MOAH CEDAR; Ark Gallery; Chinatown
Exciting art opened all over the greater Los Angeles area this past weekend, from Lancaster to Chinatown. Monica Wyatt’s exciting mixed-media show in Lancaster, “Continuum,” drew a crowd north on the freeway to MOAH: CEDAR, curated by Jill Moniz. The adjunct gallery space to the main Museum of Art and History building, Wyatt’s lustrous work filled the new space with bursts of light and texture.
Monica Wyatt with her installation
Large-scale and site-specific, When Shadows Chase the Light is a dazzling array of 4000 acrylic globes, 10,000 nylon hairnets, 23 industrial light lenses, fishing wire and lighting, that resemble an “organic, biomorphic form.” The artist’s series of wood and rock assemblages
San Andreas Variations, along with larger-scale rock and wood sculptures are another highlight; inanimate objects imbued with life. Through March 3rd ; artist’s walk-through February 10th.
Jill Moniz, Monica Wyatt
In Chinatown, downstairs at Charlie James gallery, “It’s OK,” curated by Sacha Baumann, features seven artists in a rich exploration of adaptation. Works evoke strange plants, mysterious memories, or magical realms.
Nadege Monchera Baer’s mixed media dazzles in textures and palette; Megan Mueller places objects—here, flowers—on a flatbed scanner, distorting and duplicating. Stephen Neidich’s kinetic, steam-punk sculpture is compulsive viewing. Also impressive: Molly Segal’s lustrous, intimate dream-like landscape; Luke Whitlatch’s deep, abstract world. With Kottie Paloma and Hayley Barker; through March 3rd.
Art critic Shana Nys Dambrot with photographer Osceloa Refetoff at The Good Luck Gallery
Across the plaza at The Good Luck Gallery, a solo show of the late Andrew Frieder’s woodblock prints offered a wide range of images to an appreciative crowd, many eager to purchase the self-taught inventor and artist’s vast collection of hybrid creatures, turtles, dragons and masks. It’s a seemingly limitless panoply of work, displayed through March 11th.
Kristine Shomaker
Shomaker's art
Altadena’s Ark Gallery opened Kristine Schomaker’s intensely moving “Plus,” comprising fresh, joyful, luminous nude images. “Plus” was a spontaneous creation by the artist during a hotel stay, inspired by the light behind a frosted-glass sliding door, shot on the artist’s iPhone. The gallery was packed with an enthusiastic crowd; the changing quality of light on framed prints and suspended transparency films made the crowd linger. Through March 18th with an artist talk February 11th.
All photos by Genie Davis