It’s Elizabeth Turk’s first day at her open studio at Orange Coast College’s Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion. One wall is covered with dozens of silhouettes of extinct birds; there’s a video of her at work setting up sketches and preparatory drawings, and then at play, rolling around the gallery in a desk chair; there […]
About Dave Barton
There’s Nothing Fishy About Coastline Art Gallery’s ‘Fish Out of Water’
Serving up fishy realness, but not in the way you might think, curator David Michael Lee and Coastline Art Gallery have cast a wide net and snagged a bevy of fun, often imaginative, quite enjoyable art around the eccentric theme of California fish. There are several images in “Fish Out of Water” that don’t really […]
Fourth Element Gallery’s ‘Florabau’ Is an Eerie Rumination on California’s Current Eco-Nightmare
It isn’t always clear what Jane Bauman’s intent is in the current exhibition of some of her recent work at Fourth Element Gallery in Santa Ana. The painter has been working her craft for enough years that you can be sure that it’s there, so plan on spending some time with the work to parse […]
Satiate Your Midsummer Origami Cravings at Brea Gallery’s ‘PaperWorks Refolded’
For a case study in the possibilities of curation, consider a visit to “PaperWorks Refolded” at Brea Gallery. Director and curator Heather Bowling has made stellar choices in her artists; the show’s layout is seamless; and her interactive collage and origami pit stops allow people to effectively put what they’re seeing into practice. The sequel […]
Andrea Patrie and ‘It’s Time’ Exhibits in Santa Ana Take on the Most Uncomfortable of Topics
Painter/sculptor Andrea Patrie doesn’t give a fuck if you’re uncomfortable. Her sculptures at the new Fourth Element Gallery are creepy, corpsey, totemic things, naked, their faces animalistic, more suggested than represented. The figures rest in a Buddhist stance amid garish pink carpet (Clay Series #1) or are presented as a sitting male figure with a […]
Magical Visions Inhabit a New Exhibit at Hilbert Museum of California Art
Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty was something of a boondoggle when it opened in 1959. Critics were unimpressed, many convinced that this particular goldmine had been dug one too many times before. Back at a time when reviews mattered, audiences stayed away in droves, and the film tanked at the box office. It was an expensive, […]
![East of Eden: A Road Trip to Steinbeck Country [Summer Travel 2018]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/lede-Salinas-and-Monterey-courtesy-of-Monterey-Bay-Aquarium-3-348x180.jpg)
East of Eden: A Road Trip to Steinbeck Country [Summer Travel 2018]
If you’re an arts and culture snob, a road trip to Salinas and Monterey can connect you with literature, history and the fine arts. The six or seven hours it takes to get there (minus rest stops) are relatively painless. Once you’ve made sure your car is loaded with snacks and beverages, get on the […]
Huntington Beach Art Center’s Loosely Curated ‘Color Vision’ Playfully Stretches Its Boundaries
There’s a bait-and-switch going on at Huntington Beach Art Center. It seems that many of the 20 artists in co-curators Jim Ellsberry and Suzanne Walsh’s “Color Vision” didn’t get the note that the exhibition’s theme is about hues, tints, shades and tones. Most, in fact, seem less interested in playing with color than in walking […]
A Collegial Appreciation of Laguna Project Mastermind and BC Space Curator Mark Chamberlain
BC Space curator Mark Chamberlain died April 23. He was 75. In lieu of retelling his accomplishments, so numerous they wouldn’t fit on this page, I asked his local friends and colleagues to briefly write what he meant to them. Lev Anderson, documentary filmmaker: “A self-proclaimed river rat, Mark relished any opportunity to talk about […]
‘Tony DeLap: A Retrospective’ Is a Magical Affair, ‘Reclaimed Landscapes: The Art of Jarod Charzewski’ Reminds Us What Matters
Viewing Laguna Art Museum’s “Tony DeLap: A Retrospective” is like being in the audience of a magic act. Not because of the repetitious images of floating ladies and card tricks placed throughout the show. Not even because the artist has been an actual magician most of his life. Rather, it’s because, as with any decent […]
The Well-Curated ‘LA ATTITUDE’ Show at Sue Greenwood Fine Art Captures the City’s Intimidating Spirit
One of the most important talents a curator can possess is corraling artists in one place and making it seem as if their works belong together. Sue Greenwood has done just that, bringing a trio of Los Angeles painters—William Wray, Scott Yeskel and Danny McCaw—into her Laguna Beach gallery, with the resulting exhibition, “LA ATTITUDE,” […]
A Ghost Is Resurrected at the Bowers With ‘American Visionary: John F. Kennedy’s Life and Times’
I.F. Stone once described John F. Kennedy as “simply an optical illusion,” and nowhere is that more evident than in “American Visionary: John F. Kennedy’s Life and Times,” the curated showing of Kennedy photographs now at the Bowers Museum. Tracing the life of the 35th president of the United States from his privileged birth to […]
OCC’s ‘Jim DeFrance: A Retrospective’ Is a Graceful Ode to Life’s Release
The deep emotion in curator Tom Dowling’s voice is palpable as he slips on his glasses and leans in to examine his late friend Jim DeFrance’s work. As his hand runs over the graceful curves of the rippling carved-wood sculpture Rainbow, his fingers touch here, there and down under, highlighting the spots, scrapes and gouges […]
Our Man In Malta on His Semi-Annual Theatrical Pilgrimage
Every two and a half years over the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to go to Malta and direct a play. After more than 25 years in the business, I rarely direct locally because most local theaters don’t pay; they’re too busy chasing audiences to do anything adventurous, so there isn’t much opportunity to […]
Crucial Basement Projects Inhabits the Lower Level of the Santora Arts Building in Santa Ana
“I don’t have time to go to LA,” admits Christian Ramirez, by way of explaining that curating is a “selfish” art. “Managing a gallery, I can curate shows for the work I want to see here in Santa Ana.” Ramirez is speaking about Basement Projects, the gallery he runs in the lower level of the […]
Avant-Garde Composer John Cage Inspires New Display at Beall Center for Art + Technology
Beall Center for Art + Technology’s “Drawn From a Score” is inspired by the work of avant-garde musician John Cage, who is best known for 4’33”, in which musicians walk into a performance space, then don’t do anything for four minutes and 33 seconds, with the shuffling of feet, people coughing, the hum of air […]
Female Victimization and Childhood Trauma Inform a Muddled Show at Grand Central Art Center
Deipnophobia is the fear of dinner conversation. Deipnophoroi are women who prepared food and offered a sympathetic ear to young boys and girls during ancient Greek celebrations commemorating the ritual slaughter of young people by the Minotaur. Maya Gurantz’s Deipnophoroi has nothing to do with food preparation. Rather, it’s about food for thought, tackling subjects […]
The 10 Best Art Shows of the Worst Year Ever
It’s early in the morning. Everyone else is asleep. I’m drinking my coffee and contemplating the explosion of great art this past year in Orange County. The beauty of corpses, the poetry of abstraction, social conscience, mentorship, celebrities, new looks at the places where we live and the things we throw away: 2017 was a […]
Unlike Our National Political Climate, Yorba Linda’s Nixon Library Gets Better and Better
The last time I visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum was in 1990, protesting its opening. I was 30 and pissed about the state of the world. Orange County was overwhelmingly Republican—so much so it was celebrating Yorba Linda’s most successful, and humiliated, son by dedicating a new building to him. Twenty-seven years […]
A Controversial German Philosopher Inspires a UC Irvine Exhibit’s Exploration of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’
Stepping into the dark hallway leading to Omar Mismar’s film installation, “Schmitt, You and Me,” at UC Irvine’s Room Gallery, you see a paper target peppered with seven bullet holes, each hit in areas that would devastate vital organs. It’s difficult to view with perfect clarity, but in the upper-right corner, there’s a complimentary, handwritten […]
Bradford J. Salamon’s Paintings Turn Cultural Detritus Into Destination Artwork
Los Angeles artist Bradford J. Salamon paints junk. An accomplished portraitist, his move to create likenesses of things such as old toys, faded technology and the detritus we toss in the can when it starts to misbehave is the artist’s Proustian elegy to time passing. It makes a certain sense that if we capture the […]
