18th Street Arts Center

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By ajones, August 31, 2011 1:10 pm

June1-August 30, 2011

Taiwanese Artist Yen-Ting Chung creates a pared-down, primitive world, one existing as though at the beginning of time, and imbues the creatures that populated it with a sense of quiet alienation. The flightless birds, chubby kiwi-like creatures, wolf-like creatures, long snake-like creatures and unknown creatures build up her personal mythology. Those creatures were made up by basic strokes from writing the Chinese characters. Chung took apart the Chinese characters and put them back together to become a new “creature”.

The ancient creators of the Chinese characters observed the animals and made them pictographic Chinese characters. The pictographic Chinese characters in her drawings went through a language migration in that they were translated into anthropomorphic characters from a fictional cosmology to represent her worldview. Deconstructing the Chinese characters and creating her own characters is like an observation of her inner self which reflects the world she lives in. Through the calligraphy-style drawing, sculptures and animation, she finds where the creatures live, what that world looks like and how they develop their world. It is a place Chung looks forward to discovering and where she belongs.

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By ajones, April 1, 2011 4:34 pm

April 1-May 30, 2011

“Drawing was my first love.  I was three when I decided that I would be an artist someday.  From kindergarten to college, I was always involved with art in some format.  As a college student I received a B.F.A. in sculpture from Ithaca College.  I worked mainly with found object. Technically my degree was in ” found object and sculptural installation”.   My interests in that medium were economically based due to my position as a student who only worked part time.  My interest in the public installation part was largely due to a need to be acknowledged but I also found the medium to be very transcendental for me.  I would work with things I found or that were donated and they would grow into something else.   Through the installation process I was able to see others interact and react.   An idea was born.  Not one that came purely from my mind and desires but one that was put forth by the object itself.   I enjoyed the communion and the growth we all shared, the object, the viewer and myself.  The animation of the object and its transcendence into art was and still is my favorite part of working with found objects. I have been a professional tattoo artist for the last eleven years.  It has taught me so much abut myself as an artist and the art process itself.  Tattooing has been my main medium since I started.  When one is working on skin there is no room to walk away if things aren’t going how you projected they would.   In addition;  the canvas wants to know how it’s going.Tattooing is an art form that requires one to be organized and have a very efficient plan of execution.  Until I started tattooing I hadn’t made the connection with the art process in quite the same way.  My sculpture was always very process oriented.  I’ve always liked knowing how things were put together:  the places where different things come together to create a whole.  These are the things that excite me about art.  The process in tattooing is one not easily seen in the final product.  This is different from the medium of found object sculpture.  I am looking forward to taking what I’ve learned through tattooing and applying it to the sculptural medium.  I’m certain that my experience within the tattoo field will aid my joints and junctures in the studio to be.”

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By ajones, April 1, 2011 4:12 pm

April 1-May 30, 2011

Amy Justen became an artist because she found so many things that were difficult for her to express through language: insights gleaned about the human condition through observation and meditation. She focused her studies on the human figure during her education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, through the mediums of painting, printmaking and sculpture, always with the goal of further understanding humanity and herself.  Toward the end of her time at the Art Institute, she moved away from figurative work and became immersed in mixed media sculpture and installation, melding the elements of earth, air, fire and water in sculptures made of welded metal, handmade paper, beeswax and human hair.   She considers herself a very process oriented, visionary artist, meaning that she would have a “vision” of a finished project and then work backwards figuring out how to bring this vision into fruition. She has worked as a professional tattooist for 15 years and have mastered the medium, with forays back into the fine art world, mostly through painting, still exhibiting the work on at least a yearly basis.  Her work is in private collections throughout the country and adorns the bodies of thousands of people throughout the world.  She plans to use her time at the 18th Street Art center to meld the two mediums:  bringing together the art of painting with the aesthetics of tattooing with works on paper, and to create some small scale sculptures that she can see in her mind’s eye and now need to figure out how to bring into fruition.

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By rlopez, January 7, 2011 7:45 pm

International Month of Exhibitions Features Artists from Iran, Tibet, South Africa, Korea and the United States

Public Reception is on Thursday, January 20, 2011 from 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Han Sungpil & Yvette Gellis, Open Water, photo based mural & mixed media, 2010

18th Street Arts Center is proud to present four exhibitions highlighting their award-winning International Visiting Artist Program.

Beginning January 7- 28, 18th Street is featuring exhibitions from Iran, Tibet, Korea and South Africa. The public reception for these exhibitions will be held on Thursday, January 20, 7:30-9:30 pm.

In the 18th Street Gallery a provocative and groundbreaking exhibit, Postcards from Tehran, a collaboration with the Aaran Gallery of Tehran, Iran, curated by Nazila Noebashari will be presented. Breaking down the barriers of political prejudice, the show will be the first Los Angeles exhibition of works by seven Iranian artists in conjunction with works by two artists from California who migrated from Iran. Both political and prosaic, Postcards from Tehran is a unique view of contemporary Iranian artists whose dissenting viewpoints may prove to be eye-openers to many Americans whose main knowledge about Iran is typically derived from corporate cable news channels. The artists include Arash Fayez, Siamak Filizadeh, Hadi Nasiri,  Behrang Samadzadeghan, Behnam Kamrani, Barbad Golshiri and Jinoos Taghizadeh. They are joined in this collaboration by Iranian-American artists, Ala Ebtekar and Amitis Motevalli, both well-known West Coast visual artists.

Norbu (Nortse) Tsering, (detail, 1 of 40), "Hidden Mantra", mixed media on paper, 14.2" x 22.8", 2010

In the Pasillos Gallery 18th Street will feature the Los Angeles debut of Tibetan artists Tsering Nyandakand Norbu Tsering. American audiences are familiar with conventional notions of Tibetan art, but will have the opportunity to experience the vibrant new representational narrative painting and mixed media installations coming out of Tibet’s contemporary art community.

18th Street is also thrilled to present videos of South African performance artist MLu Zondi. Mr. Zondi’s provocative performance videos will be on display in the Project Room and a live performance of his work will take place on February 19, at 8:30pm at Highways Performance Space located at 18th Street Arts Center.

Korean artist Han Sungpil has collaborated with Los Angeles painter Yvette Gellis to create a dynamic mural, Open Water, which will cover the facade of 18th Street Arts Center. Individually, the two artist have produced major installations in a number of public spaces. Han is known for his massive wrappings of buildings in diverse cites worldwide; and Gellis, a painter known for her huge canvasses, has recently expanded her work into installations of three-dimensional abstract paintings.

During the opening reception on Thursday, January 20, 2011, 18th Street Arts Center will also present a special preview of videographer Ben Caldwell’s interactive video installation which was commissioned as a public art piece at the new Santa Monica Place shopping center. The installation entitled ”Untitled” invites interactivity as it projects the work of several artists onto the floor of the Colorado Avenue entrance.

18th Street Arts Center is a long time alternative arts organization based in Santa Monica, California, whose mission is to provoke public dialogue through contemporary art making. For more information, contact Program Coordinator Ronald Lopez at rlopez@18thstreet.org, or go to www.18thstreet.org.