Jessica Koslow

At any moment, architect and designer Gregg Fleishman is probably thinking about how geometry influences collectible design and inhabitable structures. One look at his work, which is on display at Sky Portal X in DTLA as part of Los Angeles Climate Week, and visitors can view his answers.

ANTIDOTE, his solo exhibition, presents large-scale geometric installations and sculptural furniture. Since 1975, Fleishman has been crafting chairs. Works such as “New Wave” and “Skyrocker” demonstrate his signature interlocking “panel puzzle” system, in which precision-cut plywood components assemble without nails, screws, or glue. The furniture is lightweight and structurally resilient, crafted from Baltic and European birch plywood.

“When I started at my first studio, I was working on structures,” said Fleishman. “I added furniture in 1975 and after four years, I had 11 chair designs. After another five years or so, I had three more chair designs. European birch plywood is very strong, which allows flexibility, and the chairs can be assembled in different ways to reduce the number of different parts. The chairs were the bulk of what I showed publicly in my early efforts. I showed at functional art galleries.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

On Saturday, April 11, Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles (PAC LA), based in Downtown Los Angeles, invited the LA arts community to hear about its latest initiative, PAC LA Partners, and its inaugural project with the photo department at Pasadena City College (PCC): Second Sight photography festival.

One of speakers at the launch event was a student winner from the first contest in 2023. They told the crowd gathered on the ocean-view terrace of Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica that the prize money they had won changed their life.

They did not have health insurance, and the money they received enabled them to complete their hormone replacement therapy as a transgender person. In addition, after submitting their winning portfolio to UCLA, they were accepted into the photography program. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Taylor Wilshire’s mother was a classical master teacher, “a true artist” as Wilshire referred to her, and her father worked for the United Nations. This might explain why Wilshire is both an executive working in global funding for projects with the UN’s Economic and Social Council and an award-winning illustrator and artist.

“I was born into that environment of having art all over the house,” Wilshire shared.

“I was taught technique. Doodling, painting, drawing, it was just this natural thing, and yet I was really self-conscious about it.”

Wilshire never took her painting serious.

She contributes her self-critical nature to being around classically trained artists and growing up in New York where she was exposed to some of the best galleries and museums. Then Wilshire was discovered. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

On a Saturday afternoon in early March, guests entering the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City could see and experience Adrian Cox’s art. As part of his fifth solo exhibition at the gallery, titled “The Well of Dreams,” Cox hosted a one-hour, free creative wellness event and live performance by the artist, titled “The Ritual of Unknowing: A Surrealist Meditation Experience.”

“As a surrealist artist, I’m always looking for ways to engage with my subconscious mind and outmaneuver that logical part of my brain that wants to decide what a thing’s going to be before I’ve made it,” Cox explained. “One of the techniques that I started using a number of years ago is, I bought a cheap podcasting microphone and a little MIDI keyboard that I could hook up to my laptop, and I started making DIY hypnosis tracks.”

Guests were invited to bring their own yoga mats and pillows so that they could lay down comfortably. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

The idea for an art exhibition recognizing Noni Olabisi’s (1954 -2022) extraordinary career came to Karen Rapp, director and curator of Loyola Marymount University’s Laband Art Gallery, 15 years ago. She was introduced to the artist and muralist’s work through a slide presentation.

“Noni had applied for a visual artist grant, and I was a reviewing panelist,” Rapp said. “When I came to her images, I was completely spellbound by her murals. I didn’t know about them at the time, and I went and looked at them in person. She ended up getting the award from the California Community Foundation, and I had a chance to meet her and tell her what an impact her work had made on me. I talked to her about having a show.” 

Olabisi’s works have become defining centerpieces in neighborhoods and communities in South Los Angeles. The exhibition, “Noni Olabisi: When Lightning Strikes,” which hosted an opening reception this past Saturday and runs through March 28, includes more than 40 works created from 1984 to 2022. Olabisi is best known for three murals in Los Angeles: “Freedom Won’t Wait” (1992), “To Protect and Serve” (1995) and “Troubled Island” (2003). . . .

Read the entire article in The Argonaut.

First Thursdays in DTLA might possibly be the liveliest night in all of L.A. It’s when galleries, vendors, exhibitions and street performers pop up throughout the Historic Core.

“It’s creativity. It’s community. It’s culture,” said Diana Barillas, the director of operations and creative strategy of DTLA ArtNight. “We highlight the creatives downtown and also the businesses. The more people we can bring down here through art, the more our community as a whole can expand and get better.”

The only exceptions are Fourth of July and New Year’s: “We will switch it out depending on how close it gets to the date,” she said. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Robert Berman Gallery is not just the oldest gallery at Bergamot Station; Robert Berman’s is the oldest art gallery in Santa Monica. He opened his first spot on Main Street in 1979, called B-1 Gallery.

“For my first show, we didn’t even have electricity,” he shared. “I drove my car into the space and lit up the wall with my headlights.”

“That’s actually where I brought Keith Haring from New York,” he added. “The only time Keith ever showed in LA was in my little gallery on Main Street. I did a lot of other historical shows with both international artists and a lot of the East Village New York artists, but I mixed it together with local artists.” . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Kathryn Pellman has four of her quilt-like pieces hanging in the gallery at Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City. As the organizer of the current exhibit, “Free to Sp%@k!,” which runs through Jan. 7, she has the least number of works featured that take up the most real estate, as her pieces are large.

Pellman tapped two other SoCal artists, Kelly Hartigan Goldstein and MartyO, to show their work addressing the themes of censorship, free speech and democracy. Alarmed by the growing assault on free expression and the censorship taking root in the United States, they have joined forces to resist through art, according to Pellman, and they launched the exhibit on Oct. 3 to coincide with the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week (Oct. 4–11). 

One of Pellman’s pieces speaks directly to this issue because it ties together free speech and exhibiting at a bookstore. The quilt features Jennifer Caspar, the owner of Village Well, holding books with more books floating all around; most of the books were banned. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Alicia Gorecki wears many hats: She’s an artist, a teacher at Pasadena High School and most recently, she launched a nonprofit that aims to strengthen youth mental health through the arts in honor of her son, Reid, who died in 2023 of an accidental overdose at the age of 18.

“Sometimes I can barrel through talking about this, and sometimes I lose it,” Gorecki shared at the beginning of what would be a heartfelt 30-minute phone conversation. 

Reid died of fentanyl toxicity just three weeks before his high school graduation from California School of the Arts – San Gabriel Valley. He had sent in his college applications, received acceptance letters and scholarships, launched his clothing line on his website and had a production assistant gig lined up. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

In the five years that Ally Mathieu has owned and operated Paint:Lab in Santa Monica, she has experienced two catastrophic, life-upending events. The first was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the year she decided to assume operations of the walk-in art studio from the previous owners who had opened its doors in 2009. 

“I was working at Paint:Lab as an instructor, and they were going to close,” Mathieu said. “So, I was like, ‘Sure,’ in the middle of a global pandemic. All my friends’ businesses are closing, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, this will be so fun for me. I have nothing else going on.’ So, I bought it and turned it into an online school.”

Mathieu’s business move turned out to be not-so crazy. Her career history made her a perfect candidate to run the business. Before Paint:Lab, she worked for photography and movie studios doing set design and continued her own arts practice in private studios in Hollywood and DTLA. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.