Gallery Exhibition

Speedy Gallery: Action! Paintings by Billy Zane on View

Curator and Gallerist Yiwei Lu and Actor Billy Zane at Speedy Gallery, Santa Monica

The Pomonan
Published November 16, 2023 6:30am PST

If you haven't already, you should visit Speedy Gallery. Action! is currently on display at Santa Monica's Speedy Gallery until Saturday, November 26. The exhibition is brimming with vitality! Paintings, mixed media, and sculpture are accompanied by a brilliant abundance of sculptural material that contextualizes them. Visitors are encouraged to interact with the award-winning actor's works. The title, ‘Action!’ alludes to the connection between his action painting and his cinematic roots.

Concept

ACTION!
Paintings by Billy Zane

Concept by Billy Zane
– Since the now-legendary Hollywood verb was barked on a film set 100 years ago, ACTION! became the starter pistol for the collective, creative process used in cinema to this day.
A concert of diverse elements, talents and toolsets are primed, and at its utterance, unleashed before the lens, in a shining moment, to be captured forever.
Regardless of all the preparation, once off the starter blocks, what follows is controlled chaos, an improvisation, a sequence of events that effect the following ones uniquely with every TAKE.

In art, ACTION painting, is not dissimilar. Just as the artist informs the canvas with a gesture, the canvas informs artist as to what their next act, or stroke may be as a result.
It’s a conversation in as much like the term for the very words spoken by characters in a film script or improvised by actors on set, “It’s dialogue Jake.”

I am a grateful child of both parents.
31 years an actor, 25 so far as a painter… I happily inhabit both the film and art worlds and each informs the other, so much so, that most of my paintings are made on location; sometimes on set, in the long waits between shots.

I only use materials I can source in field. The more remote and exotic the location the better, as it reduces the number of variables and, for me at least, increases my creative hunger and desire for expression, as access to colors, canvas and brushes become limited. The search for materials, in fact, has become part of my “process”.

This pressing need to create excellence with “what ya got“, be it on film, memory card or on canvas, adds to this addictive urgency, and air of danger. It demands commitment and bold choices, while being responsive and in the moment. Like an Army medic or EMT, I feel like I’m
doing triage; anointing, wrapping, and bandaging a deep blue cut, tending to a fresh crimson gash. And crazy part is I’m the guy that causes the happy accidents!

Annnnnd…Action! -BZ

Curated by Yiwei Lu


ARTIST BIO
Billy Zane is an American artist most often associated with his celebrated work in cinema as an actor, starring in some of the highest-grossing films and tv shows of all time, such as Titanic and Twin Peaks. However, the raw authenticity of his paintings, drawings, and photography has garnered him nearly as much recognition and critical praise. Most of his artwork is created outdoors while working on film sets and with mostly found and recycled materials in remote locations.

Speedy Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave. B5B. Santa Monica, CA, 90404

Hours of Operation
Saturdays : 12 – 7 pm
Tuesday to Friday : 12 – 5pm
Please Call for Appointment (213)248-4712

Holiday Closing:
From December 19, 2021 to January 5, 2022

Please check our Instagram for updates or changes in hours of operation.

Bunny Gunner Gallery Claremont - Julian Lucas: Synthesis

Julian Lucas: Synthesis
Opening Reception October 1, 2022
230 W Bonita Ave, Claremont, CA 91711

Synthesis opens at Bunny Gunner Gallery, Claremont, CA on October 1st. The gallery will present a thematic showcase of Julian's photographic works from various bodies of work generated between 2014 and 2022, and will include framed darkroom prints on archival fiber paper printed by the artist. As a part of the immersive body of work, there will be an installation of unframed photographic prints.

The works displayed under the term Synthesis were entirely self-funded. The photographs are documentary or photojournalistic in nature. Each photograph offers a sense of events, the results of a larger picture.

"I'm seeking a visual synthesis combining all of these components to create something specifically from my experience. Each image is a retelling of the same narrative. My ultimate objective is to develop a new alternative point of view."

Gagosian Beverly Hills: Cy Twombly Exhibition

Gagosian Press Release
Published 9/22/2022 8:57 am PST

In parallel to the J. Paul Getty Museum's exhibition Cy Twombly: Making Past Present from August 2 through October 30, 2022. The Gagosian exhibition, developed in partnership with the Cy Twombly Foundation, includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by Cy Twombly. It is the artist's first visit to the Beverly Hills gallery since Cy Twombly: The Last Paintings in 2012, and it contains works from the artist's final decade. Making Past Present is Twombly's first institutional display in Los Angeles in almost three decades, and it will go to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2023.

In the 2000s, Twombly returned to large-scale painting, working in Gaeta, Italy, and Lexington, Virginia. He made the switch after his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1994 and the critical success of Lepanto, a suite of twelve paintings first shown at the 49th Biennale di Venezia in 2001. In these works, he used palettes of lush, saturated colors to take a new approach to color. Slender paint lines and loops combine expressive vitality and elegance, while bolder strokes are reminiscent of peony and chrysanthemum petals. The paintings have the unfettered energy of a Bacchanalia and the vivacity of young blossoms; they are both exuberant and elegiac, reflecting on poetry, history, and myth.

Untitled I-VI (Green Painting) (2002-03), a collection of six panels in rich greens and vivid white, standout. It was originally exhibited just once, as part of the Met's 2016 exhibition Unfinished: Thoughts Made Visible. Twombly's works on paper, which blur the distinctions between painting, drawing, and writing, as well as his sculptures, which carry his concerns with geometry, gesture, and materiality into three dimensions, are also included. These works, built of plaster, wood, and fragments found in his workshop, mimic relics of monumental architectural and sculptural forms from ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece. Twombly's sculptures were usually painted or cast in bronze, merging their varied forms while retaining the tactility of their surfaces.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, with a conversation on Twombly between artists Tacita Dean and Julie Mehretu.

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, creative strategist, and writer in training, but mostly a photographer. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking unhoused veterans to housing.

Yiwei Gallery Presents: Mind Body Soul

 
 
 

Yiwei Gallery is pleased to present Body Mind Soul, a group photography exhibition featuring Rezeta Veliu, Chi Haibo, and Jeffrey Sklan.

Opening Reception with the Artists
Sunday, July 17th, 2:00 - 6:00 pm

1350 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, California 90291

Courtesy of Yiwei Gallery

Los Angeles based photographer Rezeta Veliu was born and raised in Pristina, Kosovo. In 1999, at the age of 14 she fled Kosovo as a war refugee and moved to New York. Her curiosity for cultures led her to live in Japan, Mexico City, Venice Beach, and Joshua Tree, and this nomadic lifestyle has fueled her creative journey as a photographer. This series Woman Is Stronger Than A Rock (Njëriu Është Më I Fort Se Guri ) was inspired by the hardships that women have endured and overcome and their bond to the unwavering natural landscape. Shooting on film, Rezeta captures the adversity and resilience of both subjects. She seeks to celebrate the strength of women by delving into the beauty of female liberation through the connection to Mother Earth. She also explores the symbiotic relationship between human vulnerability and the effortless acceptance of nature as a hopeful embodiment of our future on this planet.

Chinese photographer Chi Haibo finds his inspiration for Plant Poem ( Feng Ya) in Shijing, “Classic of Poetry”, which is the oldest authenticated anthology of poems in China spanning from the 11th to 7th centuries B.C. The poems reference more than a hundred kinds of plants and were chanted and sung both in humble fields and imperial courts. In keeping with the tradition of Shijing, Chi utilizes photography as his way of paying tribute to and celebrating plant life. This series is influenced specifically by two sections of Shijing, the “Feng” and the “Ya” which symbolize atmosphere and elegance, respectively. He aims to capture plants’ genuine state at one moment in time and reflect his own interpretation of pictorial aesthetics free from the bounds of traditional photography rules. The series of works can be experienced as a whole, and yet each photo can also stand on its own.

Courtesy of Yiwei Gallery

ELEGY is American photographer Jefferey Sklan’s collection of photographs paying tribute to lives lost in the epidemic of mass killings worldwide. Each image represents a discrete event.The series intentionally uses a rich color palette, as a nod to the classical painters who were Jefferey’s early heroes. The images were created as the viewer sees them, with neither artifice nor gimmickry. The collection begins with “A Lily for Orlando / Pulse Nightclub”, and ends with “A Lily for Nipsey”, a white lily on a blue field for the LA rapper and community activist, Nipsey Hussle.

The artist reception will be held on Sunday, July 17th, from 2 to 6pm. There will be live music performed by artists from CalArts, and a tea tasting experience provided by Tea Wave. Tea Wave is a company that sources single origin teas from high character, high quality, award-winning suppliers in Fujian, China. The founders, Michael and Joey, hope their teas can help you find calm in this crazy world. Parking can be found on the streets or in the neighborhood.

Courtesy of Yiwei Gallery

About Yiwei Gallery

Curating Meaningful exhibitions of local and global artists from our gallery in the heart of Venice, California. Open to all, our gallery focuses primarily on emerging and established women artists

From Los Angeles to Shanghai and beyond, we are dedicated to increasing exposure in international art markets for our Asian and other artists 

GENERATIONS by Scot Sothern

GENERATIONS | Scot Sothern

EXHIBITION DATES: May 14 – June 11 / by appointment 

ARTIST’S RECEPTION: Saturday, May 14, 6:00–9:00 PM / no appointment necessary 

THESE DAYS is pleased to present the exhibition Generations by Scot Sothern

In this exhibition, artist/writer Scot Sothern—best known for his controversial and lauded work LOWLIFE, photographs and stories of street prostitutes in and around Los Angeles during the 1980s—has compiled two bodies of work made nearly fifty years apart. Collected under the shared title GENERATIONS are Sothern’s earliest personal photographs, FAMILY TREE 1975 – 1980, and his most recent body of work, IDENTITY, both of which explore time, change, and the multi-directional evolution of America. 

GENERATIONS’ point of departure is FAMILY TREE 1975 – 1980. This series encapsulates some of Sothern's earliest personal photographs, which he began making soon after leaving the small Missouri Ozarks town where he was raised. In his late teens he left the confines of his father's portrait and wedding photography studio to chase the 1960s glorification of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. He worked as an itinerant photographer with a cache of gimmicks and a conman’s mindset. During this period he was also making photographs of characters he met along the way. In 1975, When Sothern began the FAMILY TREE series, complete strangers were more trusting of a person with a camera. Suspicion and mass antipathy had not yet blanketed the country, and a million-selfie-a-day habit hadn’t yet degraded the personal and sentimental value of the snapshot. The FAMILY TREE photos, shot on Kodachrome and printed as Cibachromes (both discontinued), combined with Sothern's written accounts of the interactions they document, are unique and meaningful stories of another time. These Days will publish a limited edition monograph of this series to coincide with the exhibition.

IDENTITY, Sothern’s newest and most original project, explores time and vast change from as far back as the American Civil War, with comparisons to the current American civil discord. Working with found antique, glass-plate ambrotypes and using Photoshop to print and size contemporary images, Sothern then physically binds these elements together to create small art works that are equally digital and analog—both handmade, and technologically advanced.

In the second half of the 19th Century professional photographers were few and far between. Using a wet-collodion process on glass and often guesstimating exposure times resulted in Ambrotypes that can be both stunning and flawed. The ambrotypes present people who are much like us but in a very different time. As in FAMILY TREE, comparisons to modern day selfies come to mind and force consideration of the relative value of a single image. While the social media selfie is shot for immediate and rapid consumption, these singular ambrotypes were originally greatly valued for their personal worth. Now altered they become objets d'art with meaning spanning generations and relevance in the contemporary world.

IDENTITY, the who and what we are, has never been more out of the closet. People young and old are declaring their previously covert sexual personas. We are as well living in a world of technology surpassing the imaginations of only a few years ago. This combination has contributed to a new social disintegration. Cutting edge advances, both socially and scientifically, are at odds with backward movements attempting to bring back good old days that in fact never existed. Xenophobia, white supremacy, and gender bashing have elbowed their ways into the forefront. Global Warming is at the brink of no return. America has never been as disconnected as in the immediate now. IDENTITY captures the contemporary zeitgeist.  

GENERATIONS doesn’t pretend to have the answers nor does it close any credibility gaps. This work, spanning three centuries, should help define with humor, pathos, politics and empathy who we have become. Who we need to be to move forward is up to the viewer.

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Writer/photographer/artist Scot Sothern grew up in his father’s portrait photography studio in the Missouri Ozarks in the 1950s and 1960s. A product of the sixties cultural revolution, he ran wild through the 1970s and supported himself as an itinerant portrait photographer. In the following years he took jobs here and abroad that kept him behind a camera and in the darkroom. By the 1990s he had become an autodidact writer as well. In 2010, at sixty, his first solo exhibit, LOWLIFE, photos and stories of life with street prostitutes, was held at the notorious Drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles. Scot’s first book of the same title was published in the U.K. by Stanley Barker in 2011. The British Journal of Photography called LOWLIFE, “the years’ most controversial photobook.” LOWLIFE immediately found its way into the international art photography community. This work along with other photography projects has since been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, London, and Paris. Solo gallery shows have included Little Big Man Gallery in LA, Dan Cooney Fine Art in NYC, and Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami. In 2013 Sothern began a biweekly column, Nocturnal Submissions, for VICE Magazine, and Curb Service: A Memoir, was published by Soft Skull Press. Writer Jerry Stahl called it “An absolutely amazing and essential book." STREETWALKERS, stories and photographs, was published by powerHouse Books in February 2016. “This penetrating book of photographs and text will haunt and challenge the viewer,” writes Roger Ballen.
BIG CITY, a novel, was published in 2017 by Stalking Horse Press. Other books include SAD CITY published by Straylight Press, and A New Low and Little Miss by drkrm editions.

On View - ‘Time, Love and Gravity’ The Progress Gallery

‘Time, Love and Gravity’
On View through February 12, 2022
Opening Reception February 12 5 - 9p
The Progress Gallery

‘Time, ‘Love and Gravity’, an exhibition featuring the work of 22 artists and curated by Southern California artists Brandon Monk Munoz, Melinda Hagman, Michael Magoski & E.E. Jacks. This work explores a wide range of mediums, from painting to mixed media, film installation to neon, ceramic sculpture and large scale woodwork pieces. They were completed between the beginning of 2020 and 2022, a season of many questions and much introspection.

This exhibit is simply a momentary rest stop during our ongoing search for the timeless truths that connect us all.

We are born here on earth to die one day. The life we live in between is our art for others to interpret as we all add shape and form to the never ending narrative of Time, Love and Gravity.

Exhibition Statement here

Curators
Brandon Monk Munoz - Fine artist, woodworker, furniture builder, mentor, curator.
Melinda Hagman - Fine artist, painter, and curator.
Michael Magoski - Director of the Magoski Arts Colony, Fine Art Photographer, curator, writer and poet.
E.E. Jacks - Fine artist, painter, curator, juror, writer and poet.

Progress Gallery
The Progress Gallery is a non-profit art gallery in the Pomona Arts Colony, located in the basement of the 1931 Art Deco building that formerly housed the Progress Bulletin. The gallery features regional and collegiate level of emerging and established artists, and is available for use by colleges and qualified artists.

300 S. Thomas St.
Pomona, California
(415) 961-1855

Gallery Hours
Tuesday: 11am-5pm
Wednesday: 11am-5pm
Saturday: 5pm-9pm
Sunday: 11am-5pm
www.theprogressgallery.org
momo@theprogressgallery.com