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ARTS
Dexterous DUO
Santa Barbara artists are clearly on the art world’s radar right now. Case in point: Husband-and-wife duo HANNAH VAINSTEIN , hannahvainstein.com, and NATHAN HAYDEN , nathan-hayden.com, recently had solo shows in Los Angeles that opened on the same day. Hayden’s exhibition, “Pure Pretty Fever” at CB1 Gallery, cb1gallery.com, featured the artist’s earth pigment paintings on industrial felt depicting hallucinatory landscapes that oscillate between abstraction and figurative representation; large geometric ceramics—iconic in their own right—evoking the felt landscapes in three dimensions; and, as a visual dialogue between the works, a site-specific wall drawing in black ink. Vainstein’s installation of paintings, weavings, and ceramics entitled “Plant Animal Mineral” at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, tigerstrikesasteroid.com, focused on the “haptic gesture” (the sense of touch experienced while manipulating materials) involved in creating those objects. Vainstein also helms the Lower Lodge, thelowerlodge.com, an artist salon/studio/boutique, and authors Squeeze Magazine, centered on the art of bathing and body rituals. L . D . P O R T E R
Left to right: HANNAH VAINSTEIN with her
work; “PURE PRETTY FEVER” ; NATHAN HAYDEN at CB1 Gallery.
Like Proust’s madeleine, LESLIE LEWIS SIGLER ’s exquisite oil paintings of silver cutlery and tableware have been known to spontaneously evoke strong memories. “After the painting’s finished and I’m showing it,” says the Santa Barbara artist, “I really love eavesdropping and listening to people’s memories because they’ll say things like, ‘Oh I had that spoon growing up and I ate with it every day at my grandmother’s house.’” A friend’s tarnished tea service was the artist’s initial inspiration; these days, Sigler receives frequent commissions to portray silver family heirlooms. Armed with a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, Sigler is fluent in old master techniques that contribute an opulent luster to her contemporary take on classical portraiture. Represented by galleries in New York (George Billis Gallery) and Massachusetts (Jane Deering Gallery), Sigler’s work has been included in several Santa Barbara exhibitions, including Sullivan Goss’s annual group show, “100 Grand.” L . D . P . Left to right: Sigler’s THE HERALD , oil on panel, 2015, LES LIELEWISSIG L ER . C O M
Spring16.arts.indd 88
16x16 in.; LESLIE LEWIS SIGLER .
PHOTOGRAPHS: ALL, CARA ROBBINS
STORIED Silver
3/24/16 12:49 PM