Emily Sudd "Decorative Objects" at The Weingart Gallery, Occidental College, Los Angeles, California

Emily Sudd began working with existing ceramic objects about three years ago. Collecting kitsch figurines and functional ware, Sudd combines souvenirs and thrift store finds to create unique sculptural compositions. By adjusting kiln temperatures in multiple firings, she has developed a technique that results in some objects and glazes melting and changing form while others remain whole in a process that can be seen as a collaboration between the artist, pre-existing objects, and the conditions of the firing. In Emily Sudd: Decorative Objects, the artist continues this examination with eleven wall pieces that engage in conversations surrounding abstract and still life painting, decoration, and institutional critique. For this exhibition, she has expanded the exploration of object making, value, and authorship, and has created a large-scale sculpture using thrift store and collected paintings as building materials. I ♥ Love, 2015, takes on the form of an ocean wave made of intact paintings that crests over the gallery viewer.

Emily Sudd: Decorative Objects opens to the public on February 23 and remained on view through April 11, 2015 with gallery hours from 10am to 5pm Monday through Saturday. The public is invited to an opening reception on Wednesday, February 25 from 5pm to 8pm. The Weingart Gallery is located on the Occidental College Campus at 1600 Campus Road in Eagle Rock.

About Emily Sudd

Emily Sudd lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She holds an MFA in studio art from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her current sculptures combine discarded ceramic objects in structures that engage in conversations with still life, narrative, and abstract painting; post-minimalist sculpture; hierarchies of materials and taste; and the role of the kitsch object. She has participated in several exhibitions at venues such Angles Gallery in Los Angeles, Sargent’s Daughters Gallery in New York, and Anat Ebgi Gallery in Los Angeles. Sudd was featured in the Ceramic Top 40 exhibition in Kansas City, MO, organized by Ferrin Contemporary. For more information about Emily Sudd, visit her website.

 

Friday Night (Alternative) Spaces

A warm spring night in Los Angeles brings out the artists. Those who are looking for art spaces outside of the big galleries can always depend on LA for giving the art enthusiast new perspectives and introducing him to provocative art. On Friday, March 27, 2015, I went to three openings and a closing reception for four alternative art spaces that demonstrate the dynamics and vitality of the Los Angeles art scene. 

My first stop was a gallery called Tiger Strikes Asteroid - Los Angeles (TSALA), located in the heart of the jewelry district in downtown Los Angeles. Erin Harmon, a native of Southern California and currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, displays an interest in the organic plant life that surrounds and covers the landscape. The works act as lure to the viewer. The collages are expertly made of cut paper and are alive with bright colors. The works reflect a gardener's care, creating new landscapes and panoramas that are exciting and invigorating. 

Next door is a group show called "I Think I See..." at The Property. The group show features work by Justin John Greene, Dustin Metz, Becky Kolsrud, and Adam Novak. This is a thought provoking show where the artists present an alternative to reductive abstract painting of today. The four painters use various styles to connect to the viewer. I like works whose purpose is the present the viewer a narrative, or part of a narrative structure that connects and brings something more than the mere picture. I enjoyed both Erin Harmon's work at TSALA and the group show next door at The Property. 

Once I left TSALA and The Property, I headed North to Eastside International, located at the Brewery off the I-5 Freeway. where there was a two person show entitled "Time Time Form," curated by Manual History Machines, featuring the works of Ian Pines and Alli Schmeltz. These two artists are diametrically opposed to each other. Pines is an abstractionist whose work is free form, organic, and painterly. Schmeltz's work is a sculptor whose work create structures and formations that are both orderly and reflect a craft aesthetic. This opposition is what made this show brilliant. There is a tension that works well and a dialog that is both contentious and complimentary. It is too bad that this show was closing that night. I truly I wanted to see more. I was then off to Secret Recipe.

Secret Recipe is an artists run space off Sunset Boulevard in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. The exhibitions only run for one night. So I was lucky to see an excellent solo show by painter Natalie Smith.  Entitled "Blue Ridge," Smith is heavily influenced by Matisse and the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s. Smith explores both color and the organic in her paintings. Smith observes the plants and objects and then allows the both paint and composition to create the formations.

I left Secret Recipe with the sense that the Los Angeles art scene is more that its major galleries and big name shows. There is a thriving and dynamic art scene that can found anytime; even on a Friday night.            

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1.  Erin Harmon
Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA) Los Angeles, 440 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90013; Hours: Sat/Sun: 11am-5pm; Questions: tigerstrikesasteroidla@gmail.com

2.  "I Think I See..." A Group Show
featuring the work on Justin John Greene, Dustin Metz, Becky Kolsrud, and Adam Novak.
The Property, 440 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90013; http://theproperty.gallery/

3.  "Time, Time, Form - Ian Pines and Aili Schmeltz", curated by Manual History Machines.

Eastside International, 602 Moulton Ave. (In the Brewery), Los Angeles, CA, http://www.eastsideinternational.com/

4.  Natalie Smith 

Secret Recipe,1123 N. Benton Way, Los Angeles, CA

http://www.secret-recipe.org/

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Erin Harmon
Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA) Los Angeles

"I Think I See..." A Group Show
featuring the work on Justin John Greene, Dustin Metz, Becky Kolsrud, and Adam Novak.
The Property

"Time, Time, Form - Ian Pines and Aili Schmeltz", 
curated by Manual History Machines.

Eastside International

Natalie Smith 

Secret Recipe

   

Carlson Hatton at Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica,California

Carlson Hatton 

March 21 – April 18, 2015 

Carlson Hatton has an excellent show at Patrick Painter Inc., in Santa Monica, California. It is a wonderful exhibition. The canvas and images weave and cover each other forming an almost camouflage of visual imagery and form. The viewer is forced to view and focus on the surface to reveal the images.  

"Carlson Hatton’s work is ambitious in both scale and scope, and his multi-panel tableaus are a feast for the eyes. He discovered complex spatial relationships in the realm of cartoons long before he learned of the studied tenets of cubism. In the worlds of cartoons and illustration, realistic scale is secondary; action is understood in swirling masses with an occasional fist or foot. His interest lies in those visual leaps of faith required to reconcile space that is not easily understood. Hatton’s work explores what he calls the symbiotic relation or fusion of environment and figure, the passage of time, and the glow of light suggesting celestial intervention. He incorporates elements of drawing, painting, and printmaking with washes of watercolor mixed in with masking, stenciling and silk-screening to create complex layers of underlying information. In the quadriptych, Putting Out Fires With Gasoline (2013), detailed renderings are interspersed with boldly colored patterns in green, blue, and pink. Abstract motifs mingle with an identifiable human hand or leg. Each element leads the eye to another so that the viewer cannot rest their gaze on any one area for too long. His work constructs a fantastical reality in which silhouettes and motifs are woven together to defy visual coherence, while still containing vaguely identifiable components." 

Based in Los Angeles, this is Carlson Hatton’s first exhibition with Patrick Painter, Inc. He received his BFA from the Cooper Union in New York. He also completed post-graduate studies at De Ateliers in Amsterdam, and The Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands. He has exhibited recently at Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA and the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, CA. He currently teaches at Santa Monica College."

PatrickPainter Inc.

2525 Michigan Ave, Unit B2 - 

Santa Monica, CA 90404
tel: 310 264.5988
email: info@patrickpainter.com
fax: 310 828 2532
Public viewing hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm

Otto Piene: Light Ballet, 1969

This installation by Otto Piene, Light Ballet (1969), was presented by the gallery Moeller Fine Art (New York) at Armory Show 2015.

Otto Piene (1928-2014) was one of the members of the group ZERO, which he founded with Heinz Mack in 1957, with Günther Uecker joining the group in 1961. In 1957, Piene developed the Grid Picture, from 1959 he created the Lichtballette (“Light Ballet”), kinetic installations where light was projected through grids. Otto Piene represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1967 and 1971, and exhibited at documenta in Kassel, Germany, in 1959, 1964 and 1977. In 2008, Piene founded the international ZERO foundation. In 2014, he had a huge exhibition at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

Otto Piene: Light Ballet, 1969, at Moeller Fine Art at The Armory Show 2015. The Armory Show, New York, March 4, 2015.

Video by Enrico

On Fred Tomaselli "The Times"

All us artists really are just trying to wipe everyone's eyes clean and clear, our own included; I think a lot of artists are basically saying to their viewers, 'Pay attention to this, I find this interesting.' —Fred Tomaselli

The work of Fred Tomaselli is all about vision. When one thinks about the word and concept of "vision," it can either refer to what you see optically, the span and scope of what one sees with their senses, or the forward ideas that guide one's life. In Tomaselli's art, vision refers to what one see's, but how that vision is both enhanced and expanded by the artists' reflection of the world. In his solo show entitled "The Times," currently at the Orange County Museum of Art, Tomaselli introduces the viewer to his vision in both his earlier paintings and with his latest, and most current, body of work which uses photos and images from the New York Times.  

When you look at Tomaselli's earlier paintings, the viewer cannot be passive. A mere glance of the work is insufficient to unlock the secrets that Tomaselli seeks to reveal. The paintings are fantastic in their depictions of nature, birds and the human form. Colors and forms are prevalent in their covering of the canvas. The vision is psychedelic and places the viewer in a near alternative state of mind. Looking afar is not enough. Tomaselli wants to reveal his secrets behind the vision he presents to the viewer. When the viewer moves closer, one sees pills, marijuana leaves, photos of eyes and other images. Tomaselli wants the viewer to know that the experiences of his paintings are the result of the altered mind. The origins are revealed. 

Revealing what is not seen is also a concern with Fred Tomaselli's recent works entitled "The Times," which revolve around photos from the New York Times. The main impetus of the Tomaselli's current show is his altering photos using various media to reveal an expressiveness that is meant to be a revelation. What is Tomaselli revealing to the viewer? Tomaselli is connecting his inner self as they relate to the events or the persons that are being portrayed in the New York Times. Like the drugs and images that unlock the images contained in his earlier paintings, the events of the world act as such a catalyst. The artist is reacting to the political and the historical situation that is portrayed in the photographs from the New York Times. The reaction is the product that Tomaselli is exhibiting in "The Times."

"The Times" demonstrates both a consistency and a new direction from the previous paintings. The works demonstrate both revelation and connecting a new vision from the familiar that's given to the public in the New York Times. As long as there is a daily paper, Fred Tomaselli has new opportunities to give the viewer something new and something that is traced from the earlier works. Tomaselli next revelation might just be on the newsstand tomorrow."Each morning," he concludes, "I wake up, plod out to the kitchen, grab my cup of coffee, spread open the paper, and tend to the garden of my times." 

Fred Tomaselli (born 1956, Santa Monica, CA) has had numerous solo exhibitions including the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2014) and the University of Michigan Museum of Art (2014); a survey exhibition at Aspen Art Museum (2009) that toured to Tang and Brooklyn Museums(2010); The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2004) toured to four venues in Europe and the US; Albright-Knox Gallery of Art (2003); Site Santa Fe (2001); Palm Beach ICA (2001), and Whitney Museum of American Art (1999). His works have been included in international biennial exhibitions including Sydney (2010); Prospect 1 (2008); Site Santa Fe (2004); Whitney (2004) and others. Tomaselli’s work can be found in the public collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art; Brooklyn Museum; Albright Knox Gallery; and Museum of Contemporary Art, LA.

FRED TOMASELLI: THE TIMES
Orange County Museum of Art
850 San Clemente Drive
Newport Beach, California 92660

Phone | 949-759-1122
Admissions Desk: ext. 243
Fax | 949-759-5623
info@ocma.net

MUSEUM HOURS

Mon-Tues CLOSED
Wed-Sun 11 am - 5 pm
Fri (FREE) 11 am - 8 pm

HOLIDAYS
The Museum is closed:
Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day,
Christmas Day and New Year’s Day

The Museum will close at 3 pm on:
Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve
if these days fall on WED - SUN.

Administrative offices are closed:
11/27, 11/28, 12/24, 12/25, 12/26,
and 1/1.
February 15 – May 24, 2015