New American Paintings Pacific Coast Issue #169

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CONTENTS

7

EDITOR’S NOTE Steven Zevitas

9

COMMENTS Michael Wilson, Writer & Critic

11

NOTEWORTHY Juror’s and Editor’s Picks

13

JUROR’S SELECTIONS Pacific Coast Review 2023

177

EDITOR’S SELECTIONS Pacific Coast Review 2023

203

PRICING GUIDE Asking prices for selected works

169

Villalba p159

Dec/Jan

EDITOR’S NOTE

The juror for this issue of New American Paintings was Jennifer King, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and she did a tremendous job. In the following pages, you will be introduced to an extraordinary range of emerging artists and reintroduced to a few West Coast stalwarts, including past cover artist Alex Becerra. I want to thank Michael Wilson for contributing an essay to this issue. We have had the pleasure of working with him for more than a decade now and his insights are always welcome. Lastly, I want to thank the artists included and our loyal subscribers for their patience with the release of Issue #169, which was originally set to be in the world this past December. My hope is that New American Paintings will be back on its traditional release schedule by mid-2024.

It would not be hyperbolic to say that Issue #169 looks, feels, and, perhaps, even smells like Los Angeles—and not the glossy, sun-kissed L.A. that the city’s pervasive entertainment industry provides. Rather, the other, more interesting one: The one which encompasses hundreds of square miles of long city blocks that are home to countless micro-communities and an ethnically diverse population of nearly four million individuals. I have had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in Los Angeles over the past two decades, and while the glitz and glam might be intoxicating for an East Coast boy, the city’s heartbeat derives from its streets.

7

Close to two thirds of the artists in this issue call Los Angeles their home, and more than a quarter of them are of Latino/Hispanic origin. Individuals of this ethnic group comprise close to fifty percent of Los Angeles County’s population, which constitutes a firm majority. I am thrilled to see so many painters from this community in Issue #169. Over the past decade, a great awakening has occurred in the art world—one which has seen the emergence and celebration of many artists from formally marginalized communities. The content and diversity of this issue is a testament to that much needed adjustment.

In his socially engaged paintings, Nery Gabriel Lemus presents us with fragments of L.A.’s architectural landscape, replete with graffiti and other cultural signifiers, as he critiques traditional definitions of race and difference.

Stephanie Mercado’s current body of work focuses on restaurants as a way of exploring labor, manual work, and empowerment. First generation Mexican American artist Francisco Palomares captures the ever-shifting panorama of Los Angeles in paintings that celebrate the vibrancy and beauty of the Latino community. Ramón Vargas draws from his personal experiences and produces work that speaks to the lives of Brown communities through the use of symbolism and surrealism.

These artists, and others in these pages, collectively tell us a lot about the city of Los Angeles and the diverse communities that call the city their home.

Enjoy the issue!

Steven Zevitas Publisher & Editor

8

COMMENTS

MICHAEL WILSON Writer & Critic

THE ONLY CONSTANT After New York, Los Angeles is, reportedly, the city that has been destroyed most often in movies and TV shows—thirty-six times by some counts, though even that number seems conservative. Yet while the real-world metropolis remains extant, it is of course subject to constant change.

The art gathered in this edition of New American Paintings reflects a shared concern with patterns of decay and regeneration, the place from which much of it originates. This emphasis might be divided into two double-barreled categories: the formal-natural—denoting an abstract approach to the processes at hand and a focus on the physical world—and the personal-political—referring to the tracing of urban rise and fall through the development and often difficult coexistence of diverse psychologies and cultures.

In her intricate paintings and drawings, Rachel Borenstein might be said to embody the first of these two strands, exploring as she does the process of decomposition by reflecting on the prosaic objects and textures that surround her studio in L.A.’s Highland Park. Many of Borenstein’s works simulate the effects of crumpling, folding, or knotting, reminding us of her subjects’ innate vulnerability. Picturing eyes, leaves, and other subjects that seem to hover between life and death, the artist demonstrates how the intimate and ephemeral quality of memory is echoed in larger changes to our shared visible realm.

9

The paintings of Patricia Iglesias Peco, another Angeleno, also focus on organic structures—specifically, gardens teeming with flora and fauna, the swirling energy of which images a cycle of growth and decomposition that expands even into a place that tends not to be associated with green space. Iglesias Peco’s work is informed, too, by the contrast between such processes and the constructed world of human language; while her interest in flowers is directed, in part, toward what she has characterized as their aggressive sexuality, there is a joyful quality to her vision that goes against expectations of change as inherently negative or entropic.

Flowers are key subjects of Johanna St. Clair’s paintings as well—aiming to strike at the heart of “the way the world is organized,” she paints their forms with beguiling directness, while also looking inward to examine her own place and perception. Here again growth is equated with change and change with lived reality. Michele Foyer, for her part, aims to represent a world in flux through more abstract means: painting, cutting, and conjoining shaped sheets of paper in expansive clusters that suggest the layers of experience and knowledge, which constitute individual psyches—and which are as subject to breakdown and reconstitution as any city. Foyer also paints each work’s reverse side, producing a hidden layer of color that is reflected by the walls behind and around it and is highly mutable in its vulnerability to the subtlest of changes in ambient light.

In the paintings of Christine Turner, meanwhile, formal abstraction represents a path to the exploration of literal and metaphorical blind spots in which the mechanics of vision are altered to reveal instances of destabilization. The

“The art gathered in this edition of New American Paintings reflects a shared concern with patterns of decay and regeneration...” stuttered repetition of certain shapes in Turner’s recent paintings suggests a kind of movement that is only under partial control, each composition encapsulating, perhaps, the struggle between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

The conflict played out in the work of stephanie mei huang is fueled by a rather different set of oppositions, one that arises from the complexities and contradictions of globalization and its ongoing influence on culture and identity. Here is where the idea of collapse and resurgence manifests itself in the context of not only our material and visual surroundings, but also of our ideological and technological present. By inhabiting “parafictional avatars” with quasi-autobiographical roots, huang questions the role of displacement in changing perceptions of physical and psychic subjecthood. As the child of mechanical engineers, they are also dedicated to analogue mechanics, resulting in work that stresses objects’ functional imperfections.

Similarly unsettling are the paintings of Christopher Paul Jordan, whose visions of loss, intimacy, and disintegration seem to hover on the brink of self-annihilation. In their folded surfaces and subtly damaged textures, Jordan’s works hint at the long arcs and gradual entropies of personal and cultural recall. Kate Mosher Hall, too, produces images that refuse to solidify into completeness or finality. Shifting between figuration and a concentration on the tools and raw materials of imagemaking, she utilizes use of various strains of illusionism, only to then pull the rug from under the viewer. Using acrylic and charcoal, along with hand applied and silkscreened

pigment, Hall produces moiré patterns and simulates the effects of halftone printing and televisual grain—all to obfuscating, disorienting effect.

While these works admit a certain psychological and aesthetic darkness, the paintings of Kate O’Connor apply a lighter, brighter palette and mood to the rendering of small, often humorous moments from everyday life. In their teasing blend of reality and fantasy, O’Connor’s understated images present dissolution as something joyful and unpredictability as a vital—if reliably confusing—force.

Finally, Jake Sheiner’s paintings, too, reveal a certain bemused wonder at the oddity of 21st century scenarios and surfaces and return us to the distinctive look and feel of the American megalopolis from which they are derived. Beginning with his own snapshots of Los Angeles and its suburbs, Sheiner defines the condition of imminent collapse in vivid scenarios and details that represent ground common to the built environment and those individuals who call it home.

Iglesias Peco O’Connor Sheiner

p70 p109 p126

10

NOTEWORTHY

JUROR’S PICK: NERY GABRIEL LEMUS

p85

At first glance, Nery Gabriel Lemus’s watercolors may appear to be unassuming scenes drawn from everyday life. But viewers who are willing to spend a little more time engaged in close looking are rewarded with the quiet, compelling details the artist incorporates into his works. Lemus’s careful renderings of elements, such as a scribble of graffiti, a sign on the side of a building, or a word carved into the paddle of a cactus, are his way of smuggling fragments of language into his compositions—secret messages waiting to be discovered by the perceptive observer.

EDITOR’S PICK: RAMÓN VARGAS

p151

There is a lot to unpack in Vargas’s paintings; they are complex, both in terms of their pictorial structure and meaning. A native of Los Angeles, Vargas draws upon personal experiences to investigate the cultural realities of Brown communities. There is an intimacy to his subject matter. Vargas grants the viewer access to himself, his friends, and family members in spaces that are highly personal.

The paintings are not documentary, however; they are filled with an agitated, surreal unease, which, combined with heavy doses of symbolism, allows Vargas to explore interpersonal relationships, tradition, and identity.

SELECTED ARTISTS: PACIFIC COAST REVIEW 2023

JUROR’S SELECTIONS: ALEX BECERRA RACHEL BORENSTEIN AYIN ES MICHELE FOYER STEVE GAVENAS QUINN GIRARD SHYAMA GOLDEN ABEL GUZMÁN KYNDACEE HARRIS GLENN ALEXÁNDER HERNANDEZ STEPHANIE MEI HUANG PATRICIA IGLESIAS PECO SAJ ISSA CHRISTOPHER PAUL JORDAN JELBERT KARAMI NERY GABRIEL LEMUS AMY MACKAY STEPHANIE MERCADO KATE MOSHER HALL HÉCTOR MUÑOZ-GUZMÁN KATE O’CONNOR FRANCISCO PALOMARES WENDY PARK MICHELLE RAMIN JAKE SHEINER STEPHANIE SHERWOOD JOHANNA ST. CLAIR MATT TOLEDO CHRISTINE TURNER RUPY C. TUT RAMÓN VARGAS EMILIO VILLALBA CAMERON TYZZER WILSON CHELSEA RYOKO WONG GUIGEN ZHA

EDITOR’S SELECTIONS:

MORTEZA KHAKSHOOR HAYLEY QUENTIN NATALIE STRAIT BREA WEINREB SUNG JIK YANG

Wong p169

JUROR’S SELECTIONS

Artists are presented in alphabetical order.

Artist biographies have been edited to prioritize recent highlights.

Pricing Guide can be found on p203.

ALEX BECERRA

alex@alexbecerrastudio.com @alex.smells

b. 1989 Piru, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Alex Becerra approaches painting with the aim to summon bodily responses, enrolling the viewer in an experience that links vision with the emotional body. Using oil paint in copious quantities, Becerra builds dense surfaces and pictures with raucous color, gesture, and images. Often, Becerra’s paintings have an element of montage; many moments in time are layered into a single painting, reflecting the cacophonous and disjointed scroll and distractions of contemporary life. His works evoke a history of modern European painting—specifically German Neo-expressionism—as well as the aesthetic and cultural iconography of Mexican American lowrider culture.

This broad range of references and interpretations reflects Becerra’s position as a Los Angeles artist weaving together the lived experiences of this vibrant environment and a deep investment in grappling with the historical stakes of painting, in tandem with the shifting values of contemporary art.

2011

BFA, Otis College of Design, Los Angeles, CA Solo Exhibitions

2022

Pleasure Paintings, Karma Int., Zürich, Switzerland Descarga Heavy, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA Garage Fanfare, One Trick Pony Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2020

Storefront Show, Karma Int., Zürich, Switzerland

2019

Alex Becerra: La Nueva Onda, Karma Int., Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2022 2021

Tamo aqui (we here), Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico Clay Pop, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA This is America, Kunstraum Potsdam, Germany

2020

Sympathetic Magic, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA

2015

Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic L.A., PIASA, Paris, France Represented by Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA; Dallas, TX; Seoul, South Korea Karma International, Los Angeles, CA; Zürich, Switzerland

La Gente Random II oil on linen, 83 x 71 inches

16

BECERRA

La Novia Hippie oil and acrylic on canvas, 76 x 99.5 inches

17

Descarga Heavy oil and acrylic on canvas, 98.5 x 82.5 inches

18

BECERRA

The Worst of Classical Easel Painting Oil oil on canvas, 83 x 98 inches

19

Que Dolce El Momento (Chompin) oil on canvas, 64 x 64 inches

20

RACHEL BORENSTEIN

rachelborenstein.com @r_borenstein

b. 1989 Rochester, MI | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

For the past several years, I have been making work based on observations inside my Highland Park studio and the surrounding landscape, shifting between working close up and from a great distance. In my drawing and painting practice, I create layered images that chart history, memory, and erasure over time. I am drawn towards imagery that depicts processes of decomposition and decay, such as dying plants and fading photographs. Even when I am working from objects in my studio, I am influenced by the scenery around me where I work. The long hot summers and brief periods of growth, dry crumbling hillsides, and vast folding hills are reflected back through the precarious nature of my subject matter. These objects and landscapes mirror the ways in which the natural environment balances the processes of life and death. In essence, my art seeks to reach across the divide between the intimate and the vast, the tangible and the abstract.

2018

MFA, University of California, Irvine (UCI), Irvine, CA

2011

BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD Solo Exhibitions

2018

Memory Palace, Thesis Exhibition, UCI, Irvine, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Reflections, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York City, NY Plum Line Residency: Finalists Exhibition, Phase Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022

A Line and a Long Gaze, Phase Gallery,

2021

A Line and a Long Gaze, Phase Gallery,

Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles, CA Kindred, with Technicolor Skies, Los Angeles, CA 2019

sluice over the braids sweet forming, Eastside International, Los Angeles, CA

Cosmic Zoom Micron on paper, 4 x 5 inches

22

BORENSTEIN

Elegy for Crab Micron on paper, 8 x 9 inches

23

Votive Foot Micron on paper, 4.5 x 6 inches

24

AYIN ES

310.828.6410 (Craig Krull Gallery) ayin@esart.com esart.com @ayin_es_art

b. 1968 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Joshua Tree, CA Solo Exhibitions

I am a storyteller, a trauma survivor, a transformer, a vulnerable child, and, at times, bulletproof. I am an onlooker of the present day, experimenting with my own subconsciousness, yet I also revisit the past to reclaim ownership over it.

In doing so, I reveal to myself the capability to rewrite new futures.

2022

This Land, Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

2017

The Exodus Project, Lancaster Museum of Art,

2015

Exodus, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA

As a transqueer artist, I am attuned to living authentically and not playing by earthly norms. Cathartic is this candid theory of personal transparency, these abstracted nightmares of redemption. I address what is before me and what is important to me: the life I am living, the life I have lived, and the ground beneath my feet.

2010

Much Less About You, George Billis Gallery,

Lancaster, CA

Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions 2022

Human Natures, Lancaster Museum of Art,

2017

Chapters, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA

Lancaster, CA 2015

Wynn Newhouse Awards Exhibition, Palitz Lubin House Gallery, Syracuse University, New York, NY 7,567 mi, Jerusalem Bienniale, Achim Hasid Complex, Jerusalem, Israel Collections Beth Rudin DeWoody, Los Angeles, CA J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, CA National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Represented by Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

She Rose from the Bed (Then onto the Couch) oil on birch wood panel, 24 x 30 inches

26

ES

Disorderly Conduct oil on gessoboard, 16 x 20 inches

27

Shabbot Dinner Abandon oil on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches

28

MICHELE FOYER

mefoyer@gmail.com michelefoyer.com @michelefoyer

b. San Francisco, CA | lives in San Francisco, CA Education

In a world constantly in flux, how do we know, perceive, and become?

I am intrigued by the way that diverse times, places, and modes of organizing experiences are gathered into a single object, idea, or person to form an often-tenuous aggregate.

In my sculptural paintings neither color nor shape constitute a stable, preexisting ground. They emerge concurrently in an intuitive and iterative process where I fold, paint, layer, cut, and bind pieces of paper in an unset sequence.

The intrinsic movement of color, as if in a dream of Houdini, finds an opening outward.

The works float in a glow of color reflected on the wall from the painted reverse side. Paradoxically, this immaterial, changing light constitutes the ‘ground’ for the piece. The glow—best seen at the sides—shifts in differing conditions. Curling elements, flaps, and collaged patches reveal and obscure hidden colors; they simultaneously encourage multiple relationships and offer many ways to experience the work.

Colors flirt and go for walks. Sensations build, multiply, and flow.

2011

MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA Residencies

2023

Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY

2022

Morris Graves Foundation, Loleta, CA

2016

Lucid Arts Foundation, Inverness, CA Solo Exhibitions

2021

Color Travels, The Fourth Wall, Oakland, CA

2019

Errant Charms, Imply Art Program, Burlingame, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

A Good Jawn (online), White Columns, New York, NY a clearing, NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA New Painting (online), Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2022

Turning the Page, Sykes Gallery, Millersville University, Millersville, PA All You Is Brimming, GearBox Gallery, Oakland, CA

2021

Weave, Bundle, Cut and Layer: Artists with Material Instincts, Root Division, San Francisco, CA Represented by White Columns, New York, NY

Everything for the Travelers acrylic, ink, linen tape, and paper, 24 x 21.5 x 2 inches

30

FOYER

Rambling, We #2 acrylic, ink, linen tape, and paper, 92 x 68 x 4 inches Given acrylic, ink, linen tape, and paper, 88 x 82 x 3 inches

31

32

STEVE GAVENAS

steve@stevegavenas.com stevegavenas.com @stevegavenas

b. 1955 Boston, MA | lives in South Pasadena, CA Education

A squirming knot of journeys and relationships – many birthed from random occurrences. I’m a father, husband, vagabond, fisherman, diligent businessperson, lazy anti-capitalist, teacher, student, itinerant planet-dweller… I am drawn to dichotomies and juxtapositions, patterns and layers, snarly swirling webs, puzzles... Still trying to find more meaning in life and in art, and I don’t take myself too seriously.

2011

MFA, ArtCenter College of Design (ACCD), Pasadena, CA

2003

BFA, Corcoran College of Art and Design (CCAD),

My work reflects my suspicions, theories, myths, absurdities, and concerns about futures in art and life. I use cartoonish imagery and often use black and white or monochrome to heighten the effect. Often, I begin deliberately but let the process take over to see where it goes... Lately I’ve been combining phrases and imagery. Sometimes I’m obsessed by an image and strive for some words that resonate somehow – other times a phrase gets stuck in my skull and leads the way. Some combinations are enigmatic, and some feel in a way like little openended advertisements for questions, admonitions, hopes – often self-deprecating.

I call it antigravitas.

Washington, DC 1989

MBA, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

1985

BA, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

1980

AA, Miami Dade College, Miami, FL

2017

Biological Speculation, 7x7, Los Angeles, CA

2010

Moebius Trip, MFA Thesis Show, ACCD, Pasadena, CA

2003

Feel Free, BFA Thesis Show, Gallery 31, CCAD,

Solo Exhibitions

Washington, DC Selected Group Exhibitions 2015

ARTillery, Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Mesa, AZ

2011

Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2009

The Blackwelder Show, Los Angeles, CA

2006

Black and White, Washington School of Photography, North Bethesda, MD

Languorous Vicissitudes acrylic on canvas, 15 x 18 inches

34

GAVENAS

(I) Boil the Ocean acrylic, marker, and charcoal on paper, 46 x 60 inches

35

Overworked Underconsidered acrylic and ink on paper, 46 x 60 inches

36

QUINN GIRARD

quinnlgc@gmail.com quinngirard.com @quinnlucasgirard

b. 1998 Berkeley, CA | lives in Oakland, CA Education

Quinn Girard is an emerging painter and sculptor whose work addresses and combines a wide variety of topics, including industrialization, technology, and mythology, as well internet aesthetics and cultures. His current work is primarily concerned with themes of re-enchantment, folklore, and animism. It explores how these older worldviews can be applied to present day technologies and environments and provides speculative frameworks through which to view the contemporary world. These themes are rendered via a playful style of cartoon-abstraction influenced by the history of Bay Area Funk art, underground comix, and the Mission School.

2020

BFA, California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco, CA Solo Exhibitions

2020

End Of Ground, Isabelle Percy West Gallery, Oakland, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

It’s Alive, Good Mother Gallery, Oakland, CA The de Young Open, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

2022

Celebrity Art Show, Little Raven Gallery,

2021

Summer Rot, Peanuts Gallery, Toronto,

2020

Number 3, Art Attack SF, San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, CA Ontario, Canada

By Yourself With Everyone, Good Mother Gallery, Oakland, CA

Edge of Feeld acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches

38

GIRARD

Two Hungry Caterpillars Find Themselves as Last in Line of Defense Against Emergence of Minor Glyphosphate Demon acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

39

Blood Bank acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 inches

40

GIRARD

41

Clearcutters acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches

42

SHYAMA GOLDEN

213.369.0646 (Micki Meng) shyamagolden.com @shyamagolden

b. 1983 College Station, TX | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

My current works are populated with a cast of characters which includes vine-covered trees suggestive of human archetypes, Sri Lankan yakkas from exorcism rituals, and self-portraiture. They are set in a parallel dimension of Los Angeles that exists in my mind—but much like the real place, it is littered with trash and multiple versions of myself locked in existential struggle. The narratives in the work tend to be autobiographical renderings of my emotional landscape. They are intended to capture the reality of a feeling, giving form to an ongoing process of reinvention and rebirth, synchronized with a world undergoing its own social and political transformations.

2004

BFA, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX Solo Exhibitions

2022

Incarnation, Micki Meng, San Francisco, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

The Foreigners, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka

2022

Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA A Land of All Possibilities, Trotter&Sholer, New York City, NY Collections Dangxia Art Space, Beijing, China Represented by Micki Meng, San Francisco, CA

Deva Shuni oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

44

GOLDEN

Carry On oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches After the Rains oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

45

46

GOLDEN

47

Incarnation oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches Intertwined oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

48

ABEL GUZMÁN

abelguzman777@gmail.com abelguzman.com @soy_abelito

b. 1988 Woodstock, IL | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

My figurative drawings pull from ancestral folklore, family history, and queer autobiography, and they are set against the larger backdrop of Mexican American heritage. In contrast to traditional white backgrounds, I use brown craft paper and amate, the paper of pre-colonized Aztecs made from fig trees, channeling the ingenious customs which bind us to the earth, sun, and my queer ancestors.

In kinship with the brujería (“witchcraft”) of my great-grandmother, my practice is further guided by the magic rituals of the unknown. Drawing—a repetitive, solo act—allows me to tap into a pre-colonial mindset, free of the racialized anxieties of the present. My color field drawings of repetitive, meditative lines are made through a trance-like practice, similar to posesión (“possession”).

My narrative drawings reclaim traditional iconography of Mexican machismo in anachronistic tableaus that center the Brown queer body, capturing the simultaneous longing and lust of queer love in the diaspora.

2014

MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Chicago, IL

2011

BFA, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL Solo Exhibitions

2023

serás más macho, la BEAST gallery, Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Big Time Sensuality, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Of the Muck, la BEAST gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022

The Object Lounge, Collar Works, Troy, NY

2019

Velvet Ropes, 0.0.la, Los Angeles, CA

2018

Gødbottom, INFERNO, New York, NY

2015

BMI, Chicago Urban Art Society, Chicago, IL Prism Walls, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL

no se dio cuenta de su propio mal presagio colored pencil, crayon, and marker on brown paper, 60 x 28 inches

50

GUZMÁN

ofrenda a la luna colored pencil, crayon, and marker on brown paper, 29 x 26 inches

51

ofrenda al sol colored pencil, crayon, and marker on brown paper, 29 x 26 inches

52

KYNDACEE HARRIS

kyndacee@gmail.com kyndacee.com @kyndacee

b. 1986 Inglewood, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

I was born and raised in a family of picture framers with parents who only sold Black art. This sparked an obsession with capturing my people—friends, family, and even myself—starting as young as nine years old. Having grown up surrounded by art in my parents’ shop and from watching, perhaps, way too many movies, I understood that by framing a single moment in a certain way you could tell a complete story. This love for economic storytelling led me to screenwriting and copywriting, but over time I used fewer words and began to paint pictures. A lot of my work is based on photographs I captured as a young girl, as well as more universal coming-of-age moments, like going to the mall with a young love or having to sit still for a family portrait.

Imagemaking and painting have created a portal where I can engage with my younger self, now as a woman who has the power to interpret and express herself more fully.

2008

BA, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, CA

Valley Girls acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

54

HARRIS

55

United (self-portrait) acrylic on paper, 14 x 17 inches Early 2000s acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 inches

56

HARRIS

57

Haven’t Given Up Yet acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 inches

58

GLENN ALEXÁNDER HERNÁNDEZ

glennalexanderhernandez@gmail.com @glenn.hernandez_

b. 1980 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Fremont, CA Education

My work revolves around the theme of losing control, which permeates both my subject choices and my creative process.

I often depict my immediate surroundings as the central focus in my paintings.

The suburban neighborhoods where I work are in constant conflict with the natural world which surrounds them. Similarly, the figures in my recent work grapple with gaining mastery over their genuine selves—whether physically or emotionally.

This theme also extends to my studio practice. I invest only a few seconds in sketching, while color studies mainly serve to build muscle memory, and they are sometimes ignored for the sake of immediacy.

Working from memory, as layers accumulate on canvas or paper, I realize I am not fully in control. Moving forward necessitates letting go, adding an element of uncertainty that makes my practice both challenging and exhilarating.

2002

BA, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN Solo Exhibitions

2023

Glenn Alexander Hernandez: Works on Paper, Colo Colo Gallery, New Bedford, MA

Seated Figure oil and alkyd on paper, 20 x 20 inches

60

HERNÁNDEZ

Tobogan Gigante oil and alkyd on flax linen, 36 x 36 inches

61

Niles Traintracks oil and alkyd on flax linen, 36 x 36 inches

62

STEPHANIE MEI HUANG

stephaniemeihuang@gmail.com stephaniemei.com @apesh1t_3atsh1t

b. 1994 Wausau, WI | lives in Los Angeles, CA

stephanie mei (玫) huang (黄丹妮) is an interdisciplinary artist. They use a diverse range of media and strategies, including film and video, installation, social interventions, sculpture, writing, and painting. They see slippery, chameleonic identity as a form of mimetic infiltration: a soft power reversal within hard architectures of power. Born and raised by a family of mechanical engineers, huang is an auto-industry baby; they are particularly dedicated to analog forms of mechanics, refusing haptic loss, vision, and supervision, and to stress the intimacy, imperfection, tactility, and functionality of objects, vehicles, and machination. huang’s work finds its roots in globalization, absence, and the role of displacement in changing perceptions of transnationalism, memory, subjecthood, dis/ability, temporal “drag,” chronic/illness, mimicry, and animality. A core examination of their work is bearing witness to the aftereffects of globalization through inhabiting new embodied and synthetic configurations—parafictional avatars: extended myths both woven together and ruptured by autobiography.

How does an avatar’s presence have the capacity to disarrange systems of prediction based upon alterity and threat?

Education 2020

MFA, California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, CA

2016

BA, Scripps College, Claremont, CA Residencies

2021

The Whitney Museum, New York, NY Solo Exhibitions

2022

how to hobble a young horse, PULPO GALLERY,

2021

(self portraits as) neither donkey nor horse, Hauser &

Murnau, Germany Wirth, Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions 2023

Imagined Wests, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

2022

Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA Schindler House: 100 Years in the Making, MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, West Hollywood, CA with her voice, penetrate earth’s floor, Eli Klein Gallery, New York City, NY Collections Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

night 2023 oil on wood, 16 x 16 inches

64

HUANG

65

hymn for chiron 2023 oil on linen with nickel chains, 74 x 52 inches requiem for comus 2022 oil on linen, nickel chain, 75 x 52 inches

66

PATRICIA IGLESIAS PECO

323.282.5187 (François Ghebaly) patriciaiglesiaspeco.com @patopeco

b. 1974 Buenos Aires, Argentina | lives in Los Angeles, CA

Patricia Iglesias Peco’s practice is tuned into the vibrancy of the natural world, imagining rambunctious gardens of flora and fauna rendered in oil paint—vegetal bodies caught in whirling gestures of bloom and decay, a choreography of endless beginnings. A playful undulating tension pervades Peco’s strange compositions, which appear simultaneously grotesque and beautiful, repulsive and alluring.

Flowers become more than familiar metaphors; rather, they are vessels for the artist to exercise her formal interest in painting and color theory.

Education 1998

BFA, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Savannah, GA

1992

BFA, School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York, NY Solo Exhibitions

2022

Naturalez a Viva, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, CA Los Papeles Salvajes, SITUATIONS, New York, NY Seeking Arrangements, La Loma Projects, Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2022

Storm Before the Calm, Praz-Delavallade,

2020

Drawing 2020, Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY

2018

With Two Hands, Soloway Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2014

Estación Primavera, Kabinett,

2007

Postcards From The Edge, James Cohan Gallery,

Los Angeles, CA

Buenos Aires, Argentina New York, NY Represented by François Ghebaly, New York, NY

Luminile oil on linen, 60 x 73 inches

68

IGLESIAS PECO

Alma y las violetas oil on panel, 60 x 50 inches El Ramo de Tirana oil on panel, 84 x 60 inches

69

70

SAJ ISSA

sajissa.com @saj_issa

b. 1994 St. Louis, MO | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

I’m not interested in people; I am interested in the opportunity to mock reality.

2023

MFA, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA

2017

BFA, Webster University, St. Louis, MO

They’ve Changed The Signs (diptych) oil on paint, ceramic tiles, 60 x 45 (each)

72

ISSA

The Omnipotent (2) hand painted ceramic tiles, 60 x 90 inches The Omnipotent (1) hand painted ceramic tiles, 60 x 90 inches

73

74

CHRISTOPHER PAUL JORDAN

chrispauljordan.com @cpauljordan

b. 1990 Tacoma, WA | lives in Tacoma, WA Residencies

My paintings do not depict dislocation or removal. Instead, they inhabit these processes more directly: They experience loss, intimacy, disintegration, communion, and departure for themselves. As a steward I take interest in the contours of all that they undergo. Where they are melded and torn apart, I seek the residue of their encounters. Where they are peeled and shorn, I palm the obverse texture of former homes. I sense parables in the arc of these experiences, which are duly concealed and retold in the liquid surface of their memory. I transcribe histories, omens, and secrets of my own within their seams and folds.

2020

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE

2019

Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

2018

Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA

2017

Alice Yard, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT

Selected Group Exhibitions 2023

a signal urgent but breaking, Perrotin, New York, NY Cousins, Afro-American Cultural Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT

2022

In the Interim: Ritual Ground for a Future Black Archive, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA

2020 2018

Yellow No. 5, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA Place Names, The Art Gym, Marylhurst University, Merylhurst, OR

A fix acrylic on window screen, 96 x 70 inches

76

JORDAN

floating row acrylic on frost blanket, 84 x 72 inches

77

the last time we spoke acrylic on window screen, 61 x 81 inches

78

JELBERT KARAMI

jelbert.karami@yahoo.com jelbertkarami.com @jelbert_karami

b. 1985 Tehran, Iran | lives in Turlock, CA Solo Exhibitions

If I must tell you about my paintings and their subjects, I cannot describe to you the feeling I have when I am creating them. However, instead, I am asking you to look at them deeply so you could discover for yourself a new, unique feeling. I do not want them to have labels. I do not desire to give you details about them like a peeled orange that is ready to be eaten—because you must peel the orange yourself to experience that special taste and feeling behind it.

Humans take an intuitive form in my work, but for me the hidden sorrows and darkness inside each person is revealed by each touch of a brush. I once thought there was some room for freedom, but now I am very unsure. I only know that we are like no choice that has been crucified in our own time, and I portray this image in my work not only because there is a way to be saved, but for it to be expressed.

2022

Tulips, MJC Art Gallery, Modesto Junior College (MJC), Modesto, CA

2014

Iranian Collection, Sheila Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran

2013

Black and White, Arasbaran Cultural Center, Tehran, Iran Selected Group Exhibitions

2022

Celebration of the Humanities, MJC Art Gallery, MJC Modesto, CA

2020

Quo Vadis, Van Der Plas Gallery, New York, NY Displaced Bodies and Hearts (online), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

2018

Museum of World Culture, Gothernburg, Sweden

2017

Assyrian Genocide Remembrance, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, CA

Guard acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

80

KARAMI

81

Kiss Me acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 32 x 32 inches Untitled mixed-media, 36 x 48 inches

82

KARAMI

83

The bud emerges from its shell and life acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches

84

NERY GABRIEL LEMUS

213.687.0844 (Charlie James Gallery) info@nerygabriellemus.com nerygabriellemus.com @nerygabriellemus

b. 1977 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Pasadena, CA Education

My work explores race and family issues that are ultimately about society’s role in advancing human dignity. I am interested in underscoring the connections that merge differences. I investigate the similarities and contrasts between various social and cultural groups to critique the traditional idea of race, arguing that it is an essentialist doctrine. Race and identity are hybrid social constructions, and through my practice I explore how social patterns cross ethnic and cultural boundaries.

My investigation also engages language and social patterns that we find buried in language itself and how they perpetuate racial stereotypes. I am interested in creating art that not only functions within the context of a gallery or a museum, but that involves society and functions in a public space; I believe this to be essential to an artist working with social issues. I am also interested in mining cultural signifiers that produce familiar narratives instead of being characterized by a particular formal style. That being said, my work might alternate between paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, and installations.

2009

MFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

2007

BFA, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA Residencies

2017

MACLA, San José, CA

2008

Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Madison, ME Solo Exhibitions

2022 2020

In This Place, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA On a Wing and a Prayer, Davison Art Gallery, Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, NY Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 2020

Otherwise/Revival, Bridge Projects, Los Angeles, CA States of Mind: Art and American Democracy, Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX Collections Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA Represented by Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

There is a Poem in this Place watercolor on paper, 49 x 33 inches

86

LEMUS

Can’t Stop a Dreamer watercolor on paper, 23 x 37 inches City Depleted but Not Defeated watercolor on paper, 18.5 x 25.5 inches

87

88

AMY MACKAY

mackay.amyc@gmail.com amymackay.com @thisisamymackay

b. 1985 Sonoma, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

I make paintings based on documentation of site-specific, performative events that I stage with people in my life. These experiences are structured around fictional stories—for example, the Greek myth of Asclepius and the American folklore creature the Hidebehind—that have been passed down and, through which, have evolved and distorted over time. Unlike a photographic transcription, the paintings privilege feelings and affects and their source materials are abstracted past the point of recognition. Each image is made and destroyed repeatedly, so that the surface becomes a site of performed forgetting. It is a process that is highly physical—almost gymnastic—as additive and subtractive marks trace my working memory. Within this iterative cycle, I am interested in the gaps that have formed across a shared experience over time.

What is the interaction between past and present? And how do images create absence?

2018

MFA, University of California, Irvine (UCI), Irvine, CA

2007

BA, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

2022

A Ghost Light, Phase Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2018

Dear Echo, Contemporary Arts Center, UCI, Irvine, CA

Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions 2023

Chimera, la BEAST gallery, Los Angeles, CA Open Show, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2022

Pithoprakta, Cooper Design Building, Los Angeles, CA

2021

Stargazers, Peripheral Space, Los Angeles, CA

2020

Why Are You Painting?, Honolulu Museum of Art,

2019

Synthesis: Some Abstraction in Los Angeles, Claremont

Honolulu, HI Graduate University, Claremont, CA Color is an Act of Reason, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Arc, Wobble, Fade, Fold, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA

Chorus Dream oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

90

MACKAY

No Ghost oil on panel, 24 x 18 inches Hot Gel oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

91

92

STEPHANIE MERCADO

310.916.9791 stephanie.x.mercado@gmail.com stephaniemercado.com @iluvpaper

b. Los Angeles, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Stephanie Mercado is a multi-disciplinary artist whose artwork is centered on labor, manual work, and empowerment. Her upbringing in a family of selftaught artisans has shaped her artistic practice. As a child, she spent time in her family’s upholstery business and in her mother’s fabric store, where she met various craft workers. Her imagery draws inspiration from her own life experiences and cultural references.

Mercado’s labor-intensive work pays homage to historical craft traditions and professions rooted in labor and love. Through her creative practice, which includes painting, printmaking, fabric sculpture, video, and design, Mercado celebrates the strong work ethic, craft, and tools that she’s been exposed to throughout her life. Her art serves as a tribute to manual labor and aims to empower and elevate the stories and experiences of workers.

2007

BFA, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA Residencies

2022 2020

Breckenridge Creative Arts, Breckenridge, CO Tamarind Institute, University of New Mexico (UNM), Albuquerque, NM Solo Exhibitions

2023

The Seed of Dreams, Breckenridge Creative Arts,

2021

Sustain: From Loss to Renewal, Skirball Cultural Center,

Breckenridge, CO Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions 2022

Creative Resilience, Los Angeles Arts District, Los Angeles, CA Many, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA

2019

Umbra: New Prints for a Dark Age, Print Center New York, New York, NY Haugesund Internasjonale Tresnitt, Haugesund Billedgallerie, Haugesund, Norway Collections Metro Art, Los Angeles, CA Tamarind Institute, UNM, Albuquerque, NM

Hacienda Restaurant gouache on paper, 47.5 x 31.5 inches

94

MERCADO

Fernando gouache on paper, 47.5 x 31.5 inches Roman gouache on paper, 47.5 x 31.5 inches

95

96

MERCADO

97

Kitchen Scape gouache on paper, 31.5 x 47.5 inches

98

KATE MOSHER HALL

213.263.9681 (Hannah Hoffman)

b. 1986 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Kate Mosher Hall’s paintings aim, in her words, to “create space” and cultivate a special kind of “open-endedness.” Often combining figurative and obfuscated elements, her images hint at narrative structure, only to stymie pat interpretations and closed meanings. Hall’s works oscillate between frank acknowledgment of her materials—flat planes, paint, printing screens—and a seductive illusionism that draws on illustration and found images. Sometimes the works emphasize duality and fragmentation; at times they underscore the merger of forms and ambiguity. In playing with such structures, Hall not only seeks visual stimulus but also intrigue and psychological affect.

Indeterminacy and enigma, as she puts it, allow for visual complexities that are “allegories to life experiences and broken conditions that she ultimately celebrates.”

2020

MFA, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA

2013

BFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA Solo Exhibitions

2023

The Reminder, Audain Gallery, Simon Frasier University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

2021

Offset, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany

2023

Kate Mosher Hall, Fiona Connor, and Bedros Yeretzian,

Selected Group Exhibitions Coastal Signs, Auckland, New Zealand Imperfect Paradise, Barbati Gallery, Venice, Italy Something or Other, Bernheim Galley, Zürich, Switzerland Collections Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Represented by Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles, CA Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York City, NY Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany

Entrance acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 72 x 49 inches

100

MOSHER HALL

3,000 lbs acrylic on canvas, 84 x 82 inches

101

Luck acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 84 x 82 inches 102

HÉCTOR MUÑOZ-GUZMÁN

hectormunozguzman@gmail.com @hectorfmunoz

b. 1999 Berkeley, CA | lives in Oakland, CA Education

Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán is a Mexican American painter who draws from a wide spread of inspirations: his dual cultures, familiar street imagery, perception on race, and the relationship of Catholicism through the lens of colonization.

Muñoz-Guzmán produces colorful scenes that simultaneously reference his early childhood, Mexican history, and his hopes for the future. Depictions that, historically, would not otherwise represent himself and his family serve as reminders to honor people that would not be represented in contemporary art spaces.

The wide range of mixed-media that Muñoz-Guzmán uses on his drawings and paintings started from a lack of resources but later became his everyday practice. His handling of saturated colors reflects the vibrant atmospheres of his childhood environment of South Berkeley, as well as his family’s native home of Jalisco, Mexico.

2019

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, RI Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Group Exhibition, Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA

2021

Survey, with Fall River MoCA, Bureau, Manhattan, NY

South Berkeley Olmec Head acrylic and mixed-media, 78 x 58 inches

104

MUÑOZ-GUZMÁN

Brisa’s Arms acrylic and mixed-media, 48 x 36 inches South Berkeley Guerrero acrylic and mixed-media, 79 x 62 inches

105

106

KATE O’CONNOR

hello@kateoconnor.ca kateoconnorart.com @bateobonnorart

b. 1979 Toronto, Canada | lives in Portland, OR Education

Kate O’Connor likes to soak up moments from modern life. Whether found IRL or online, she translates these observations through oil paint. Her neon palette imparts a digital feel that contrasts her expressive brushwork. Using humor, she highlights tensions inherent in life, like the triumph of growing a cherry tomato in her garden in spite of aphids. In her paintings you’ll see things like a cat eating a cob of corn, women reveling in, or reviling over a stripper in a leopard print thong, or an overworked Tooth Fairy biting an oversized hand. These scenes are baked in some kind of reality but also employ invention to speak to our fantasies and desires. They are playful but conceal an anxiety simmering underneath. Sometimes the motif repeats itself–like a woman eating a piece of pasta. (Shouldn’t she be eating salad? Eating alone seems like such a loser thing to do! Doesn’t it shorten your lifespan?). Out of this she hopes to create a world that is both obvious and perplexing and funny but true.

2010

MFA, Yale University, New Haven, CT

2003

BFA, NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Residencies

2020

Ox-Bow, Saugatuck, MI

2012

Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT

2009

Struts Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada Selected Group Exhibitions

2012

Literary Asses, TORRI, Paris, France Jailbreak!, Tmoro Projects, Santa Clara, CA

2008

Decade, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto, Canada

2007

Homesick, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto, Canada

Day Off oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

108

O’CONNOR

Lap oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches

109

Influencer oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches

110

FRANCISCO PALOMARES

323.714.6031 info@palomaresblvd.com palomaresblvd.com @palomaresblvd

b. 1990 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

My artwork functions as a visual diary, intimately recounting my life experiences as a first-generation Mexican American artist. My roots in East L.A serve as a deep well of inspiration, where the people, language, and landscapes have indelibly shaped my Chicano identity. Drawing from the artistic legacies of Wayne Thiebaud, John Valadez, Kerry James Marshall, and Kehinde Wiley, I engage with still lifes, landscapes, and portraiture to capture the ever-shifting urban panorama of Los Angeles. In my creative pursuit I am dedicated to showcasing the innate beauty thriving within the Latino community and my Mexican heritage. By rejecting portrayals that often confine or reduce our existence to mere images of poverty and crime, I strive to illuminate the rich complexity of our stories.

2014

California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA Residencies

2022

Quinn Emanuel, Los Angeles, CA

2021

Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles, CA Solo Exhibitions

2022

No Parking on PalomaresBLVD, Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2022

Cheech Collects: Anniversary Edition, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA Piñatas: The High Art of Celebration, Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA At the Table, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

Piñata in 17th Century Landscape oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

112

PALOMARES

113

4th St Wholesale oil and grip tape on canvas, 60 x 48 inches Brujo Mayor oil on canvas, 42 x 36 inches

114

WENDY PARK

310.426.8040 (Various Small Fires) wendypark.co/ @wendypark_

b. 1986 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Wendy Park is a Korean American painter whose work is an homage to her late father and mother who immigrated to Los Angeles during the 1980s.

She utilizes a distinct, graphic aesthetic to reflect on the social and cultural backdrops of growing up in a working class Korean American family. Her canvases evoke a sense of nostalgia through the application of crisp lines and vibrant color, creating a dreamlike vantage point. The memories and experiences portrayed in Park’s work illuminate the closely enmeshed relationships between labor, leisure, consumption, and resourcefulness often experienced by many first-generation Americans during the 1990s. Through her depictions of cultural motifs, repurposed objects, and socioeconomic nuances, Park reveals an intimate narrative, capturing her family’s pursuit and manifestation of the American Dream. She hopes her practice and representations of Asian American nostalgia encourage curiosity about the commerce and culture of marginalized groups.

2008

BFA, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA Solo Exhibitions

2022

OFF THE CLOCK, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA SWAP MEET KID, Bill Brady Gallery, Miami, FL

2021

CASH ONLY, Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2022

Young Americans, PM/AM, London, UK Hot Concrete: LA to HK, with WOAW Gallery and Sow & Tailor, K11 MUSEA, Hong Kong, China Harmonious Arrangements, Half Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2021

Cake Show, The Pit LA, Los Angeles, CA We’re Just Havin’ Fun, Bill Brady Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Represented by Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA; Dallas, TX; Seoul, South Korea

BiBiBig acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

116

PARK

Korean BBQ acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches Korean Peppers acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

117

118

PARK

119

Army Soup acrylic on canvas, 72 x 120 inches

120

MICHELLE RAMIN

michelleramin@gmail.com michelleramin.com @michelleramin

b. 1982 Williamsport, PA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

In times of transition, I often return to the self-portrait. After the past few years of being bombarded by Zoom calls, mobile news alerts, social media pings, and seemingly endless layers of open laptop windows, I chose to revisit drawing with colored pencil, the medium I associate most with comfort, stability, and childhood wonder. Rendering my observed reality in broken yet contained, overlapping boxes has become a form of meditation; building this visual journal helps me process and analyze what’s in front of me, however disjointed. As each saturated rectangle upon rectangle screams with to-do lists, showing no clear delineation between physical, digital, and psychological spaces, this new body of work reveals how completely flooded my brain has become since the beginning of the pandemic. By sketching the virtual world out in detail and playing with the compositions through my personal lens of the everyday, I discover a sense of control and, on the good days, peace and calm.

2012

MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA Solo Exhibitions

2021

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, Stumptown Coffee,

2017

Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast, Russo Lee Gallery,

Portland, OR Portland, OR 2016

Jet Lag, Duplex Gallery, Portland, OR The Sky’s (Not) the Limit, The Gallery at Penn College, Pennsylvania College of Technology, Williamsport, PA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Made in California, Brea Gallery, Brea, CA

2015

No Dead Artists, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2014

Something Completely Different, City Limits, Oakland, CA Under Construction, SOHO20 Chelsea, Brooklyn, NY

2011

Proof, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA Frontrunners, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA

Collections Jiménez-Colón, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Emachines and Lilacs colored pencil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

122

RAMIN

Screenshot05312022 colored pencil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

123

Self-Portrait with DL and Ozma (Starlink Self-Portrait) colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches

124

JAKE SHEINER

jake.sheiner@gmail.com jakesheiner.com @jakesheiner

b. 1986 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Emanating from my own photographs, these highly saturated, cinematic tableaus explore isolation, voyeurism, self-deprecation, and humorous moments experienced in everyday life around my native Los Angeles and its surrounding suburban areas. Using cellphone images as a compositional sketch, my works often explore liminality, a quality of being in between two places or stages or something on the verge of transitioning to a new beginning. These quiet moments—like a casket factory seen through a chainlink fence, an overgrown garden bathed in street light, or trash left behind at a ballgame—are often perceived as abandoned or frozen in time, but they offer me a way to explore life’s physical, emotional, and metaphorical growing pains. These works also probe an undercurrent of loneliness that runs beneath L.A.’s beautiful landscape—vulnerability often neglected in the social media age, which generally prefers idealized versions of the self.

2008

BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Chicago, IL Solo Exhibitions

2022

Rear Projection, WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong, China

2021

At Night And From A Distance, The LODGE, Los Angeles, CA Scenes from My Quarantine (online), Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Solid roots, supple trunks, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY It’s Not The Heat It’s The Dust, GROVE, London, UK California Dreamin’, Lorin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022

LA Landscapes and Other Pleasures, The LODGE, Los Angeles, CA Double Up, My Pet Ram, Santa Barbara, CA INT/EXT, LA Loma Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2021

Sexy Xmas V, The LODGE, Los Angeles, CA Contemporary Domesticity, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, England Beach (online), Taymour Grahne Projects, London, England

Dodgers 2, Cubs 1 acrylic on canvas, 40 x 35 inches

126

SHEINER

Slouching Towards Glendale acrylic on canvas, 36 x 30 inches Night Landscape with Pink Wall acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

127

128

STEPHANIE SHERWOOD

ssherwood.art@gmail.com stephaniesherwoodart.com @stephanie_sherwood_art

b. 1987 Lewiston, ID | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

The elevation of abject forms fascinates me. Fleshy shapes bound within a rigid cage; haphazard fabric, plastic, and paper cast aside in a shopping cart on a sidewalk; overflowing dumpsters—the stark contrast of chaos within a structure strikes an unexpected beauty.

2012

The “Confine” series is a body of work defined by the imagery of soft, fleshy forms bound within the grid of a cage; they explore the inherent tension between the two entities. The wire baskets are rendered imperfectly and, combined with the soft forms pressing through the gaps in the bars, highlight the three dimensionality of the chosen still life. This imagery has been applied to some irregular surfaces, such as in situ installation of furniture and found objects and sculptural materials. Each item carries with it the history of its use, and the immediacy of its dumping is heightened by the immediacy of the painting.

2022

BFA, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA Solo Exhibitions ill-contained, Pierce College Art Gallery, Pierce College, Woodland Hills, CA Grow Through, The Mantel Gallery, Long Beach, CA

2012

Transit, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, CA

2011

From LA to China, Hostelling International, Santa Monica, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Made in California, Brea Gallery, Brea, CA Melting Furnace, Galleria Rankka, Helsinki, Finland

2022

L.A. Abstracted, Art Share L.A., Los Angeles, CA Abstract Los Angeles: Four Generations, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA

2019

Offal, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2018

FORUM I, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA

2017

Material Identity: Making Art on the Gender Continuum, Shoebox Projects, Los Angeles, CA

Offload (Brand Library and Art Center) enamel on found discarded furniture, dimensions variable

130

SHERWOOD

Offload (Galleria Rankka) enamel on borrowed recycled furniture, dimensions variable

131

“ill-contained” (Pierce College Art Gallery) enamel on found discarded furniture, dimensions variable

132

JOHANNA ST. CLAIR

415.626.7495 (Gallery 16) johannastclair.com @little_sketchy

b. 1975 Boston, MA | lives in San Francisco, CA Residencies

The idea is to capture a direct line to some fundamental aspect of the way the world is organized, and to do so without fuss. I have the feeling that the paint and brush, with their wild fluidity, are conduits to a fundamental current that runs through my subjects. But there is some blurring because I can’t tell whether that current is in the subject or in me—perhaps it’s the common thread that runs through both. My works are looking outward to the world and also inward to the experience of being in the world; to the upsurge of consciousness—of perception—that orients us in the world.

2022

The Space Program, San Francisco, CA Solo Exhibitions

2023

The Thicket, Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA

2020

Upsurge, Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA

2016

Johanna St. Clair, The Beach Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2004

On Growth and Form, Linc Art, San Francisco, CA

2003

Earth Things, Linc Art, San Francisco, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

The Passage, Discount Mirrors Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022

Heat Maps, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2019

Broad Strokes, Four Corners Gallery, Tucson Desert Art Museum, Tucson, AZ

2017

The Inverness Almanac: Collective Retrospective, Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA Pop Art Experimental Group, OFR Bookshop, Paris, France Secret Life of Plants, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA Represented by Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA

Green Chrysanthemum oil on panel, 12 x 9 inches

134

ST. CLAIR

135

Spotted Begonias oil on panel, 30 x 24 inches Peony oil on panel, 12 x 9 inches

136

MATT TOLEDO

mattwtoledo.com

b. 1991 Cleveland, OH | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

I am a Local 80 Motion Picture Film and Studio Grip, as well as a self-taught, who studies the work of several artists, including René Magritte, Juan Gris, R. Crumb, Eileen Murphy, Cennino Cennini, Kenneth Price, Koo Schadler, Frank Zappa, Fernando Botero, and Giorgio de Chirico. My goal is to use this line of work and interest as a vehicle for travel and experience; to have output and chip away at the unconscious mind; and to think less, learn the material, and make thoughts tangible.

This current series seeks to highlight the good times. It is dedicated to the mundane, the double life, the cartooned reality; to stressing the daydream and tasking the hobby; to the slow start, the weight, the anchor, your better half; to blue ink and yellow highlighter; to deviating from the work plan and to the things that keep you coming back. It is dedicated to time allotted, time appreciated, and time taken advantage of; to driving around, drinking coffee, and listening to the radio; to the “Just one” that turns into midnight and the “one more for good times;” to an excuse for another habit and an excuse for another thought.

2013

BS, Ohio University, Athens, OH

Jimmy Wong’s Brown Velvet oil on panel, 11 x 14 inches

138

TOLEDO

139

The Low Point oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches The Weight, The Anchor, My Better Half oil on panel, 31 x 41.5 inches

140

CHRISTINE TURNER

christineturnerstudio.com @christineturnerstudio

b. 1990 Urbana-Champaign, IL | lives in Los Angeles, CA

Employing a multitude of motifs that speak to visibility, Christine Turner’s paintings explore literal and metaphorical blind spots through the language of perceptual and formal abstraction. Rooted in her own embodied experience of abstracted vision, Turner’s paintings function as fields for visual vertigo.

Glitching camouflage, fluorescent suns, malfunctioning green screens, and vision tests gone awry dance together to create meditations on the simultaneity of visual absence and presence.

Education 2020

MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Chicago, IL Solo Exhibitions

2012

Come Alive, The Green Art Gallery, Biola University, La Mirada, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Voices Embodied: Uplifted, Design Museum of Chicago, Chicago, IL

2022

Frequency Illusion, Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA Making a Mark: Abstraction in the Ahmanson Collection, Ahmanson Gallery, Irvine, CA

2020

Pen Pal Show, Leiminspace, Los Angeles, CA Launch, SAIC Galleries, Chicago, IL Long Hello, The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI

2019

Wisdom of the Desert, Inland Empire Museum of Art, Upland, CA With a Capital P: Selections by Six Painters, Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL Collections Ahmanson Gallery, Irvine, CA

Spilt/Split Flashe, acrylic, and oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

142

TURNER

Green Screen Window VII Flashe, acrylic, and oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches Shift II Flashe, acrylic, and oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

143

144

RUPY C. TUT

415.255.9508 (Jessica Silverman) info@jessicasilvermangallery.com rupyctut.com @rupyctut

b. 1985 Chandigarh, India | lives in Oakland, CA Education

Rupy C. Tut is an Oakland-based artist whose artistic practice expands, innovates, and reframes the traditions of Indian miniature painting. She mixes her own pigments and turns to hemp paper and linen to contend with and make visible one’s place in the world. Recent works focus on large paintings, presenting elaborate figures and landscapes that explore motherhood and migration through an eco-feminist lens.

2009

MPH, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA

2006

BS, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA Residencies

2015

Sikh Foundation, Palo Alto, CA

2023

Out of Place, ICA SF, San Francisco, CA

2022

Search and Rescue, Jessica Silverman,

Solo Exhibitions

San Francisco, CA A Recipe for Brown Skin, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA Selected Group Exhibitions 2023

A Growing Season, Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, CA Collections Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA Represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, CA

All in a day handmade pigments on linen, 48 x 36 inches

146

TUT

Chullu bhar paani mein handmade pigments and shell gold on hemp paper, 34 x 25.5 inches

147

When We Meet Again natural pigments on handmade hemp paper, 38 x 36 inches

148

TUT

149

Placing Self handmade pigments and shell gold on hemp paper, 36 x 49 inches Heroine natural pigments on handmade hemp paper, 36 x 57 inches

150

RAMÓN VARGAS

ramonvargasart@gmail.com ramonvargasart.com @rayvargas3

b. 1979 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Santa Ana, CA Education

Ramón Vargas makes paintings that amplify and investigate the cultural realities of Brown communities. Utilizing a representational approach, he alternately challenges, celebrates, and subverts prevailing concepts of identity, tradition, and interpersonal relationships. Drawing on his own life experiences, Vargas’s figurative paintings blend realism with a surreal sense of color and place, often incorporating heavy symbolism, repeating patterns, and flat geometrical elements. Throughout his career he has held arts-related administrative, faculty, and consulting positions for non-profit and grassroots organizations and is known as a mentor for arts education and community outreach in Los Angeles and Orange County. In addition to painting, he is also a muralist and printmaker.

2022

MFA, Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD), Laguna Beach, CA

2002

BFA, LCAD, Laguna Beach, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Figuratively Speaking, Orange County Center for

2022

Outlook/Insight, Laguna Art Museum, LCAD,

2017

Art as Resistance: Paintings in Protest to a Trump

2016

From Ayotzinapa to Ferguson, Self Help Graphics & Art,

Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA Laguna Beach, CA Presidency, Avenue 50 Studios, Highland Park, CA Los Angeles, CA

Lost/Found oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches

152

VARGAS

Green House oil on canvas, 46 x 36 inches Cocoon oil on panel, 48 x 42 inches

153

154

VARGAS

155

Corrida oil and graphite on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

156

EMILIO VILLALBA

415.956.3560 (Dolby Chadwick Gallery) @emilio_villalba

b. 1984 Chula Vista, CA | lives in San Francisco, CA Education

These paintings are collections of people and objects from my everyday life.

Texture plays a vital role in my artistic process, imbuing images with both physical weight and metaphorical depth. I construct the individual objects and portraits using layered brushstrokes, adding depth and weight to their stories so that they might resonate beyond the graphic elements alone. In my studio, I embrace the idea that it’s not about what you paint, but how you paint it.

2012

MFA, Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA

2006

BFA, Art Institute of California – Orange County, Santa Ana, CA Solo Exhibitions

2023

Everything is Something, Dolby Chadwick Gallery,

2022

Besides, Hashimoto Contemporary, San Francisco, CA

2021

People and Things, Hashimoto Contemporary,

San Francisco, CA

New York City, NY Selected Group Exhibitions 2022

Beyond the Line, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA INT/EXT, La Loma Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2020

Assortments, Ramp Gallery, London, UK The Pearl, Ramp Gallery, London, UK Collections Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA Colección SOLO, Madrid, Spain Represented by Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Every Thing is Something 2 oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

158

VILLALBA

Crossroads oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches Portrait and Studio Floor oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

159

160

CAMERON TYZZER WILSON

cameron.tyzzer@gmail.com @cameron.tyzzer

b. 1996 Würzburg, Germany | lives in Tacoma, WA Education

By capturing absurd daily moments and blurring the line between memory and experience, the artist immerses us in a world of extravagant detail and exuberant poses. Wilson’s work radiates debauchery and decadence, welcoming viewers into a realm where wild imagination reigns. In a way, he wants the viewer to become part of the art as an added component; art should be entertaining and fun—to be able to feel and interact with the work is very important.

Constantly applying thick, tactile textures and unconventional colors, Wilson breathes life into the subjects, infusing each portrait with an electrifying vitality that invites the audience to feel the rhythm and intensity of the festivities. By incorporating elements of mixed media, while predominantly relying on oil, he skillfully enhances the visual experience, offering a rich tapestry of emotions and narratives within each composition and masterfully capturing the essence of chaos, dynamism, and vivacious creation. The pieces are always inviting you to revel in their tumultuous presence.

2019

BFA, Central Washington University (CWU), Ellensburg, WA Solo Exhibitiona

2022

Power Plays, Gallery One Visual Arts Center, Ellensburg, WA Violet Violence, The Shaku Bar, Portland, OR

2019

In the Mix, Gallery 231, Ellensburg, WA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Summer in Seattle, Gallery B612, Seattle, WA

2019

Beauty of Northwest, Gallery North, Edmonds, WA

2018

98374, Barge Hall, CWU, Ellensburg, WA

G-shock gangster oil and mixed-media on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

162

WILSON

mixed emotions my mood ring oil and mixed-media on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

163

Rough Day at da Buffet oil and mixed-media on canvas, 20 x 24 inches

164

CHELSEA RYOKO WONG

415.255.9508 (Jessica Silverman) chelseawong.com @chelsearwong

b. 1986 Seattle, WA | lives in San Francisco, CA Education

Chelsea Ryoko Wong’s vibrant figurative compositions reflect the diversity and style of her home in San Francisco. Her brightly colored and heavily stylized paintings beam with the beauty and vitality of interpersonal connections. Her scenic vignettes demonstrate sociality and joy as forms of resistance and empowerment; they portray energetic crowds, often praising sisterhood and community spirit. Moving through the artist’s own memory, heritage, and a grand social and political vision for the world, Wong’s layered compositions use a commanding sense of color and form to celebrate the most tranquil ideals of communal existence.

2010

BFA, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

2004

Parsons School of Design, New York, NY Residencies

2019

Facebook, San Francisco, CA Solo Exhibitions

2022

Gravitational Pull, Jessica Silverman,

2021

Poetry Afterall, Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA

San Francisco, CA The Sun’s Energy, Hashimoto Contemporary, New York City, NY Selected Group Exhibitions 2023

A Growing Season, Jessica Silverman,

2022

Landscape, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK

San Francisco, CA

Collections Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA Represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, CA

It’s Mah Jong Time! acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

166

WONG

Anniversary in the Desert acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

167

Last Run of the Day acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

168

WONG

Big Family Gathering acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches

169

Hot Rocks on a Hot Day acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 x 1.5 inches

170

GUIGEN ZHA

417.379.0001 guigenzha@gmail.com guigenzha.com @guigenzha

b. 1970, Nanjing, China | lives in Rancho Cucamonga, CA

My current “Third Space” series presents a personal, virtual artistic space by projecting specific images onto nude self-portraits.

The series is inspired by my life experience during the pandemic. The works express my pursuit of spiritual freedom and nobility in solitude.

When painting these self-portraits with self-entertainment and fantasy, I try to connect them with social conditions to conduct cultural criticism and reflection.

Education 2018

MFA, University of Missouri (UM), Columbia, MO

2014

BFA, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO Solo Exhibitions

2018

Illusion, George Caleb Bingham Gallery, UM, Columbia, MO Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 2019

February Exhibit, Sager Reeves Gallery, Columbia, MO Dynamics: Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting Research Exhibition, Kunstraum Villa Friede, Bonn, Germany

2018

Harmony – Contemporary Chinese Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan SECOND ASIAN ART BIENNALE HONG KONG, Exhibition Center, Hong Kong Central Library, Hong Kong, China National Wet Paint MFA Biennial, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL

2008

Harmony – Contemporary Chinese Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings (2), China Oil Painting Institute Art Museum, Beijing, China

3rd Space. breathing oil on linen, 36 x 48 inches

172

ZHA

3rd Space. Yellow oil on linen, 36 x 48 inches 3rd Space. Rite oil on linen, 36 x 48 inches

173

174

ZHA

175

3rd Space. Water Monster oil on linen, 36 x 48 inches

176

Weinreb p196

EDITOR’S SELECTIONS

Artists are presented in alphabetical order.

Artist biographies have been edited to prioritize recent highlights.

Pricing Guide can be found on p203.

MORTEZA KHAKSHOOR

mrtkhstudio@gmail.com mortezakhakshoor.com @mortkhakshoor

b. 1984 Ghochan, Iran | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Morteza Khakshoor works with a range of subjects, but it’s his attention to the male––in all its foibles, struggles, and pathos––that remains a salient feature of his output. These frequent protagonists, like all his subjects, result from circuitous paths taken through found images and memories, whether seen and remembered or invented from whole cloth. His consumption of these images feeds into his daily drawing practice, which in turn metabolizes disparate information into schema for paintings at once playfully tragic and colorfully dark.

Khakshoor crafts psychologically charged compositions that defy linear narratives and easy interpretations, frequently subverting gender roles and identity politics. In his early teens in Iran, he had already begun to look at men with an obsessional, yet fearful fascination––both for what they were capable of and from the perspective of being a male himself. As a child, his early fascination with cinema introduced him to the Shakespearean tragedy, captured in classic productions by Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, and Laurence Olivier, which still nurtures his pictures today.

2018

MFA, Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, OH

2015

BFA, Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, Old Lyme, CT Residencies

2022

The Lighthouse Works, Fishers Island, NY

2020

Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM

2019

Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT Solo Exhibitions

2023

Pin-Drop, Duane Thomas Gallery, New York City, NY

2022

Stubbly Numbness, Emma Gray HQ, Santa Monica, CA Dirty Worlds & A Melody, Wilder Gallery, London, UK Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Queer Intimacy, Taymour Grahne Projects,

2022

Danse Macabre, Samuele Visentin, London, England

London, England

Collections X Museum, Beijing, China Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, New York, NY Cradle acrylic on canvas, 52 x 39 inches

180

KHAKSHOOR

181

Impaired Flowers acrylic on canvas, 37 x 29 inches The Towel acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches

182

HAYLEY QUENTIN

hayleyquentin.com @its_hayleyquentin

b. 1986 Los Angeles, CA | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Using both somatic awareness and a meticulous layering process, my paintings are a quiet whisper; a curled finger with a strange beauty, each beckoning the viewer to linger in a world of in-betweenness, balanced on an ever-sliding scale. Each body of work exists perpetually between knowing and not knowing. I use repeated motifs, including lightning, archways, illuminated spiders, and ellipse-framed portraiture, and lean towards these “familiar” emblems precisely because they are supposedly, categorically ‘known’. Like the most enduring fables, I approach these concepts sideways, slipping between the cracks shimmering in and out of observation, and massage them open. In doing so, I spin a web of contemporary fables about longing, desire, and the myth of the mind/body split. A sense of infiniteness builds to a crescendo, from which emerges the strangeness of sensations that are unfixed in time, in technique, and in their representation. Each piece, therefore, is an invitation to change one’s own perspective through a conscious pause and a (re)connection to one’s own sensorial perception.

2023

MFA, Otis College of Art and Design (OCAD), Los Angeles, CA

2008

BFA, OCAD, Los Angeles, CA Solo Exhibitions

2023

Shapeshift, LOOCK Galerie, Berlin, Germany Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

The Armory Show, LOOCK Galerie, New York, NY California Sober, The Floating Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022

Virgo, Wolfgang Gallery, Atlanta, GA YOU ME ME YOU, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Garden Universal, False Cast, San Diego, CA

2021

I Shot an Arrow, Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, CA

Three-Thousand watercolor and colored-pencil on canvas, 36 x 16 inches

184

QUENTIN

Close My Eyes To See (Again) colored pencil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches Everything I’ve Ever Known (Re) colored pencil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

185

186

NATALIE STRAIT

nataliestr8@gmail.com nataliestrait.com @_moon_pix

b. 1997 Phoenix, AZ | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

Through a semi-autobiographic and queer lens, Natalie Strait’s paintings explore personal and psychological lived realities of womanhood, navigating the interplay between emotional vulnerability and gendered, social mediaenforced performativity. Strait’s imposing, majestic female figures make their presence known: Their sculpturally molded bodies command the full space of the canvas and their unflinching gazes directly confront the viewer. Her sources are drawn from vernacular images of women, spanning from vintage pornography discovered on Reddit, to 1970s Playboy spreads, and the unrelenting scroll of candid pictures of friends, selfies, and algorithmically presented images that populate her social media. Using these subjects’ poses and bodies as an anchor, Strait then introduces details, moments, and sceneries both real and imagined to create new worlds of her own, striking a precarious balance between the banal and the fantastical.

2020

MFA, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

2018

BFA, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ Solo Exhibitions

2022

Monsoon Season, Charles Moffett, New York, NY

2021

Violets, Eric Fischl Art Gallery, Phoenix, AZ Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

DREAMLAND, Delgado Projects, Los Angeles, CA All Together, Lorin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA HORIZONS, with Sow & Tailor, WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong, China

2022

A La Carte, tchotchke gallery, Brooklyn, NY Virgo, Wolfgang Gallery, Atlanta, GA Artists Painting Artists, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX They’re On To You, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY

Electric Blanket oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

188

STRAIT

189

Fire Hazard oil and studio detritus on canvas, 48 x 36 inches Sullen Girl oil on canvas 36 x 24 inches

190

STRAIT

191

White Hot Forever oil, acrylic, spray paint, dimensional acrylic paint, and chunky glitter on canvas, 48 x 72 inches

192

BREA WEINREB

323.627.4097 (Ochi Gallery) breaweinreb.studio@gmail.com breaweinreb.com @breaweinreb

b. 1994 Mineola, NY | lives in Los Angeles, CA Education

As a queer woman painting gay men, my gaze is neither a direct reversal of the male gaze nor a complete denial of it. The sexualization and voyeurism is still there; however, it is done consciously, with the consent of my subjects, and marked with the intimacy, understanding, and humor that is unique to the queer-on-queer gaze.

2016

Having previously painted scenes of Pride celebrations in San Francisco’s Dolores Park, in my recent paintings I use my studio as a stage and a group of friends as muses to play with the objectifying ways men have historically looked at women. My subjects appear half nude, gallivanting around my studio and surrounded by the art historical influences I keep in my workspace. I work from both reference photographs and imagination, leaving areas unfinished to reveal my process to viewers. My own body often appears as a character, reflecting my subjects’ gaze back on myself. My intention in providing these multiple perspectives is to further fragment the male gaze while subverting the traditional dynamics of the artist’s studio.

2022

BA, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA Solo Exhibitions

2023

MALE GAYS, Ochi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Heterotopia, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, NY Between Men, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

HORIZONS, with Sow & Tailor, WOAW Gallery,

2022

Women of Now: Dialogues of Memory, Place & Identity,

Hong Kong, China Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX Intimacy, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, England Come Out & Play, BEERS London, London, England You Had Me at Hello, Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, MA Uprising, Kristin Hjellegjerde Schloss Goerne, Berlin, Germany Collections Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX Represented by Ochi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Studio Visit oil on canvas, 72 x 48 inches

194

WEINREB

Male Trouble oil on canvas, 55 x 78 inches

195

A Painting is a Portal oil on canvas, 55 x 78 inches

196

SUNG JIK YANG

323.507.2037 (Philip Martin Gallery) syang6242@gmail.com sungjikyangstudio.com ss

b. 1989 Suwon, South Korea | lives in Pasadena, CA Education

I paint people. I enjoy the process of making images of people I have met. I feel like I am making a visual diary that reflects the relatum. Their individual life stories and my interpretation and/or perception of them, along with the chemistry and bond between me and my subjects, are essential to being able to conceptualize and visualize my portrayal of them. In that sense, drawing and painting are processes for me to get to know them better. My works demonstrate physical, emotional, and psychological structures of people. To me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is for my artistic creation to help people express their sense of identity.

2018

BFA, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA Solo Exhibitions

2023

Dreamers, Mou Projects, Hong Kong, China

2023

Paseo, Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022

Angelenos, Samuele Visentin, London, UK

2020

Closer Look, Friends Indeed Gallery, San Francisco, CA Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

Pocket Universe, Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Ripe, Harper’s Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Friends & Lovers, Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY

2022

Night Painting, Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Together/Apart, Shin Haus, New York, NY

2021

Between Us, Hey There Projects, Joshua Tree, CA Collections X Museum, Beijing, China Represented by Micki Meng, San Francisco, CA Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Arnold’s Family oil on canvas, 72 x 51 inches

198

YANG

David oil on canvas, 57 x 50 inches Carson, Yi and Helvetica oil on canvas, 70 x 58 inches

199

200

YANG

201

Joanne Reclining oil on canvas, 58 x 70 inches

202

PRICING GUIDE New American Paintings is not intended to be a catalog of offerings per se, but, given that many of our readers are collectors, it has been a tradition to offer pricing information for the artists included in each issue. The ranges published below offer guidance as to the current retail pricing for each artist’s work. Works reproduced herein may or may not be available for acquisition. For information on a specific work, we encourage you to reach out to the artist and/or gallery via the contact information provided in each artist’s spread.

The pricing of artwork is, perhaps, the most enigmatic component of the art market. For artists who have a record of secondary market sales that the public can easily view, arriving at an appropriate price point becomes somewhat easier. For emerging artists, such as the majority of those featured in New American Paintings, determining price points can involve a number of considerations, including: the scale and medium of a work; an artist’s exhibition history and the collections in which their work is held; and an artist’s educational background. Layered on top of these factors is the subjective notion of an artwork’s perceived “quality.” All of these elements will ultimately determine the demand for a given artist’s work and help inform pricing.

203

ALEX BECERRA

STEPHANIE MEI HUANG

KATE O’CONNOR

RAMÓN VARGAS

p15–20 NFS

p63–66 POR

p107–110 POR

p151–156 NFS

RACHEL BORENSTEIN

PATRICIA IGLESIAS PECO

FRANCISCO PALOMARES

EMILIO VILLALBA

p21–24 $3,000–$8,000

p67–70 NFS

p111–114 $6,000–$16,000

p157–160 $5,000–$30,000

AYIN ES

SAJ ISSA

WENDY PARK

CAMERON TYZZER WILSON

p25–28 $4,000–$6,500

p71–74 $10,000–$20,000

p115–120 NFS

p161–164 POR

MICHELE FOYER

CHRISTOPHER PAUL JORDAN

MICHELLE RAMIN

CHELSEA RYOKO WONG

p29–32 $1,250–$6,800

p75–78 NFS

p121–124 $2,000–$5,000

p165–170 $14,000–$36,000

STEVE GAVENAS

JELBERT KARAMI

JAKE SHEINER

GUIGEN ZHA

p33–36 $500–$5,000

p79–84 $1,600–$4,800

p125–128 NFS

p171–176 $5,000–$10,000

QUINN GIRARD

NERY GABRIEL LEMUS

STEPHANIE SHERWOOD

MORTEZA KHAKSHOOR

p37–42 $1,500–$8,000

p85–88 NFS

p129–132 $800–$3,000

p179–182 NFS

SHYAMA GOLDEN

AMY MACKAY

JOHANNA ST. CLAIR

HAYLEY QUENTIN

p43–48 $4,000–$12,000

p89–92 $3,000–$11,000

p133–136 NFS

p183–186 NFS

ABEL GUZMÁN

STEPHANIE MERCADO

MATT TOLEDO

NATALIE STRAIT

p49–52 NFS

p93–98 $2,500–$5,000

p137–140 POR

p187–192 $5,000–$12,000

KYNDACEE HARRIS

KATE MOSHER HALL

CHRISTINE TURNER

BREA WEINREB

p53–58 $1,000–$10,000

p99–102 NFS

p141–144 NFS

p193–196 $7,000–$15,000

GLENN ALEXÁNDER HERNÁNDEZ

HÉCTOR MUÑOZ-GUZMÁN

RUPY C. TUT

SUNG JIK YANG

p59–62 NFS

p103–106 NFS

p145–150 NFS

p197–202 NFS

204

$25