Week 4: Sandow Birk - The ‘USNHS MERCY’ Arriving in Los Angeles Harbor - March 27, 2020

Sandow Birk

The ‘USNHS MERCY’ Arriving in Los Angeles Harbor - March 27, 2020

2020

Acrylic on Canvas

22 x 44 inches

Since the Corona virus, I’ve been working on a series of small marine paintings for a show that I have scheduled in the fall. The images recall classic romantic maritime works, but most are sarcastic or metaphorical in some way. But when the hospital ship arrived in L.A. Harbor a couple of weeks ago, it seemed like an historic moment, or a moment when the seriousness of the pandemic came home. I can see the ship en route to my shared San Pedro studio, and I thought it would be fitting to paint the white ship as it arrived up LA harbor Main Channel on a hopeful dawn.

Week 4: Leonard Greco - The Temptations of St.Anthony of the Desert...

Leonard Greco

The Temptations of St.Anthony of the Desert in an Italian Landscape after Jakob Phillipe Hackert (1778)

2020

Oil on canvas

I am a visual artist, working in various mediums, my work has been an attempt to re-contextualize the artistic narratives of Western European Christendom. As a gay person who has frequently felt excluded from this tradition, I attempt to engage in this seemingly anachronistic dialogue specifically because I believe they are still relevant.  I do so through a personally meaningful symbolic language, in essence, to stake my claim in these beloved stories.

Week 4: Carmen Mardonez - The sun will rise again

Carmen Mardonez

The sun will rise again

2020

Hand embroidery - top sheet and threads

35 x 36 inches

Nominated by Nicole Larrondo

I’m submitting one of the recent pieces of my best friend, Carmen Mardonez because she creates beautiful and insightful images by using threads and discarded materials such as bedsheets, pillowcases, and lemon mesh. Carmen’s life had changed quite much in the last three years. She became a mom, and a couple of weeks later had to resign to her job and moved to the US.

Embroidery has been an essential part of this journey of self-rediscovery. But as we can see, her stitches don’t fit in the traditional image of the quiet mom embroidering flowers while her kid is asleep. Conversely, her canvases are as big as tapestries, and her stitches and colors are not planned. Her work reveals a discharge of energy, a silent outcry from her room.

Coming from a very conservative Catholic family, Carmen’s stitches can be interpreted as a rebellion against their feminine role of what a lovely mother and wife should behave. A role that was imposed on her since she was little, but now she has the chance to question through her artwork. Yet, her materials and the images she embroiders are part of this intimate and familiar world. What she looks through the window every day -this new, but very common sky- is what inspires her to keep creating new colors, shapes, and sensations.

Week 4: Kayla L. Cloonan - Blindfolded Painting Number Four

Kayla L. Cloonan

Blindfolded Painting Number Four

2020

acrylic, latex paint on bed-sheet

74 X 47 inches

This piece is from my new series "Going Blindly Into the Future". A visceral response to the COVID-19 epidemic, quarantine and being laid off from my day job. The first painting started as a performance piece, live streaming online where I set up paints and brushes, utilizing the largest painting stretcher I had in my studio. I then blindfolded myself and painted without visual aesthetic consideration, allowing for my body to become a physical vehicle for intuitive expression. The experience was so euphoric that I continued on the series with the same set up, varying in color palette and approach, all blindfolded. It has become an important exercise in combating self-criticism and further exploring mark-making, as well as a way for me to continue to utilize painting to work through personal emotional turmoil.

Week 4: Gwen Samuels - Wall Flowers

Gwen Samuels

Wall Flowers

February 2020

Digital images of flowers printed on transparency, hand-stitched to wire form

9 x 10 x 5 inches approx. each flower

37 h x 60 inches installation (dimensions variable)

Being sheltered in place- makes me think about nature. 
In California, during this time, after the rains come the flowers. 
That cycle continues no matter what else has changed.
I chose Wall Flowers to bring the nature inside.

Week 4: Betzi Stein - MOCA Maid

Betzi Stein

MOCA Maid

2020

Acrylic on Panel

36 x 24 inches

A portrait of Leslie Frank, a gallery attendant at MOCA, on the job at the museum before it closed due to Covid-19 on March 25th. Unfortunately, Leslie, like so many others, has been laid off. My heart goes out to her and everyone who is suffering as a result of this crisis,  

This piece is part of my Art World series where I create paintings from candid photos I take of people I see in my wanderings around various art venues. 

Week 4: Sarah Detweiler - Hidden (Grieving) Mother

Sarah Detweiler

Hidden (Grieving) Mother

2020

Oil, acrylic & thread on raw canvas

12 x 12 inches

Nominated by Dani Vinokurov

Sarah's work is haunting and captivating. Her “Hidden Mother” series is a response to the Victorian-era trend by the same name. Mothers draped themselves in fabric in order to “blend” into the background while holding their children still for long exposure photography. Their attempts to camouflage themselves is eerie and ghost-like, and very much a metaphor for how many mothers feel about themselves, their bodies and their emotions—things to be concealed. In this particular piece, Sarah reflects on the experience of pregnancy loss and at what point the woman takes on the role of mother.