Baking Up Bright Ideas

Detail of Nota Prop (2010) by Arthur Henderson

Well, I haven't much time to write up something clever tonight. So, instead, here's an image that I saw at the Oh Nancy "Blank Land" show, which was on exhibit at the Torrance Art Museum. It was only a two day event, closing last Tuesday.

Overall, the show was really engaging, full of interesting pieces. But I was charmed by this piece, which reminds me of a supersized Easy-Bake Oven. ;-)

So, let's have a restful Sunday evening and listen to some music.

Village Lanterne

Blues skies over Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, as I exit CoproGallery

I went all around town today. It was busy, but I had a good time. From Santa Monica to the South Bay, there is a lot of art on display to enjoy.

I'm a bit tired right now. So, here are a few photos. ;-)

Detail of Unknown Planets (2008) by Atsushi Fukui, on view at the Richard Heller Gallery

Visiting the Torrance Art Museum's Opening Night for "Between the Knowing"

Madrona Musings: Blogging for TAM

Detail of the Torrance Art Museum's entryway mural

I've been toying with the idea of starting up a second blog for a while now, one focusing on a specific topic, but I kept vacillating between ideas, incapable of sealing the deal with any of my pressing interests.

Then the idea came to me; maybe I could blog for a cultural venue that I enjoy and admire. Previously, I had noticed that the Torrance Art Museum (TAM) was in need of somebody to manage their blog. Therefore, it was a logical match; I was looking to extend my blogging efforts and they were looking for a blogger.

So, I contacted the curator, Max Presneill, and volunteered my services. After some discussion, he accepted my offer. :-)

Torrance Art Museum (TAM) Logo

I now have set up a second blog, Madrona Musings, which is dedicated to the events and artists associated with the Torrance Art Museum. It will not be as frequently updated as this blog, but I intend to have a few posts each week, including artist spotlights, critical considerations, and general information sharing. It'll be fun. ;-)

Enjoy!!!

To Live and Paint in LA: Opening Night

Opening Night at the Torrance Art Museum's exhibit "To Live and Paint in LA"


Just a brief post.

Yesterday night was the opening for "To Live and Paint in LA" at the Torrance Art Museum, featuring the work of about thirty Los Angeles-based artists. The premise is to explore a broad sampling of emerging and contemporary painters, through which one may discern various styles and aesthetic trends that characterize the creative vibe of today's Angeleno art scene.

I was only able to pay a quick visit and snap a few shots, but there was a good range of styles, with many distinct artistic voices. It's my hope to pay the TAM a return visit in a few days and take a good, long appraisal of the exhibit.

Many are the pieces that caught my eye; I'd like to share them with you. ;-)

Detail of Les Femmes D'Alger #14 (2011) by Asad Faulwell

Enjoy!!!

South Bay Focus: Torrance Wrap

End of Day (2011) by Michelle Ardeshiri


The Torrance Art Museum's exhibit, South Bay Focus 2011, closed yesterday. It was a fun show, lots of interesting art, and much to think about in regards to curation and the premise of a community art gallery. Overall, I feel that this year has been good down here in Torrance, finishing with artistic gems from our local artists.

This blog owes a huge debt of gratitude to Torrance. Although I've got plenty of interests and opinions, I have a hard time focusing on a specific topic, a fact about which regular readers are well aware, but having a thought-provoking art institute along my daily travel route kept the fine arts as a regular topic on my mind. When I finally got Paideia into regular production, back in April, covering art shows became a prominent feature.

Have all of the 2011 TAM exhibitions been excellent? No, but the approach to curation was always worth considering. Given concerns of budget and resources, availability of artists, and community expectations, the manner in which Torrance has experimented with its exhibits has shown ingenuity and innovation. Special credit goes to the curator, Max Presneill.

Detail of Cascading Red (2011) by Nicolas Kolesnikow

I'm very thankful for the various exhibitions that have been displayed at Torrance this year; I look forward to next year's offerings. From Gateway: Japan to South Bay Focus, it's been fun.

Lamentation Dance of the Sponges

Untitled (2011) by Olga Lah, three sculptural forms constructed out of sponges

Among the many interesting pieces on exhibition at the Torrance Art Museum's South Bay Focus 2011, one of the most intriguing is Olga Lah's Untitled sponge sculptural group. Although totally abstract, the forms have an anthropomorphic quality, as if they are in a kinetic dialectical relationship with each other, perhaps dancing or fighting.

This feeling is intensified as one walks around the set, or between them. The way they lean or bend creates a sense of interactive engagement, both with the viewer and within the group.

The colors and orientation of the individual sponges that comprise the forms also lead the viewers eye into the motion, a circular dance from one to another.

Untitled (2011) by Olga Lah; sponge orientation and color create a visual rhythm.

It's easy to overlook this work, to brush it off as gimmicky or banal, but, in deeper consideration, the forms have wonderful linear and spatial cadence. Likewise, the color selections are not arbitrary choices but deliberate utilizations to enhance the perception of motion and emotion. It's a deceptively complex work.

Opening Night at South Bay Focus

Olga Lah's Untitled sculptures made out of sponges were a crowd favorite.

As promised, I attended the Torrance Art Museum's Opening Night for their current exhibit, South Bay Focus, featuring works from local artists. It was a fun night.

The exhibition's Juror, Carl Berg, led a tour of the displayed artworks. Given the extreme range of styles and technique on display in this show, it was interesting to think about the underlying curatorial selection process which brought together such an interesting variety into a coherent exhibition. I was impressed with the results.

Ibex (aka Rock Bock) (2010) by Andrea Kitts Senn

I'll have to pay another visit to take a leisurely, quiet viewing of the show. Fun stuff!!!

South Bay Focus

Ranchiro Palas Verdes Lighthouse on Cliff (2010) by Elizabeth Hestevold


Throughout the year, the Torrance Art Museum has featured engaging exhibitions from artists across the globe. The curation has been aggressive in creating an aesthetically stimulating vision for this small, community venue.

It's been a fine series of shows, successfully engaging local art enthusiasts in considering the potentialities of curation within the civic context. I have been impressed and inspired by both the process and the results of this artistic exploration.

However, one of the critical roles of a "community" museum is to showcase the workings of "community" artists. And that's the premise of South Bay Focus 2011. Local artists have been selected to express their own artistic vision and, as an aggregate, to delineate the "South Bay" style.

South Bay Focus will be on exhibit at the Torrance Art Museum until December 16.

I haven't been able to give the show a full viewing just yet, as the official opening isn't until this Saturday, but my quick glimpse revealed plenty of interesting works. I'm hoping to attend the opening reception this weekend to get a better view of the exhibition. It'll be lots of fun ;-)

The Way of Rain (2011) by Rency Punnoose


Enjoy!!!

Between the Blocks and Buildings

Build Boom Bust (2011) by Brian Cooper

The Torrance Art Museum is currently showing Cities: Visionary Places, curated by Camilla Boemio and featuring a wide variety of artist. The premise is based upon the exploration of the Urban Streetscape as a source of aesthetic inspiration, be it from the Beautiful, the Banal, or the Sublime. The works range in style and form including video works alongside paintings and photography. I found it to be an interesting collection.

My favorite piece on exhibit is Jeremy Kidd's Ruby City 1, which offers upon a dream-like image of nocturnal downtown Los Angeles. The photo seems to portray a twisting space, imbued by a subtle crimson light. Without the presence of people within the weird urban scene, it has a haunting presence.

Detail of Ruby City 1 (2008) by Jeremy Kidd

I had recently seen some of Jeremy Kidd's work at the Leslie Sacks Contemporary show, Perception, in late June. His work really challenges the viewer's conceptions of spatial arrangement. They seem to lose their stability; the cityscape becomes "ungrounded."

But there are many other interesting pieces in this show.

Wherein the Twin Visage Appears

body 15, after Michael Joyce's "ivory" (2011) by Alexandra Grant

I've been thinking about the relationship between text and image recently. This line of contemplation started a few months back when I viewed the "Ed Ruscha: On the Road" exhibit at the Hammer Museum. I found the selection of Kerouac's text paired with Ruscha's painted patterns or imagery to be an interesting combination of the textual and pictorial.

A few weeks later, I attended the opening of the Torrance Art Museum's annual group show, Baker's Dozen III, wherein a saw a couple paintings by Alexandra Grant that gave me another example of text and image combination. Like Ruscha's work, these works are inspired by a literary text. In this case, Grant is expressing her aesthetic response to the poetry of Michael Joyce, specifically a haiku cycle.

Here's a sample of the work:

thigh [body 13]

we have come to this

hollow where the mist lingers

along the narrows

It's an interesting piece. The full text can be read at Grant's website page for the "Body Series". In any case, that is the haiku. Here is her response to it:

body 13, after Michael Joyce's "thigh" (2009) by Alexandra Grant

A very intense image!

The arcs, word bubbles, colors, and line patterns combine to form a visual commentary. They create a mood, a vibe, that elaborates upon the poetry. Specifically, the text become visual elements of the interior abstract landscape, depicting the state of the painter's inspiration. It feels as though this is an abstraction of the brain, with its two symmetric hemispheres processing the words from literal signifier to emotive imagery.

Gateway: Japan Revisited

BIO by Yuki Yoshida

Gateway: Japan is closing tomorrow at the Torrance Art Museum. If you can swing by to check it out, I highly recommend it. I've already discussed a few works in a previous post, but there are many more works worth checking out.

For instance, Yuki Yoshida's BIO is an intriguing piece. On my first visit, I didn't give it much attention, but upon a second viewing I found it enthralling. These figures caught amber-like in stasis are fascinating. They have a slightly Lovecraftian quality that captures my imagination. Check out this vid:

Likewise, Akira Shikiya's Get Smart is a charming work that I overlooked upon my first visit. Here are a few images:

Finally, you really don't want to miss Nobuhito Nishigawara's Capitoline Donkey, do you? ;-)

LOL!!! Anyways, I really enjoyed this show.

Here's a link to the Torrance Art Museum's website.

Here's Nobuhito Nishigawara's website.

Enjoy!!!

Gateway: Japan at the Torrance Art Museum

It's easy to overlook small community museums and art galleries. The common image that many art enthusiasts have of such local small venues is one of being a location in which community amateurs get to display their earnest but unsophisticated aesthetic expressions. It's where the Watercolor Club holds their annual exhibition. The Torrance Art Museum is "Evidence A" in disproving this elitist misconception.

Gateway: Japan is a compelling show with an impressive range of pieces. The show's premise to to give a contextual comparison between contemporary Japanese and Japanese-American artists. With 21 different artists on display, there is plenty to assess and consider. Overall, I did a decent job of discerning the American from the Japanese, but a few pieces totally threw me. The globalized nature of contemporary aesthetic trends and influences has led to a fascinating synergy that transcends any attempt at localization.

Here are a few pieces that especially caught my attention:

Sumo Wrestling in Clay, Jocelyn Foye. Performance with clay, rubber casting artifact.

This is an intriguing work. At the exhibit's opening, a Sumo wrestling demonstration was performed upon a clay ground. After the event, Foye made a rubber cast of the impressions left upon the clay. The result is an engaging work that captures the energy and dynamic nature of the wrestling. My photo doesn't do it justice.

The Lookout, Macha Suzuki. Mixed Media.

This piece made me LOL. It has a serious pose, position and title that contrast with the whimsy of its appearance, provoking both amusement and confusion from the viewer. An engagingly ridiculous little figure.

Capitoline Donkey, Nobuhito Nishigawara. Clay, Iron, Bronze and Acrylic.

Another humorous work. No Romulus or Remus here! I'm a sucker for Classical references. ;-)

Yeah, I could go on and on, but you really ought to check it out in person. Here's a link to the Torrance Art Museum website.

And here are links to the websites of:

Jocelyn Foye

Nobuhito Nishigawara

Macha Suzuki

I highly recommend Gateway: Japan.

Enjoy!!!