's painting "Heading to Sunset" is drenched with southern California's salmon and mango sunsets near the beach.  Sadow Rick calls herself a "palette painter", who rubs the paint into the canvas.  The penetrating paint is reminiscent of Mark Rothko's "stained paintings" and  Monet's "Haystacks" composed of warm colors produced by the refracted light of  the seasons. 

Gay Summer Sadow Rick "Heading to Sunset"

Catherine Ruane  and Loren Philip contribute to the conservation of our regional plant (flora) and marine life.  Ruane's  graphite and charcoal drawing, "Minaret I" contains an explosive, gestural drawing hand.  The view from underneath the palm fronds adds to the palm tree's larger than life, ubiquitous, so-cal symbolism. Ruane's adroit representation of local, ambient, light emphasizes the beauty and preservation of the palm tree. Loren Philip's painting "Nothing Left to Say" consists of his signature cobalt blue color which is linked to the ebb and flow colors of the Pacific Ocean and the marinas.  Philip is a local boy, previous punk rock musician, and surfer who is possibly influenced by the colors along the coastline.   His expressionist marks have reflective relationships with his environment.  

Catherine Ruane

Minaret I (graphite and charcoal on panel) 36"x 26"

Loren Philip

Nothing Left to Say (acrylic on canvas) 36"x 26"

There are several mixed media artists.  The fiber piece "Life is But a Dream" by Diane Silver

 comfortably melds into the gallery space that emotes familial sentiment.  Silver integrates the feminist quilts of Faith Ringgold and nostalgia of Mike Kelley's textile banners. Additionally, Ron Therrio's mixed media wood pieces exuded a Polynesian influence that also was quite at home in the beloved beach town institution.

Diane Silver

"Life is But a Dream" linen

Ron Therrio

Mixed-media wood pieces

"Gangbusters" is appropriately named for the group of experienced and seasoned artists that continue to produce art for arts sake and much more.

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Tami Bahat

"The Monk

Bryan Ida

"Marina Del Rey" 18" x 18"

Bob Branaman

"Mo-Jo Remedy"

Maura Bendett

"Bluebells"

59"x22"x7"

Mike Street

"When Pigs Fly"

Diane Cockerill

"Merci" 18"x12" digital photograph

ANNA ZEMANKOVA
(1908-1986)

May 27-July 9, 2017


The Good Luck Gallery
945 Chung King Rd
Chinatown
Los Angles, CA 90012
(213-625-0935)

Zemankova's Coat of Arms

by Sandra Vista

(Untitled (AZ592) 1970's

painted satin-ink on paper

16.5"x 11.75"

Zemankova began making art in her fifties after her children had grown.  One of her sons was a sculptor who supported her in beginning her art making journey.  She had lost one of her four children during infancy.  A tragedy that she never recovered from and lead her to making art.  Her artwork consisting of embroidery, collage, pastel and ink, became an antidote for her perpetual "melancholy".  

Born in what is now called the Czech Republic, Zemankova's artwork is influenced by the embroidery patterns and designs seen in her native country's embroideries and dance costumes.  Zemankova was interpreting her cultural art forms in contemporary terms by using familiar material like embroidery thread.  She was inadvertently in the zeitgeist  of the 1960's and 1970's by including everyday "domestic" items like thread, pins, fabric and  beads-ala Lucas Samaras and Miriam Shapiro.   Zemankova also used stitched collage and conceptually pierced the drawing paper with every stitch. 

Considered an "Outside Artist", who today might be viewed as a feminist and an entrepreneur, Zemankova without gallery representation,  had "open houses" every few years to exhibit her artwork. Jean Dubuffet exhibited her work at an Outsider Art Exhibit, also in 1979 she exhibited in London.  

Zemankova is receiving deserved acclaim at this time.  The Good Luck Gallery is the first gallery to exhibit Zemankova's work on the west coast. 

Untitled (AZ585) 1970's

pastel, ink, embroidery on paper

24.61" x 17.72"

Loren Philp

California Abstract

Mid- City Arthouse
5555 W Washington
Los Angeles, CA 90016

Feb 10- March 12, 2017
closing reception Sun. 3/12/17
12-3 pm

curated by: Kio Griffith

Loren Philip proclaims his current work as "topographical abstraction".  He physically hovers over the canvases and aggressively attacks the surfaces.  Layers of paint are deleted and re-constructed with the water pressure of a garden hose.  The unconventional tool mercilessly edits the paintings to glimpses of electrical charges.  Flooding the surfaces create "blueprints" of previous brushstrokes and the artist's sweat. Even though his technique is an "unforgiving process"  he is willing to trust the experience from beginning to end.  

"Fluid Rorschachs" emerge from the process stimulating the viewers' unconscious.  Philip's prolific painting series equals his success to embrace the unknown.   An avid surfer and sailor, this Southern California native maneuvers respectfully through waves of water in his art, avocations, and intentional physical activities.  

We Are All Surfers...I Catalog...

Michael Torquato DeNicola

ROLLING WAVES TO ROLLING TRAINS
December 4-16, 2016

B&B&CO Gallery
516 E. 4th St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

We Are All Surfers...I Catalog

by Sandra Vista

"We are all surfers.  We are all riding waves in our lifetime...". DeNicola's current solo exhibition at B&B&CO Gallery in downtown Los Angeles, consists of his emotionally and physically charged paintings and mixed-media pieces.  As a "down to the soul" surfer, his art work captures his perpetual mission of being in flow with nature.  DeNicola's creative enthusiasm unfurls in the entry of the gallery with his "I am Torquato" character icon. He created this character about twelve years ago and is designed to encourage the artist and his viewers with life's challenges.  The "superhero" serves as an inner voice of love and support.

DeNicola describes his paintings as "cataloging highlights" of his personal experiences.  The acts of painting and surfing are metaphors for each other.  It can be considered an exaltation to live embraced by the elements and principles of design.  Line, pattern, repetition, movement, are terms DeNicola uses to interpret both vocations of art and surfing.  His recent relocation from the beach-Pacific Palisades to downtown Los Angeles has given his paintings an ephemeral quality.  As in some of their predecessors, the current paintings are not contained in resin. Flashes of fluorescent brushstrokes sensation DeNicola's immediacy in a new environment.  

Torquato, Amore

A Season At The Sea, Perspective (40"x30" , mm, paper, resin on canvas)

Shark Fin Grin

Form as Memories-Memories as Form

KARLA KLARIN

SUBDIVIDING THE LANDSCAPE

Cal State University Northridge Art Galleries

August 29- October 8, 2016

18111 Nordhoff St. 
Northridge, CA 91330-8299
www.csun.edu/artgalleries

curated by: Damon Willick

Landscape Study/NH #37, 38, 2014  12"x 36", oil on canvas

Karla Klarin in front of "A Loft on Mill", 1980, 48"x 72.5", acrylic on 3D

Los Angeles is the city for warriors.  You have to have guts to live here and equally to be an artist here.  Karla an "intelligent valley girl" (not an oxymoron), born in Van Nuys in 1953 did not have a choice.  Los Angeles has always been her home.  Karla's current survey beginning in 1980 is an authentic LA Story.  Karla's intimate-poetic depiction of her life in Los Angeles as a "Baby-Boomer-Feminist-Power-Mama", is a visual autobiography and a benchmark for artists to "live and learn".  Karla's innate tenacity, she believes artists are born, is the seed that has continued to multiply and diversify in her creative atmosphere.  Her exhibition of works for the past 36 years tells the story of her life to this point.

Karla shares her creative epiphany through the story of "Natalie's House" and Natalie herself, a neighbor, ballerina, Modernist, and everlasting-muse.  The combination of pink, black and white are one of Karla's favorite color combinations thanks to Natalie's design aesthetic.  In post-war neighborhoods of tract homes and uniformity, Natalie's pink house, with white rock roof, black driveway and black and white rock garden,  became a location of visual, emotional and physical magic.  A magic that continues to influence Karla's work.  

There are several paintings dedicated and inspired by Natalie's House", the emotional washes bounce off the geometric geology of black and white forms.  In the 1950's and 1960's everything seemed to have more mass and weight.  Homes were constructed with stronger materials-the Zenith TV set weighed a ton.  Karla's geometric forms appear to have the weight of actual rocks and black tar of the asphalt driveways.Like Karla's daily childhood bike rides through her neighborhood, the ebb and flow of gray values highlight the timeless architectural, and topographical forms. 

A notable favorite of the exhibition is a painting from 1980 entitled " A Loft on Mill". Karla spent over ten years in downtown Los Angeles with her artwork becoming part of her creative evolution. She stated that she started working on constructions while at  San Francisco Art Institute (1974) under her instructor and mentor, Sam Tchakalian and during graduate school at Otis Art Institute (l978) with Emerson Woelffer.  The architectural forms like her drawings give the impression of weight and mass. The gilded, mono-chromatic structure jets out of the canvas as an object to be observed and rectified.  Karla's interpretation of downtown Los Angeles structure also touches on her thoughts of what a "Place" can be.   She states that her living location also becomes part of her "physical and emotional state of being".  

Karla currently resides in Santa Monica with her husband and family.  Several of the paintings  are influenced by Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park Series and the Bay Area painters like Elmer Bischoff , David Park and Joan Brown.   She considers these artist to be pure California artists that capture "my California". Her palettes range from primary colors and delineated horizon lines to her favorite black, pink, and white palette.  Also included are portraits of her children and her spouse David.  The portraits are minimal in imagery but still have the strong deliberate marks associated with "Natalie's House" and Natalie's aesthetic. Bravo to the "Gal from the Val".

Babylon's Children #2, 1981, 48"x 96", acrylic on 3D

Drive Thru, 1996, 84" x 96", oil on 3D

Dave and Leigh, 1994, 56"x 60", oil on canvas (left)

Leigh and her Mom, 1994, 54"x 66", oil on canvas