OC Art Blog Tag

Prior to his upcoming show opening at Mount Saint Mary's University in Los Angeles, titled My Little Narrative, at the Jose Drudis-Biada Art Gallery from October 3rd to November 11th. The OC Art Blog had the opportunity to meet with Walpa D'Mark who's self-reflective paintings use figuration and abstraction, historical and popular references that intersect between Nicaraguan and American history and politics. D'Mark has exhibited throughout L.A., including at Track 16, Mark Moore Gallery, Coagula Curatorial, and Torrance Art Museum. Internationally, he has exhibited...

17 September, 2023 /

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...

10 September, 2023 /

The OC Art Blog sat down with some of the leadership of Orange County based nonprofit Community Engagement to discuss their programming and support of local artists. In this wide ranging interview we discuss their new pop-up gallery, The Art Space OC, on Third Street in Downtown Santa Ana. Their grants program that includes grants for local artists who have been historically excluded from the mainstream art world. And their next show featuring William Camargo, a local photographer telling stories about his Anaheim neighborhood and...

28 August, 2023 /

By Chris Hoff In his new book Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come T.J. Demos draws on radical futurisms and visions of justice-to-come emerging from the traditions of the oppressed as materialized in experimental visual cultural, new media, aesthetic practices, and social movements. His new book poses speculative questions about what comes after end-of-world narratives. Recently I had the opportunity to meet with T.J., who is the Patricia and Rowland Rebele Endowed Chair in Art History in the Department of the History of Art and Visual...

19 July, 2023 /

By Chris Hoff Recently I had a chance to speak with Berlin based artist Cassie Thornton about the hologram a feminist peer-to-peer health for a post pandemic future. In an era when capitalism leaves so many to suffer and to die, how can we take health and care back into our hands? Cassie Thornton puts forward a bold vision for revolutionary care, a viral peer-to-peer feminist health network. The premise is simple, three people, a triangle, meet on a regular basis to focus on the physical,...

07 July, 2023 /

Barbara Berk, 2000 Revolutions, 2000. Graphite on wall, tape player and recorder, slides, projector. 84” diameter. Performed at Riverside Art Museum. Barbara Berk is a curious, quiet maker who has been an active participant in the Southern California art scene for over forty years. Since 1983, she has consistently shown or performed her work in solo and group exhibitions at many of the distinguished university and college art galleries as well as numerous institutions like the Laguna Art Museum, Torrance Museum, Angels Gate Cultural Center,...

18 March, 2023 /

This Saturday night at 205 N. Broadway in Santa Ana, longtime painter and OC resident Ryan Callis will open a show of new paintings. Oh No, I Seem Very Happy!!!” opens from 6-9 Saturday Sept 3rd, and will consist of new paintings, 100 posters for sale, and an accompanying zine for the first 50+ people in attendance. The OC Art Blog caught up with Ryan to ask a few questions about the show and his work. Enjoy! Painter Ryan Callis Can you start by telling us...

02 September, 2022 /

By Chris Hoff The skin found on the tips of our fingers, is known as friction skin. Left behind fingerprints are not visible to the naked eye so they must be made visible in some way. This is the utility of fingerprint powder, it makes the invisible, visible. In the new show at CREAR Studio titled Detain & Displace. The powerful work of Alberto Lule makes use of the medium used against him, fingerprint powder, and makes the invisible, visible as well. To great effect. Alberto Lule at...

30 August, 2022 /

By Chris Hoff Nothing is true and everything is possible. – Peter Pomerantsev At this juncture, I don’t think there are many artists now that haven’t heard about a Beeple NFT going for $69 million, or a large series of arguably mediocre illustrations of a bored ape having a price of entry of 52 ether, or $210,000. I imagine this sort of news has many an artist, isolated away in their studios, wondering how they get a piece of the action and what this might mean for...

17 February, 2022 /

Q: I'm an introverted artist and it seems that the art world awards extroversion. Meaning people that are out all the time at openings and artist talks networking are more successful. How can I move from being introverted to extroverted? My career depends on it! Dear Fellow Traveler, Want to know a secret?  I’m terrified of public speaking.  The pounding heart, the drunk-dizzy-sweating-profusely kind of afraid that grips me in a vice and paralyzes me. Eventually, I somehow pull from the deepest places of belief in myself,...

06 February, 2022 /

©Amir Zaki. On Being Here: Built in 1927. Renovated in 1936, 2021. Ultrachrome Archival Photographed. 60” x 48” Framed. by Meg Linton “Photography is so much about cultivating a skill of sustained observation.” – Amir Zaki Recently, a colleague, Edward Cella, recommended I go visit the studio of Amir Zaki, a photographer he has worked with over the years located in Huntington Beach. The studio is hidden in a nondescript business complex amongst wood finishers, commercial printers, and a jet ski repair shop. Zaki met me at the...

25 January, 2022 /

By Walpa D'Mark I attended Albert Lopez Jr’s show at Crear Studio on September 4, 2021. It might seem like it’s a little too late to be talking about it, but the exhibition had many layers, and eventually it led me to think about Albert’s creative process. Full disclosure, I know Albert, we both attended Cal State Long Beach in the late 90’s, and I worked for him at OCMA in the 2010’s. Albert’s show at Crear Studio, titled “The Dollar Dance I Never Had!” featured works...

21 January, 2022 /

By Meg Linton On December 9, 2021, with some trepidation about whether to mask or not because of the new Omicron variant, I ventured out with a few friends to The Wayfarer: A House of Social Provisions in Costa Mesa to see one of my favorite young guitar-strumming song-writer poets and NPR/KCRW-described folk-punk phenom Sunny War. Opening for her was the energized Orange County band Delving, who said it was their first time playing together on stage in this iteration, and the solo artist Caitlyn Jemma...

20 December, 2021 /

By Liz Goldner Gilbert “Magu” Luján was a visionary artist who helped define and promote Chicano art. The founder of the art collective, “Los Four”—which first exhibited Chicano artwork in 1973 at UC Irvine—wrote in 1969, “I believe there is a Chicano Art form and that it has been around for many years without formalization and recognition…Most Chicanos are aware of our current new breed renaissance which has flowered many investigations, probes and introspection in most areas of our life patterns…As we affirm broad-based awareness of...

06 September, 2021 /

I recently had the opportunity to visit another exciting new space in Orange County, S/A Exhibitions. S/A Exhibitions is a nonprofit space headed up by curator Maurizzio Hector Pineda. Mr. Pineda background includes receiving his undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000. From 2001-2005 he was the owner and director of SWYS Gallery in Long Beach, CA, and has worked at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and for Regen Project in Beverly Hills. His most recent curatorial post...

14 July, 2021 /

On July 23rd the first ever D.I.Y. Film Fest will be held in Long Beach. This event will be a drive-in theater film fest celebrating independent filmmakers, community, and spiritual creativity. The films submitted will be produced and directed by mentors, students and professionals. The D.I.Y. Film Fest will also feature live music, a creation station, and food and libations. The OC Art Blog had an opportunity to ask Jocelyn Fee of Jane Free Productions a few questions about the up-coming event. We hope to...

24 June, 2021 /

Q: With COVID and all, I have felt stuck for a year now. What can I do to get unstuck? Dear Fellow Traveler, The word stuck typically brings images to my mind of being five years old, venturing out into a deliciously dirty, mostly dried-up creek behind my house—and in my quest for fun not noticing nighttime raindrops had created a form of muck, which snatched a flip flop from my foot, swallowing it whole. Ah, well I’ll abandon it there, I’ll be barefoot and free!  What’s the point in wrestling with stuck,...

16 February, 2021 /

Imagine a bright and colorful world where light pippy jazz is always playing, an assortment of soothing scents casually linger in the air, the weather is never not pleasant, and the diverse and eclectic people all around you are upbeat and friendly… This world is at your fingertips, thanks to the immersive art and design of Priscilla Moreno.  A SoCal native, Moreno grew up in Los Angeles, but now calls Long Beach home. She is a full-time artist, and has shown her vibrant and fun artwork...

13 October, 2020 /

Last month, over thirty artists from the 2020 Festival of Arts of Laguna Beach opened their private art studios and gallery venues for visitors to take a no-cost, self-guided journey through the Orange County coast in an event called “Art Along the Coast.” For two consecutive weekends, artists from San Clemente to Santa Ana shared their new art as well as works in progress to locals looking to support and connect with the art scene in their community. This was a great opportunity for both...

21 September, 2020 /

We know that reality is a construct and artistic expression is an attempt to relay one’s interpretation of that construct. Perception is everything—it is personal, how the world is viewed through one's eyes, and no two people can truly perceive reality the same way, even if those two people happen to be romantic partners. Currently, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCCA) is hosting an exhibition called “Terra Incognita,” which explores this concept by showcasing various works by five artist-couples and how despite being...

31 August, 2020 /