contemporary art Tag

Through January 15, 2024 By Liz Goldner Magnificent screen prints, many infused with electric color and Chicano symbolism, are featured in Laguna Art Museum’s Self-Help Graphics exhibition. All 78 prints by 78 artists in the show are owned by the museum. Looking back, 50 years ago, Franciscan nun Sister Karen Boccalero, along with Mexican-born, local artists Carlos Bueno, Antonio Ibáñez and others, recognized that  U.S. born Latinos, especially L.A. based Chicano artists were not being sufficiently recognized by the local and national art worlds. They collaborated with artists...

By Meg Linton Daniel Porras, Distraction and Diversion with Direction, 2020, oil on canvas, 44”x33.5” As things are opening back up, yet again, I’ve been venturing out to look at art. I wound up in San Pedro and discovered Cornelius Projects, a contemporary art space run by artist and curator Laurie Steelink who shines a light on artists living and/or working in this seaside community located on Tongva Territory. The current exhibition on view through March 26, 2022 is called DUST & WISPS and features watercolors by...

The Brea Art Gallery is a small, distinct gallery that is often overlooked; however, its current exhibition, “Chapter One,” is a reminder that it is a staple of Orange County. An inviting display of imaginative multimedia artworks can be seen from the glass outside. What lies inside is an arena of fantasy and storybook beginnings. The exhibition’s central theme is tying together the importance of imagination and narrative-based art, which shows through its display of works from many different types of mediums. Visitors who come to...

Saturday night I made it to the opening of Re:Balance at the Irvine Arts Center. All around a great show but the stand out in the show was the work of Ching Ching Chen. I wanted to write something more detailed here but for the sake of transparency, I bought a piece from the show. That's how much I liked the work. As I was standing in front of one of the pieces from the Letting Go series, I overheard a couple behind me discussing...

[caption id="attachment_6055" align="alignleft" width="349"] Pamela Diaz Martinez  |   Holy Spirit - II  |  Pastel on dura-lar[/caption] The physicist Carlo Rovelli mentioned in an interview recently that religion was a subject of interest to science but only out of respect for the religious as a group and very little scientific study has been dedicated to finding out the wellspring for a belief in “God” specifically. This aversion to exploring the subject of faith in a manner that approaches a possible "source" is not as lacking in fine art...

It is common enough to be considered a universal experience, taking place within the realms of childhood, that when the sun goes down the imagination has full reign. The shadows that exist in closets or under the bed become dense, so much so that anything a little person could possibly imagine could exist within them. Eventually our brains become trained through experience that nothing need exist out of nothing and that the world provides us plenty to think about without the aid of our imaginations....