AR

C ONTEMPORARY TAllie Pohl 9 Rhea Carmi 24 Los Angeles 14 San Francisco 19

September 2010 | David Trulli, Up From Below, 2010, ink, clay and varnish on Masonite, 24” x 24”. (pg. 15)
11 SEPTEMBER - 30 NOVEMBER

JORDI ALCARAZ
traslúcido

Exercicis de Desaparicio II (Exercises of Disappearance II), 2010, painting on cardboard and plexiglass, 67 3/8 x 87 inches

Publication Available:
JORDI ALCARAZ dibuixos
Essays by Peter Selz & Mariano Navarro
English, German, Italian, Spanish
Hardcover 144 Pages + 94 Illustrations $30

JACK RUTBERG FINE ARTS

357 N. La Brea Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90036 Telephone (323) 938-5222 www.jackrutbergfinearts.com
 2010.21. 80 X 72 INCHES • MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS

Luc Leestemaker
Songs of the Unconscious
1020 Prospect, Suite 130, La Jolla, CA 92037 • (858) 459-0836
www.madisongalleries.com
Daniel Aksten
MATERIAL
September 9 - October 10, 2010
Opening Reception:
Sunday, September 12, 2010, 5 - 7 p.m.

207 W. 5th Street

Los Angeles, CA 90013

CB1 Gallery Hours:

Wednesday - Sunday, noon - 6 p.m.
Thursday & Friday open until 7:30 p.m.

www.cb1gallery.com
213-806-7889
gallery@cb1gallery.com
EDWARD CELLA
ART + ARCHITECTURE
 AD
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
January 13 - 16, 2011

The longest running art fair in Los Angeles and

the largest photography art fair in the country,
is celebrating its 20th anniversary this January.

Sponsors and advertisers who wish to celebrate

or partner on this special event can email:
sponsors@photola.com

photola.com

Norman Kulkin, The Gallerist, 2008

 Feature Artist Allie Pohl In Her Own Words

Allie Pohl, Ideal Woman: Jennifer Love Hewitt, 2010, porcelain, Swarovski crystals, 16”x6”.
EXHIBITIONS
ARTISTS
Allie Pohl
Allie Pohl, Ideal Woman: 36-24-36, 2010, polyurethane rubber and polyurethane memory foam, 19.5”x9”x12”; mirror pedestal, 26”x28”; high definition two-channel video.
I am interested in critiquing how social norms and
gender roles throughout Western history have influ-
enced the desired physical form that the female body
takes on. Women are constantly inundated with images
that culturally outline feminine beauty. Commercially
packaged versions of beauty are often simply illusions
created by advanced technology, such as digital image
alteration and/or plastic surgery. My work reflects this
repetitive effect. Society’s addiction to the ideal image
has transformed beauty from an ideal to an attainable
product. The image of the Western ideal has changed
and evolved, and in response to the evolving technolo-
gies, the materials I have used to represent the ideal have
changed and evolved. I developed the “Ideal Woman”
series by taking a “My Size Barbie” and dissecting her
into pieces to make porcelain sculptures. I chose Mat-
tel’s Barbie because she has been held up as the ideal
since her creation over fifty years ago.
A strong social contract that women endure is hair
removal. It is one of the most basic forms of feminine
upkeep that women must abide by in order to maintain
cultural acceptance. The works Ideal Woman: Herma-
then, Enkolpizo, and Ankulopous have natural sprouts
growing out of places where women often remove
10 C|C|A September 2010
(shave, wax, pluck, laser, etc.) away their unwanted hair:
in the armpits, on the legs, and in the pubic area. Femi-
ninity, by Western society’s standards, requires regular
upkeep, just as in my series of pieces, the growth pro-
cess of the sprouts require maintenance. The growth of
sprouts articulates that, unlike Mattel’s presentation, the
female condition is not plastic and shrink-wrapped.
Just as women have been forced to “maintain” their
body hair, the Ideal Woman: Astroturf A is an artistic
commentary on society adapting technology to elimi-
nate body maintenance. Astroturf, a synthetic material,
does not require maintenance or upkeep. It is a material
that is more “perfect” than the “real”.
Ideal Woman: Evolution uses minimalist materials
and aesthetics to guide the viewer through the evolution
of hair removal on the bikini line and the progression of
technologies through the stone, bronze, iron, and digi-
tal ages. I compare the evolution of female hair removal
with the historical progression of tool making technolo-
gies to illustrate that women have altered their bodies
throughout history consistent with the progression of
these technologies. The advancements and progression
of tools and materials have allowed women to easily al-
ter their bodies, beginning with small cosmetic changes

Allie Pohl, Ideal Woman: Astroturf, 2010, porcelain, astroturf, 16”x6”. (center on pedestal) as part of an installation.
and leading to larger modern day surgical procedures.
The image of the ideal in today's globalized and tech-
nologically connected society is now seen more quickly
and more often. The "perfect” woman is constructed
through the utilization of repetition, technology, and
the idea of virtual. The virtual world has allowed indi-
viduals to readily mediate what is projected and what
is communicated. Yet, simultaneously, the reality of the
"real" is getting much harder to find and understand. The
advent and progress of technology has vastly changed
our perception of what is real and of what ultimately
matters. Women today are pushed to attain the idealized
beauty that they see in magazines, on television, and all
around them. This quandary leads to a conflict between
the real and the mediated self.
Ideal Woman: 36-24-36 is a series that allows the
viewer to see, squeeze, and mold the figures, just like
society molds the ideal. It was important to me to create
a tangible object of the perfect dimensions (36” 24” 36”)
of a woman’s figure, using high- tech industrial materi-
als (polyurethane rubber and memory foam) to further
discuss the utilization of such technologies to augment
the female form. The emerging sculptural figures are
designed to sit on polished, uniform mirror pedes-
EXHIBITIONS
ARTISTS
Allie Pohl
tals, which project the reflection of the viewer back at
them, allowing the viewer to compare themselves to
the ideal. The pedestals resemble pyramids and make
the sculptural figures appear godlike, further elevat-
ing the “ideal” woman. The emerging sculptural forms
and the pedestals are displayed and positioned in rep-
etition, reminiscent of factory lines, again demonstrat-
ing the cookie cutter nature of what our society sees as
ideal. The idea of the real is constantly changing. With
the advent of technology, it is easier to see and chan-
nel the “ideal” and allow the “real” to transcend reality.
Through the use of new social networks, everyone can
easily mediate and curate an online presence with the
“ideal” in mind. The media projects an ideal and that
ideal is repeated, reproduced, and continually executed.
This results in people starting to look the same in reality
and the mediated reality.
An exhibiton of Allie Pohl’s Ideal Woman works, enti-
eld Perfect, can be seen through October 15 at the Marina
Abramovic Institute West Coast in San Francisco. For
more information, visit bit.ly/MAIWest or alliepohl.com.
Artists 11
AD
AD
 EXHIBITIONS

LOS ANGELES
David Noonan Australian-born, London-based artist
David Kordansky Los Angeles David Noonan utilizes a personal archive
[through Oct 3] of found images to create hand-screened,
collaged works on linen that straddle the
lines between photography and history, rit-
ual and performance, memory and fiction.
Depicting costumed figures set against pat-
terned backgrounds, these works borrow
techniques not only from painting, but also
from film, theatre, literature, and sculpture.
By relying upon intuition, chance, and free
association, Noonan composes these large-
scale narrative tableaux so that their sub-
jects seem to be caught between moments
of introspection and exhibitionism, their
implied theatricality alluding to the artifice
and creative potential of performance.  While the digital age has produced a
Noonan has long been interested in us-
David Noonan, Untitled (detail), 2010, screen-
print on linen. Courtesy of David Kordansky. ing patterned textiles as a graphic coun-
terpoint to the figure. In this new body of
Jordi Alcaraz work, the figures emerge from and retreat
Jack Rutberg Los Angeles into images of Japanese Boro textiles that
[through Nov 30] echo the restrained and simplified sensi-
bility of modernist painting. The material-
ity of these Boro textiles, fashioned from
stitched-together rags of previously dyed
and bleached fabric, dissolves into the art-
ist’s aesthetic and is used to create a range
of painterly and textural effects.
Noonan’s works function as collage on a
dense array of levels: each is a combination
of materials, images, and narratives that
creates a historical mood which paradoxi-
cally cannot be attributed to any particu-
lar moment in history. Different grades of
material are joined together so that their
textural qualities play crucial roles in the
arrangement of the total composition. In
cinematic terms, the work can be described
as a kind of montage, with shifts between
one image or piece of linen and another
rendered with varying degrees of subtlety
or violence.
seemingly infinite proliferation of images
whose sources and subjects are instantly
recognizable but whose surfaces have been
compromised, Noonan’s images take ma-
teriality as one of their central subjects.
Because the hand-screening process high-
lights their physical presence, the work
forges an uncanny connection between
techniques of mechanical reproduction and
time-honored, even ancient, ideas of craft.

Alcaraz: (top) Exercicis de Desaparicio (III),
2010, painting on cardboard, plexiglass, wood,
67.38”x87” (bottom) El Temps, 2010, 19th-cent.
sculpture and plexiglass, 32.13” x 20” x 16.13”.
Traslúcido, a comprehensive exhibition of
Jordi Alcaraz’s poetic art, brings together
large and small scale works which tran-
scend the categories of paintings, sculp-
tures, and drawings as they blend all media,
employing assemblage-like manner and
installation. Conceptually, Alcaraz extends
notions of perspective beyond the realms of
the physically-seen. The surfaces of paint-
ings and drawings can be pierced or peeled
back in a manner that forces the viewer to
consider more deeply the properties of the
physical and ephemeral.
Utilizing various tools and materials
much like an alchemist, Alcaraz creates
realms as ambiguous as those of his Cata-
lonian antecedents, such as found in the
minimal spaces of Miro or in the surreal
other-worldly landscapes of Dali. Where
his elder contemporary Antoni Tapies cre-
ated astounding walls and doors - marked
and eroded - evidencing both the surreal
and the real, Alcaraz extends those notions,
going beyond surface. Even boundaries
created by frames enclosing his paintings
and drawings are altered in unexpected
ways, as in the assemblage entitled Catch-
ing a Drawing in Mid-Air, which calls into
question the distinction between interior
and exterior. Alcaraz opens new realms in a
Zen-like manner through the use of bend-
ing, tearing and puncturing materials in
unpredictable ways.
In El Temps an antique carved wood
figure gently extends her hand through its
vitrine, melting away one dimension into
another. Alcaraz’s aesthetic, verging on the
minimal, brings the consideration of beauty
and meditation to uniquely profound levels
in conceptual art today. [The exhibition will
be accompanied by the a comprehensive
book on the artist entitled, “Jordi Alcaraz
dibuixos,” which includes text from leading
art critics Mariano Navarro and Peter Selz.]

14 C|C|A September 2010


Jeff Sheng’s first solo exhibition also has the
distinction of being the first ever to feature
the photographs of service men and woman
currently affected by the “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell” policy, which mandates the immedi-
ate discharge of those persons in the United
States military who are allegedly or openly
gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. The
show will feature 20 previously unseen
images that eschew the statically-posed
photographs of the Sheng’s first volume of
work. In this collection, Sheng increasingly
activates and dramatizes his subjects, fur-
ther illuminating the unique and charged
personal narrative behind each portrait.
Material, a solo show of the work of Los
Angeles artist Daniel Aksten, continues the
artist’s ongoing series of highly finished
grid paintings. It also includes an addition-
al body of work focusing on vertical stripes.
Scrutinizing optics and the painting itself,
under Southern California’s patented sun-
shine, Daniel Aksten forges mathemati-
cal structure, chance, and an astonishing
degree of craft to produce paintings that
challenge the viewer to re-examine how
much one thinks they can actually see. Best
known for his fastidious paintings of geo-
metric solids composed by chance through
Ron Rizk’s exhibition, New Paintings, fea-
tures masterfully rendered oil paintings
that combine carefully chosen objects in
theatrical architectural settings, creating a
dialogue between object and setting, past
and present. Rizk’s meticulous paintings
arrange odd and unconventional objects
hand chosen from thrift stores and antique
shops in shallow spaces, achieving a hyper
real illusion of space. The objects become
characters that sit on stage-like platforms,
or in weathered shallow niches, creating
a sense of performance; questioning their
existence, their function and their personal
history. The meticulous attention to detail
and the veneration for each item is a trib-
ute to the object’s history and is an hom-
age to the old masters with their reverence
for methodical painting. The likeness and
the essence of  his subject is captured with
precision and wit. The East Gallery features
Cindy Kane’s exhibition  Cover to Cover,
EXHIBITIONS
Within the last year, the Sheng’s work has Jeff Sheng
been featured by The New York Times, the Kaycee Olsen Los Angeles
Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine.  In [through Oct 23]
addition, veteran news journalist
Bob Woodruff conducted an ex-
tended interview with Sheng and
a few of the service members fea-
tured in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
series for ABC World News with
Diane Sawyer. Several individual
works have also found their way
into such prominent collections
as the Sir Elton John Photography
Collection and the Human Rights
Jeff Sheng, Tristan and Zeke, Honolulu,
Campaign collection, among many others. Hawaii, 2010, photograph.
a system involving the roll of a die, Aksten’s Daniel Askten
Material introduces an additional form to CB1 Los Angeles
his visual vocabulary, extending the explo- [through Oct 10]
ration of contrast, color and reflection. Ver-
tical stripes, like vertical blinds on a sliding
glass door obscure former layers, interpos-
ing inside onto outside of painterly space. A
trademark element has become the round-
cornered translucent or white textured
screen that finishes and haunts each work
like the faint awareness of our own blind
spot, reminding us that everything we see is
surrounded by the expanding and shrink-
ing flesh visage of our own countenance.
Daniel Askten, Composite (GRB), 2010,
composite finishes on metal, 12”x12”.
which includes  new innovative paintings
on magazine covers by the East Coast artist. Ron Rizk & Cindy Kane
The paintings take journalism and text in a Lora Schlesigner Santa Monica
new direction, placing her imagery on the [through Oct 16]
cover and in the forefront of the art maga- (left) Rizk, Float, oil on panel, 24”x36” (bellow)
zine world. Her work is an observation of Kane, White Hawk on New Yorker, acrylic on
New Yorker magazine cover, 11”x9”. Both 2010.
the political and environmental tumult of
our times. These  paintings work with the
relics of childhood, images from the natu-
ral world, and current events to explore the
transitory nature of the art world.
Exhibitions 15
 EXHIBITIONS

Max Presneill
Garboushian Beverly Hills
[through Oct 16]
Max Presneil: (top) MP, 2009, oil and enamel
on canvas, 96”x84”. (bottom) Elaborate Plans,
2010, oil and enamel on canvas, 84”x96”.
Known for his stewardships of the origi-
nal RAID Projects international residency
and exhibition programs in Santa Ana and
then at the Brewery; followed by a remark-
able tenure as director of Bergamot’s Mark
Moore Gallery where he internationalized
the program; and currently helming the
small but salient Torrance Art Museum
where he has been making a run at putting
TAM on the international regional-mu-
seum map, Max Presneill is nothing if not
ambitious. He also used to produce under-
ground dance and art raves, and he never
got in any real trouble, because he did it
with confidence, style, panache — and be-
cause the  end results were magical. His own
private painting practice (a lifelong pursuit
that has been little-known in LA until now)
is, on one level, a kind of Art History rave
party, where no one gets hurt, and the beats
are insistent and heart-thumping.
Another oft-used but ultimately helpful
way into the work is to say that each paint-
ing is a like curated survey unto itself, a
swashbuckling array of styles in a violent-
ly perfect storm of counterintuitive color
choices and a smorgasbord of media. Pres-
neill says he views composition as problem-
solving technique, moving from passage to
passage figuring out what is required, like
optical Sudoku. Any given canvas has the
cultivated chaos of an English garden seen
through a kaleidoscope, with a fecund riot
of shapes, colors, textures, and gestures.
Every image is at heart an armature for
abstractions, which elements are painstak-
ingly assembled into figures through an ad-
ditive process more like collage, but unmis-
takably hand-wrought.
As a curator, he’s in a discourse with the
whole world; as a visual artist he’s in dia-
logue with himself. It’s not about taste, or
restraint, but it is about balance and a bi-
zarre dystopian poetry. There’s a tempta-
tion to pile up typically unloving words like
pastiche, literary, neurotic, and psychedel-
ic; but Presneill’s fusion of roughly-hewn
Deco, uncomfortable Rousseau, and defi-
ant pre-Raphaelite allegory is the tidiest,
most engaging kind of refraction. It’s remi-
niscent of that famous quote about the De-
generate Art Salon in 1937, “Whoever sees
and paints the sky green and the fields blue
ought to be taken out and shot.” If that’s the
paragon of painting’s virtue, then when it
comes to Presneill, “degenerate” doesn’t
even begin to cover it.
– Shana Nys Dambrot

Josh Dorman
George Billis Los Angeles
[through Oct 16]
(top) Raptors, 2010, Ink, acrylic, antique paper
on panel, 28”x36”. (bottom) Archipelago, 2010,
ink, acrylic, antique paper on paper, 34”x60”.
Look the Other Way, an exhibition of new
work by New York-base artist Josh Dorman,
includes mixed media on panel and works
on paper. Josh Dorman uses antique maps
to find his way exploring and expanding the
spaces between borders. His topographical
navigations forging latitude and longitude
with ink, pen, and pencil draws the viewer
deep into his fantastical voyages. The New
York Times has called him a “postmodern
Brueghel.” Dorman becomes a wilderness
guide teaching us a new way to navigate
space. What began with drawings on an-
tique ledger pages in
2000 has evolved into
a fully formed mature
body of work. Dor-
man writes, “I love
paper that has lived
a life and shows its
age. I use only topo-
graphic maps printed
before 1940 (when a
full palette of colors was introduced) and
imagery from books published before pho-
tography became common.” This sense of a
narrative that exists outside of our reality in
the same way that dreams do is a recurring
element in Dorman’s work - they contain
their own internal and intuitive logic and
journey (often literally with creatures on
walkways on voyages through the works).
In “Archipelago,” a five-foot long work on
paper, birds, scorpions, lizards, even clocks,
creep along a raised path running across
the entire width of the piece. In the blue
and purple and orange water/sky fantastical
fish swim and fly among clouds and moun-
tains. Destinations like far off lands exist
on different islands in the scene and like all
of Dorman’s work, the more you look the
more you find - castles on craggy mounds,
animals perched on their own little bits of
rock, a ship sailing through it all. The ex-
hibition also includes twelve new works on
panel and six graphite drawings.

16 C|C|A September 2010


In Broad Daylight, an exhibition of large-
scale scratchboards by David Trulli, offers a
contemplation on the concept of America
formed in the 20th century and that
concept’s relevance in the modern
world. In his cityscapes framed by
empty office interiors, Trulli infuses
each piece with an uneasy sense of
anticipation – as if something mo-
mentous is just out of view. Accord-
ing to Trulli, “For years we have
all had the feeling that something
big is about to happen, and indeed
many things have. Wars, economic
collapse, political polarization and
more have all occurred right out in
the open, in broad daylight. Still, we
stand dormant as we wait for the un-
defined event.” This exhibition marks the
first time Trulli has presented images ex-
clusively set in daylight, without losing the
noir feeling for which his work is known.
New Painting, an exhibition of paintings
and works on paper by  Lari Pittman on
view at Regen Projects II,  presents seven
large-scale and three mid-size paintings.
This will be coupled with Orangerie, a com-
prehensive survey of Lari Pittman’s  work
from 1980-2010, exhibited at Regen Proj-
ects. This historical exhibition will include
over 100 works on paper, hung salon-style
over the artist-designed trellis pattern that
will adorn the gallery walls. Orangerie will
provide a unique and unparalleled oppor-
tunity to view the history and breadth of
Pittman’s artistic practice. His work incor-
porates a cacophony of color, the blending
of figuration and abstraction, an intricate
and multi-faceted surface, and an expansive
Drawing from comics, television, and ev-
eryday situations,  Heather Gwen Martin’s
abstract paintings explore playfully violent
scenarios where household objects morph
into cartoon weapons and imagined forces
battle each other against bright, acidic-
hued backgrounds.  With this new body of
work, entitled Recreational Systems, Martin
continues to subvert the traditional rules of
painting, offering canvases whose flat spac-
es open up “three-dimensionally” in ways
EXHIBITIONS
David Trulli works in scratchboard: a white David Trulli
clay-coated board, covered with black ink. Robert Berman Santa Monica
Fine knives are used to delicately scrape [through Oct 9]
David Trulli, In Broad Daylight, 2010
ink, clay and varnish on Masonite, 48”x108”.
away the ink, creating the image. A former
cinematographer, Trulli compares working
in scratchboard to lighting a film set: “it Lari Pittman
starts out black and you add light.” Regen Projects Los Angeles
[through Oct 23]
and oscillating image field to
create an idiosyncratic visual
vocabulary rooted in — and
in constant discourse with —
the history of painting. A for-
mal and conceptual tension
is always at play. This tension
is structured and informed
by ever-present dichotomies:
renewal/decay, secular/sa-
cred, decorative/grotesque,
hot/cold, sweet/toxic, taste/
kitsch, mannered/unpredict-
able, transparency/opacity. Lari Pittman, Installation view: New Paintings,
[In addition to this show, a monograph Regen Projects II. Courtesy of Regen Projects.
Photograph by Brian Forrest.
on Lari Pittman’s work will be released by
Rizzoli in the spring of 2011. ]
Heather Gwen Martin
Luis de Jesus Santa Monica
[through Oct 26]
that skew balance, proportionality, and
composition. Contrasting this tension
and awkward balance is her clean, con-
trolled brush work and highly saturat-
ed colors, qualities directly influenced
by her experience over the past decade
as a colorist for DC Comics using the
precision of computer technology.
Heather Gwen Martin, Blind Spots,
2010, oil on linen, 48”x64”.
Exhibitions 17
 EXHIBITIONS
Dirk Schreber
Blum & Poe Los Angeles
[through Oct 23]
Dirk Skreber, Deborah, Stephanie, and I, 2010,
acrylic, enamel, polyurethane, spray paint and
foam tape on panel, 79” x 118.5”. Courtesy of the
artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles.
Robert Kingston
Ruth Bachofner Santa Monica
[through Oct 16]
Robert Kingston, White Woolen Trousers,
2010, acrylic on canvas, 72” x 60”.
Robert Fry & Massimo Vitali
M+B (with Francois Ghebaly)
Los Angeles [through Oct 16]
(top) Massimo Vitali, Sacred Russian Pool, Tur-
key #3140, 2009, chromogenic print on Diasec,
60”x 72”. (bottom) Robert Fry, Red 6, 2010, oil,
acrylic, enamel, pencil on canvas, 78”x112”.
18 C|C|A September 2010
Dirk Skreber’s new paintings radiate with
a graphic intensity and a high-voltage pop
color palette. By layering strip after strip of
foam tape atop panels rolled with varnish,
polyurethane, watercolor, enamel, spray
paint, fluorescent paint and primer – but
absent of oil or any conventional brush-
work – Skreber creates images of slightly
obscured and brooding (mostly female)
models, set against highly refined orna-
mental surfaces. These “pluck” paintings
as they are called - due to the intricate re-
moval of foam tape by careful burning or
picking – suggest an uneasy exchange be-
tween the figure and their surrounding pic-
torial space. Models’ faces and bodies only
come to the fore when Skreber picks or
burns away the foam tape to varying levels
Robert Kingston’s work draws viewers into
a visual narrative where the story rests be-
tween innumerable layers of acrylic. The
gestures, erasures, pigmented smudging,
scraping and dripping on his canvases
evidence Kingston's continued investiga-
tion into the possibilities of paint. Kings-
ton’s work is achieved through a trust of
his process of getting lost in cerebral and
material spaces before finding resolve. The
artist slowly builds his paintings by de-
veloping and modifying ideas applied in
previous layers. At times, the paint is con-
trolled and then allowed to find gravity, and
A part of event series, Kunsthalle, previ-
ously at Francois Ghebaly, this introduc-
tion to the work of English painter Robert
Fry, curated by Jane Neal, features the art-
ist’s refreshing interpretation of figura-
tive painting. In this series, Fry continues
along themes of sexuality, the relationship
between artist and subject — willfully con-
fused by his choice of perspective – and the
potent energies within that dialogue. Pro-
duced mainly in acrylic and oil, his work
tests the boundaries of abstract figurative
painting as he explores the types and de-
grees of tension that exist between the fig-
ures that appear in every work. He locates
his figures in a non-space, a vacuum lacking
the naturalistic elements of the human en-
vironment. There is no gravity, no tangible
compass point by which to navigate. The
viewer is absorbed entirely into Fry’s imag-
of thickness, revealing his subject purely
through shadow and line – not with paint.
This “reveal” allows his subjects to emerge
from behind the picture’s surface rather
than on top of it, filling each portrait with
a mysterious sense of psychological de-
tachment. For nearly ten years, Skreber
has been investigating portraiture by way
of foam tape painting; gaining a new tech-
nical proficiency previously exemplified
in his renderings of car crashes and aerial
fly zones. In 2002, Skreber exhibited foam
tape paintings of superheroes and soldiers
whose images were culled from the Inter-
net. These physically dominant men and
overly sexualized women became central
to his practice and continue to play an im-
portant role in his most recent series.
is then contained again, creating deep veils
of acrylic. Within the canvases’ hazy spac-
es are thrusts of color along with fits and
starts of lines, doodles and sketches. Kings-
ton’s breathy, atmospheric movements of
paint collect and dissipate to form organic
landscape impressions, yet remain firmly
planted in the language of abstraction. His
soulful works of art speak to a range of
emotions, and open a window into the art-
ist’s own inner space and influences. Shift-
ing from placid to energetic, structured to
improvised, sober to playful, Kingston’s
paintings are a steady, engrossing read that
gradually reveal their history and resolve.
ination wherein spatial perspective is ren-
dered through a complex series of vantage
points. Exhibiting at M+B is Italian photog-
rapher Massimo Vitali’s unique views of the
rites and rituals of modern-day leisure. Fea-
turing new work from 2009 and 2010, this
exhibition includes eight large-scale color
photographs from Austria, Croatia, Sicily,
and Turkey. Vitali’s photography occupies
a place between documentary realism and
the surreal. His landscapes are casually in-
habited by figures such as sunbathers and
tourists, whom he captures while perched
20 feet in the air on a platform waiting for
the right moment. Ever interested in the
ways in which people interact with their
environment and each other, Vitali’s images
satisfy a sociological desire as well as a voy-
euristic longing to observe unawares.

Deborah Aschheim
Edward Cella Los Angeles California. Embodying a discourse about
[through Oct 23] memory, place, and the unfulfilled promis-
es of our future, her art reflects her passion
Nostalgia for the Future, a new exhi- for L.A.’s quirky modernist icons, which
bition of Deborah Aschheim, presents are quickly vanishing in front of our eyes.
the artist’s singular drawings and ar- These structures, formerly the symbols of
chitectural installations of eccentric Southern California’s utopian dreams, are
modernist landmarks of Southern now forlorn and crumbling commercial
towers, buildings, and
centers. Recent public
controversies surround-
ing the future of the
Century Plaza Hotel and
the effort to stabilize the
Theme Building at LAX
manifest for Aschheim
Aschheim, detail of Encounter (The Theme Building so beautiful
as a tragic and incessant
encased in scaffolding), 2009, ink on Dura-lar, 25”x40”. sense of obsolescence.
Maberry + Walker has always been
Maloney Los Angeles on modern in-
[through Oct 30] terpretations of
past decorative
For more than twenty-five years, styles, their work
Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker have is infused with an
created one-of-a-kind ceramic sculp- optimistic spirit.
ture, reliefs and objects for gallery and The Pool Toys af-
museum installations, in addition to fect clever spatial
having fulfilled numerous residential gambits within
and commercial commissions. Best compressed, de-
known for their eccentric, intensely ceptively simple
colorful style associated with the ‘Pat- interplays of sur- Maberry + Walker, Camo, 2010,
tern and Decoration” movement, Ma- face ornamenta- glazed ceramic, 22”x18”x13”
berry and Walker’s most recent body tion and sculptural articulation. Although
of work, Pool Toys, continues the in- the artists work in the time-honored ce-
vestigation of constructed figurative ramic tradition, they are continually ex-
forms. Utilizing color and design, ar- panding the focus of their work to include
ticulated in the artists’ characteristic new technologies, including digital trans-
playful manner where their emphasis fer processes and glow-in-the-dark glazes.
Jeff Sonhouse New York-based artist Jeff Sonhouse’s exhi-
Martha Otero Los Angeles bition, ‘Better Off Dead,’ Said The Landlord,  marine and violet colors.  Draped over a
[through Oct 23] allows him to deconstruct the accepted the-
ories of ownership and invites us to reexam-
ine how we interpret relationships of power,
as tenants of an overbearing architect. With
alluding portrayals of glorified facades, he
creates a frictional energy of immortality.
The exhibition will include Sonhouse’s re-
cent portraits of oracular figures that evoke
familiarity, such as Papi Shampoo, bearing
a Jesus like stance and demeanor. We’re in-
Jeff Sonhouse, Mateo Manhood aka Buzz Kill
(detail), 2010, oil on fiberboard, 16” x 13.25”. stantly drawn to the silky smooth satin tex-
EXHIBITIONS
Michael McMillen
LA Louver Los Angeles
[through Oct 30]
Michael McMillen, from Lighthouse.
In Michael McMillen’s Lighthouse, black
and white digital motion pictures created
by the artist are projected onto a billboard
screen attached to the building’s roof.
The film element embraces both a narra-
tive of Lighthouse and a series of related
paintings and unique sculptures that will
also be on view. Each of the sculptures
has been created out of found materials
of humble origin, such as scraps of wood,
string and cardboard, which have then
been cast into bronze. The installation,
sculptures and paintings are set within
an environment designed by McMillen:
at the entrance a wall of corrugated metal
guides the visitor through two doors that
open into a dimly lit space. After enter-
ing, the weathered doors automatically
close through a series of wheels, cables
and pulleys that span the width of the gal-
lery. The visitor is then presented with a
series of illuminated bronze sculptures
and oil paintings in two gallery spaces.
Lighthouse is displayed in a third gallery.
tured vestment and its vividly deep aqua-
brash black and white pinstripe suit with
ashen hands in an iconic Pantocrator pos-
ture.  The background palette harmonizes
burgundy with black, phthalo blues and
rich purples into a contemporary vision
of a halo.  Sonhouse’s unorthodox use of
materials successfully disorients the view-
ers prescribed sense of space. Even more
irresistible are Sonhouse’s masks and the
intense gaze concealed behind them.
Exhibitions 19

SAN FRANCISCO
In The Longest Day of the Year, Los Angeles-
based Anoka Faruqee presents new paint-
ings that are surprisingly freehand and sub-
jective in nature, all while maintaining the
discipline and precision characteristic of
her practice. An artist's book, Field Notes,
published in conjunction with the exhibi-
tion, reveals Faruqee's remarkable painting
process through a series of photographs
documenting her studio and her intricate,
laborious practice. Faruqee mixes hundreds
of subtly shifting colors to create luminous
color fades in which patterns seem to grad-
ually disappear into the painting's ground
color. The illusion looks like the effect of
a translucent airbrush or painterly spill.
But in fact these works are created slowly
and deliberately, one handmade "pixel" at a
time. The handmade "pixels" are tripod or
asterisk forms derived from Islamic tile ge-
ometry, but painted freehand, without the
use of rulers or grids. For Faruqee, who is
second generation Bangladeshi-American
Bay Area-based painter Judith Belzer is ex-
hibiting selections from two recent series
of her ongoing explorations into the un-
derpinning structures and porous surfaces
of the world, titled respectively, Order of
Magnitude and Order of Things. The mod-
est scale of these paintings belies the am-
bition and scope of Belzer’s reach, as she
moves freely from aerial to crystalline and
cellular perspectives in her bid for intimacy
with the natural order. Reminiscent of Ce-
zanne’s late watercolors, Belzer’s assured
open brushwork and thin washes suggest
she has found herself a home in the center
of things, and an open hand to pull us into
the organizing principle she has uncovered.
Nina Zurier, a Bay Area photographer,
is also showing a new series of work. The
show is titled Conditions and Connections
and runs concurrent with her installation
at California State University Sacramento’s
Library Gallery, titled Make Me One with
Everything. With these most recent works,
Zurier has pushed the capacity for open-
ended story telling already inherent in her
EXHIBITIONS
with an Islamic heritage, using the tripod Anoka Faruqee
or asterisk form is not about cultural pos- Hosfelt San Francisco
turing. As she notes, "Because someone [through Oct 16]
centuries ago spent a good amount of time
playing with a ruler and a compass, I can
lift from that tradition a kind of readymade
handmade pixel. Those experiments were
indeed the mathematical forerunners of
current digital technology. I'm not interest-
ed in merely quoting or "describing" these
forms, forever suspending them in their
historical moment. I use them in the pres-
ent tense for what they are and what they
can become." Faruqee paints her modular
gestures on subtly increasing curves, start-
ing only with a loose plan. Many decisions
about the shape and direction of the curves
happen during painting. The paintings un-
fold in the making, revealing an unpredict-
able, paradoxical order. The "handmade
pixels" become metaphors for a process that
balances control and accident, mirroring
both nature and computer modeling.
signature juxtaposition of images. She se-
lects the individual shots of her compound
photographs with great consideration for
Faruqee: (top) Equator (bottom) Pink S-Curve
their composition and color, and the re- both: 2010, acrylic on linen, 78.75”x71.75”.
sulting form, along with the simple fact of
their containment within a frame, creates Judith Belzer / Nina Zurier
a strong visual bond. More significantly, George Lawson San Francisco
it is her uncanny intuition, her selection [through Sept 25]
for leaping poetry
and the triggers
of memory that
assures the elastic
cohesion of these
scroll-like narra-
tives, what Zurier
has called, “the
continuity of dis-
continuity.”
(right, above) Judith Bel-
zer, The Order of Things
#8, 2010, oil on canvas,
6” x 12”. (right, below)
Nina Zurier, Because The
Night, 2010, unique pig-
ment print from digital
photograph, 4.5” x 24”
(frame: 15.5” x 34.5”).
Exhibitions 21
 EXHIBITIONS
Nellie King Solomon
Brian Gross San Francisco
[through Oct 30]
Nellie King Solomon, Magenta and Hooker’s
Green Rings 1, 2010; acrylic and mixed
media on mylar; 96” × 96”.
Nicole Buffett
Andrea Schwartz San Francisco
[through Oct 1]
Nicole Buffett, Reveal/Re-Veil II, 2010,
mixed media on panel, 30” x 30”.
Michael Hall & Whitney Lynn
Patricia Sweetow San Francisco
[through Oct 16]
(above) Michael
BES_Battery Bluff_BD-
FF, 2010, oil on canvas,
60”x72”. Whitney Lynn:
(left) Doug (still), 2010,
video DVD loop, 15 min.
(below) installation view
22 C|C|A September 2010
Continuing the her exploration of move-
ment and chance through energetic, ges-
tural abstractions on mylar, Bay Area artist
Nellie King Solomon’s has created dramatic
new works that reflect “experiences of great
western landscapes, interior and exterior
terrains, [and] the shock of unabsorbed
events.” In this recent work, Solomon ex-
plores vibrant new color palettes in ma-
genta, fluorescent orange, and Hooker’s
green. Working on a large table and using
custom-made glass trowels, the artist ap-
plies pigment to thick sheets of mylar in
broad, sweeping gestures. Bold, deliberate
strokes merge with Solomon’s signature
pours and drips, while large, opaque areas
give way to thin, iridescent skim coats. An
California-based artist Nicole Buffett’s
paintings of abstract landscapes allow the
viewer to interpret the suggestive spiritual
possibilities of deeper consciousness. By
using a variety of organic and synthetic
mediums on panel, Buffett creates abstract
landscapes that act as topographical worlds,
which invite the viewer into visceral and
meditative experiences. This allows Buf-
fett to map the relationship of things close
and far, of things felt, and of things invis-
ible. Buffett sees her work this way: “My
paintings describe an environment built
For his MFA exhibition at Mills College,
Michael Hall presented several large-scale
oil paintings depicting animals in degrees
of stress as metaphoric stand-ins for cor-
porate malfeasance and social excess.
The paintings were oil on canvas, deftly
brushed, with a subdued palette. In  his
new Reclamation, Hall's recent series of oil
paintings and installation, his focus turns
to surveillance bunkers constructed during
WWII, located on what is now known as
the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Hall,
Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the area
proved strategically important, providing
the bunker/look-out posts a watch-guard
to the East.The look-out posts happen to
be located in some of the more spectacular
natural landscape that California has to of-
fer. Hall's paintings contrast that backdrop
of WWII history with the spectacular envi-
intentionally uneven work surface creates
unpredictable pools and flows, adding an
element of chance to otherwise calculated
compositions. Solomon uses unconven-
tional materials to create luminous, shim-
mering surfaces. In places, the paint glitters
as if sprinkled with diamond dust, while
other areas appear corroded, as if dripped
with battery acid. Close inspection reveals
microcosmic topographies and tiny “geo-
logical eruptions.” The translucency of the
mylar support lends the paintings a unique
luminescence, “allow[ing] the edges to dis-
appear into the wall and light to penetrate
through clear pools of medium. The paint-
ings subvert architecture, each pour and
ring tears a hole through the wall.”
upon the concept of pliancy and versatility.
The abstract landscapes I create are spaces
wherein freedom from the representational
enables deeper spiritual possibilities. My
choice to use a variety of both traditional
Art materials alongside non-traditional
materials, reflect my own relationship to
the world as a place of integration. Thick,
fleshy layers of reclaimed house paint,
Earth pigment, spices, sand, ink, spray
paint and resin all become a hyper organ-
ic environment that speaks to where I am
environmentally. ”
ronment in which these edifices exist. For
Hall, “the paintings imagine the bunker's
further dissolution into the landscape and
highlight thier isolated and largely forgot-
ten past". Whitney Lynn’s  Doug, an instal-
lation of video, photography and objects,
records her experience with a rescue rab-
bit that was found living in the environs of
Golden Gate Park. Learning that rabbits are
behaviorally similar to feline's, she eagerly
became the adoptive parent. The rabbit
proved to have other thoughts of domestic-
ity, proceeding to gnaw on her wiring, nest
in her furniture, and use her flat as the litter
box. Doug encompasses Whitney's adven-
ture with her rabbit through photographs,
video of the rabbit, and items of clothing,
all part of “a desire to set something down
in physical form, to preserve evidence of a
happening”.
AD
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
January 20 - 23, 2011

www.artla.net

original artwork, Norman Kulkin

 EXHIBITIONS
ARTISTS
Rhea Carmi
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
R hea Carmi’s art is a profound search
to make visual the darkest to the
most illumined aspects of life that hu-
man beings and nature can experience.
Through a succession of piercing abstract
narratives -- from grim ashes of suffering,
to the emergence of healing, compassion,
and the ebullient joy of freedom – Carmi
shares with us what she witnessed first
hand. Born Israeli, and married for 49
years to a Holocaust survivor, the sub-
ject of suffering is second nature. Carmi
has learned through direct experiences
that all-consuming darkness can cast an
enormous shadow on life, yet, it is also
a powerful force that can bring tremen-
dous spiritual transformation.
In reading the essay, Voices of Silence,
by the noted French writer and art critic,
André Malraux, Carmi realized that her
art must be about the millions of voices
that have been silenced in the never-end-
Rhea Carmi, H.S XXIV, 1996, acrylic and oil canvas, 48” x 60”. Courtesy of the artist.
24 C|C|A September 2010
by Roberta Carasso
ing cycles of inhumanity. Consequently,
in Voices of Silence, the silence that Car-
mi set out to create becomes deafening;
her message of darkness is powerfully
presented, yet its conclusions are surpris-
ingly optimistic and hopeful..
In September, 2010, as part of a group
exhibition at the Gotthelf Art Gallery in
La Jolla, CA, she will show selected works
from her Voices of Silence series. In a
retrospective exhibition, held in 2008 at
Soka University in Aliso Viejo, CA, Car-
mi showed the complete series – paint-
ings and assemblages, 77 works of art,
on two floors, a total of 8,000 square feet.
Voices of Silence is composed of three
groups: Humanities Struggles, Humani-
ties Resilience, and Everlasting Spirit. For
the Soka University exhibition, Carmi
added her Carnaval paintings. They are
about a heightened sense of color, mag-
ic, sound and people engaged in revelry.
This exhilaration came from a trip to Bra-
zil and the joy of her grandchildren, play-
ing with them and becoming a child once
again, not as it was in the early years of
war-torn Israel, but in the freedom of the
American landscape. With the brightness
of each canvas, there is a subtle sugges-
tion of pretense as masked faces, promi-
nent at Carnivals, recur in overlapping
patterns.
Carmi’s latest series, Our Fragile Earth,
came about when Carmi observed how
the life force within fire-scorched fields
are driven to regenerate and soon carpet
the landscape with green leaves, shrubs,
colorful flowers, and welcoming insects
and animals. This body of work concerns
an earthquake she lived through and lo-
cal fires she observed.(Destruction and
Rebirth is a portion of Our Fragile Earth)
In a bright red orange painting she in-
cludes twigs burned in the Northridge
fire; and on the lower left are scorched
pistachios shells signifying that the earth
continually bestows a bounty of unique
fruits for nutrition and beauty. In a lu-
minous green painting, bedecked with
local plants, Carmi portrays the once de-
cayed and burned becoming green and
renewed.
Many of the pieces in Our Fragile
Earth are created from backs of stretch-
ers bars, giving a sculptural appear-
ance where viewers look into a scene as
if moving through layers of foliage. The
art mixes assemblage and sophisticated
Abstract Expressionist figurations, a for-
mat rarely applied in this manner. As
in all Carmi’s art, Destruction and Re-
birth exudes strength and energy that
the artist’s particular process demands
and her personality conveys naturally.
Our Fragile Earth is made entirely of re-
cycled matter that Carmi gathers in her
daily workday as an artist, wife, mother,
grandmother, and citizen. These creative
“inventions” are assembled from papers,
 EXHIBITIONS
ARTISTS

Rhea Carmi

old box springs, string, and assorted ma-

terials. In Carmi’s hands ordinary “stuff ”
is transformed into meaningful artistic
statements. Through manipulation of
common matter, she makes us aware of
the need to care for the earth, be mindful
of adding trash to trash, and the ensu-
ing dilemma of having to contend with
mountains, even oceans of discarded
remnants. Carmi tells of our need to
consciously consider materials that
come into and go out of our life, how
to use what is needed, how to be aware
of the effects trash has on what we can
see directly – in the smaller scope of our
personal environment -- and in what is
less apparent, but also victims of trash –
the immense areas of distant lands, sea,
and sky.
Carmi’s concern is to create art that
awakens viewers to the wonderment of
life, whether it is the magnificent and
resilient spirit of the human being or
nature. And with a touch of practical-
ity and humor, some of Carmi’s newer
works are of bright plaids as she mixes
leftover colors, giving them a recycled
life, rather than adding them to the long
list of detritus. Amazingly we see that in
the hands of an artist, the most common
substances can take on brand-new and
delightful meanings as fragility is trans-
formed into an everlasting strength.
Fortunately, Carmi’s own affable char-
acter, like her art, is lively and optimistic.
Voices of Silence and Our Fragile Earth
continue the message that the ever-last-
ing human spirit will always triumph
over voices that are silenced. And with
Rhea Carmi: (top) Untitled, 2009, wood paper pigment shells on cotton, 60” x 60” x 24”.
a caveat, Carmi shows that nature can (bottom) Barren Earth, 2009, tar, burlap, dirt, twine, and paint on 9 panels, 30” x 96”.
triumph as well. In her art, she makes us
aware of both sides of each issue; when and not allowing it to succumb to harm.
there is suffering, it can lead to joy; when Thus Carmi’s art continuously comes full Rhea Carmi's Voice of Silence series is on
there is destruction, it can be realized in circle, returning to possibilities that could display through Oct 28 at Gotthelf Art Gal-
renewal. But into these equations she silence and destroy, or heal and nurture. lery in La Jolla, CA. Our Fragile Earth will
adds the need for protection and preser- Truly the art of Rhea Carmi stands soon be exhited at Frank Picture Gallery.
vation, guarding our precious life force, apart. Its profound messages stir the soul. For more information, see rheacarmi.com.

Artists 25
EXHIBITIONS
ARTISTS

Patricia Krebs

Living in the Clouds In Her Own Words

I enjoy taking some common

expressions, such as “cultural
baggage,” “where’s your head?”
or “a free spirit” literally; they
become fun, interesting images
once I think about what they
mean if not taken as a figure of
speech. Living in the Clouds was
born from this idea, primarily
because I feel the clouds are a
good place to be when I want to
create. But then the painting be-
came more than just that. Each
of my painting contains a whole
story: to me, the little town be-
low the clouds is a cute town,
one of those places that feel very
picturesque to the visitor’s eyes.
But a small town is a whole dif-
ferent thing when you live in it;
it can become a claustrophobic
space. So, for the main character
of this piece, it seemed like the
only escape from this reality was
to go on top of the clouds. I want
to create characters who are able
to find a personal space of free-
dom, where they can be who
they want to be without being
concern of the others’ judgment.
So, this cold, black and white
little town, filled with layers of
Patricia Krebs, Living in the Clouds, 2010 acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48”.
texture and depth, is opposed to
a warm, colorful world of infi- other one, richer and more detailed,
nite possibilities where nothing that seems to come from our imagina- Patricia Krebs grew up in Buenos Aires,
has been set yet. I like showing tion. But, isn’t the world of our fantasy, Argentina. Her work has been exhibited
a monochromatic universe that our desires and our dreams, as real and throughout Los Angeles. For more informa-
we see at first sight and then an- as much of our daily life as the first? tion, visit www.patriciakrebs.com.ar.

26 C|C|A September 2010

“ABSTRACTIONS: 1990 TO 2010”
PAINTINGS BY HUGO ANDERSON

AVALANCHE OIL ON CANVAS 60X48” 2004

EMIL NELSON GALLERY

2864 COLORADO AVE
SANTA MONICA, CA 90404
310-266-9904
 JOHNHOUSHMAND
(BEAVER
TABLE)

AD

Nº 0028
GNAWED BEAVER BRANCHES WITH 3/4” GLASS TOP
72” x 48” x 13”

8687 melrose ave suite b222 los angeles ca 90069 | t 310.294.8577 | WWW.JOHNHOUSHMAND.COM