Valerie Mrején. Video Shorts

French Artist Valérie Mréjen is known for her succinct observation of the human condition.

Her probing psychological studies of individuals and their interactions run the gamut from

humorous to tragic. Language and its limitations is often a subject for Mréjen. In this set of quirky

video portraits, individuals were asked to recall a memory. The resulting narrative highlights

the participants ideosyncrasies as well as poignantly unites them through their all too human

common flaws.

Mréjen is a published author,a filmaker, and an internationally known fine artist.

The video portraits shown here were made in Paris and in Los Angeles.

Video Portraits is an ongoing project.

Mréjen's extensive biography includes recent exhibitions at he Biennale de Turin and ARCO

Madrid (stand D.A.P.)

All work courtesy Gallerie Cent8 Paris.2

Domestic Bliss

Raghubir Kintisch is a multidisciplinary artist, painter, social practitioner and educator whose projects focus on the confluent nature of art and spirit. Her projects tend to be theme-based and executed as a suite of images and objects often including sound and/or video elements.

For her exhibition at Winslow Garage, Kintisch presents a series of large, highly textured wall pieces composed of black and white ink drawings combined with textiles symbolic of cultural rituals from both the artist's personal experience and from the larger history of women's lives. Though the examination of the performance of ritualized behavior, these works question the purpose and use of these practices though the past, during their current usage, and into a possibly untenable future.

Kintisch has a BFA in Painting from RISD and an MFA in Public Practice from OTIS. She currently teaches at OTIS College of Art and Design, Los Angeles Country High School for the Arts and Notre Dame High School.

www.kintischstudio.com

Paul White

Paul White Sews

Australian artist Paul White uses his sewing machine to make obsessively crafted drawings and objects which explore gender and vulnerability.

In his latest body of work, White sews a series of scar drawings based on designs for children's temporary tattoos. These garish and gory images pinned to the wall like stretched skins use dress making material in a wholly unexpected manner while addressing goofy horror film depictions of the body.

Paul White is currently a MFA candidate at the California Institute of the Arts in  Valencia, CA . He is the recipient of an Australian Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship

Jane and Anthony Polkinghorne, Polk-a-Polk Films

Polk-a-Polk Productions is the Australian brother and sister film making team Anthony and Jane Polkinghorne. Over the last few years they have brought a very particular ‘vision’ to the short film genre. Their vision is not predicated on insights into human emotion, but is rather a deep probe into toilet humour that is combined with a rambunctious and camp sensibility.  Humour and disgust blend together in a perverse almost non-sexual way, and perhaps that is the most perverse thing of all.

By utilizing the same group of actors a strange continuity builds up as each film is viewed. But the continuity is not of plot or character. This is a continuity of disgust, absurd personas and filthy actions all streamlined into films running no longer than 7 minutes. There is no time to get bored although the more squeamish may simply be repulsed into leaving.

Polk-a-Polk films are populated with zombies. monsters, space sluts, and other over wrought, over signified film staples. However through the device of humour these filmic signs are rendered ludicrous and more often than not reduced to or brought asunder by the scatological .

Parental warning: There is nudity, there is dancing, there is mud.

Bio:

Apart from their sibling relationship Polk-a-Polk Productions have been working together since 1991??. A lack of ambition and of course finances has left them cursed to only make films running 7 minutes or less. Jane has been living in Los Angeles for the past 2 years, while Anthony has been based in Sydney. Hopefully their reunion later this month will bear fruit and more of their genius will make it to the big screen soon, although they would also be happy with the small screen!

Gian Martin Joller

FWY, audio installation

A sprawling display of an audio recording of an Italian Speedway races its way around the floor of

the project space. The sound of rushing cars rings through the space and outside into the neighborhood where it is left to compete with the actual roar of nearby Highway 101.

Natalia Edenmont

Wanted Dead or Alive

Curated by Per Hüttner for LA International

with work by Carlee Fernandez and Ivan Fayard

It is often said that the one thing that we know with certainty is that we are going to die. Understanding and acknowledging death is one of the greatest challenges facing each human being. Animals have often been used as metaphors in folklore to address issues that are taboo or difficult to talk about. There are many fables full of cruelty, humour and a directness that is rarely seen in stories depicting human interaction.

Wanted Dead or Alive brings together three culturally diverse artists that use animals in different ways to reveal and address issues that boil with controversy. They all use new technologies or appropriate contemporary phenomena to cast new light on life and death.

Nathalia Edenmont’s photographic portraits of animals are seducing and majestically beautiful. On closer inspection we become aware that we are staring death in the eye and that it stares back at us.  Edenmont was brought up in the former Soviet Union and is since 12 yeas living in Sweden. Her images are metaphors of the hypocrisy of the authoritarian society she was surrounded by in her childhood and the lack of acceptance for the foreign in contemporary Swedish society.

In his “Usurpers Series” French artist Ivan Fayard makes paintings that copy stills from classic Disney movies. In each image Fayard changes a detail, which transposes the fairytale into brute realism incorporating sexuality, vengeance and scatological references. On the one hand Fayard brings back the directness of the Brother’s Grimm stories that Disney moulded his narratives on, where death is real and painful. On the other hand he takes out the inherent anachronism and throws Disney right back into the contemporary.

Los Angeles based artist Carlee Fernandez makes sculptures from dead animals and re-styles them into fashion objects, like bags and functional objects like stepladders or laundry baskets. The objects reveal both how blind we have come to the consumer products around us, but also how far away from the abattoirs that produce the food that we eat.

With the rise of modern medicine and science, death has been removed from the everyday experience.  It has moved into the long corridors of enormous hospitals and contested by cryogenics. The meat we buy at Ralph’s or the leather of our Prada shoes no longer come from real animals. They are simply commodities that bring us a moment of distraction from the real stress mortgage payments and social commitments.

Wanted Dead or Alive brings back these discussions and show artists who do not shy away from impertinent questions that titillate and allure.

-Per Hüttner

Michelle Weinberg, Roadside Mediation

 Large Scale paintings on paper fuse the flat color treatments found on warehouse exteriors with graphic images and pattern. Painted with latex, gouache and watecolor media, these works are conceived as protable murals, which fold and unfold. The found patper collages orchestrate eccentric spaces on an intimate scale. Images float and collide in shallow spaces which hint at fragmented narratives. Weinberg’s imagery lifts its saturated palette and graphic outlines from printed matter and animation of the 60’s and 70’s.

Jonathan Binstock, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Museum of Art, observed  that “Weinberg’s uncanny ability to inflate and explore this intrinsically compressed space endows her work with a quirky amplitude that upends visual perception, the laws of gravity, and other physical phenomena.”

Michelle Weinberg is the recipient of fellowships and awads from Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony, a FIVA Fellowship from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, a Visual Arts fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Eastern Grontier Society in Maine, the New England Foundation for the Arts and Artist Access Grants from Tigertail Productions in Miami, among others.

Ms. Weinberg contributes reviews on art to Tema Celeste magazine. She also edits and presents CIRCULAR, a bi-annual publication of contemporary art and culture. Originally

From New Yourk, Weinberg received her BFA from the School of Bisual Arts in NYC and her MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.

Kungmi Shin, Recent Photo Manipulations

Spirtitual Lap Dance

Per Hüttner and Carmina Neusser

Joe Girandola, Kentucky Derby Duct Tape Work

www.ducttapedrawings.com

Joe Girandola's artistic works attract attention to minute details often overlooked in the corrupt rush of modern society. Though classically trained as a stone carver in Italy, he has veered away from marble and granite to concentrate on 3D relief drawings,paintings,and found-object sculptures.Prevalent use of duct tape, fiberglass milk crates and discarded objects are used to analyze a culture that is in need of drastic repair. Girandola searches for an unwritten language in works dealing with the methods that a civilazation creates to band-aid self-inflicted flaws:"Ill communication", so to speak. Duct tape bandages become a uniquely American media to create paintings representing the "quick fix" mentality prevalent in our society. Interpreting unique architectural landscapes athat are rapidly disappearing with a variety of 2 and 3 dimensional media,Girandola evaluates often-unforeseen mark making and continues to question the role of art making in an increasingly damaged society.

Claudia Bucher

Summer Reading In the Garden of  My Mind

Winslow Garage is pleased to present a summer exhibition by Los Angeles artist Claudia Bucher. Known for her elaborate and highly imaginative sculptural installations and performances, Bucher’s work typically has a deep literary base. Frequently, she uses mythology (both classical and more recently personal) as a starting point for exploring complex emotional needs and states of being.

For this exhibition, Bucher contemplates a fictional character who longs for a literary high and subsequently determines to write her own book only to encounter the creative crisis of writer's block. With a nod to the summertime activities of reading, gardening, and daydreaming, the character, who is primarily a visual artist, resorts to art making using books, plants and sounds in an effort to work through the myriad of whirling thoughts in her head.

Claudia Bucher has shown her work extensively in the Los Angeles area including such venues as LACE, L2Kontemporary, Carl Berg Projects, and Track 16 gallery. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a C.O.L.A Individual Artist Fellowship and an ARC grant from the Durfee Foundation. Ms. Bucher received her MFA from Art Center College of Design. She is currently an adjunct professor at UCLA.

Oliver Held, Kino Bochum

Staying Alive, a group exhibition curated by Mary Anna Pomonis with work by Oliver Held, Sonia Madan, Eric Smail, Ryan Lamb, Julie Zemel, Megan Geckler, Windy Givem, Allison Stewart, Kathleen Divney, and Terence Hannum

In the film "Saturday Night Fever" Tony Manero (played by John Travolta) transcends his daily life by defining himself through his dedication to his passion. In the opening sequence Tony carries a paint can and struts down the street encountering his everyday through the lens of music and rhythm. The artists in the group show "Staying Alive" similarly dance around their work life transforming their everyday experiences in and through a rigorous art making practice. This show addresses several critical questions of everyday industry and artistic practice. Does the everyday repetition of the work place influence an artist's studio work? Can people through fractured multitasking and time management achieve the level of clarity necessary to create an artistic oeuvre? Does a solid work ethic create  an energetic art object?

This show examines the work of nine artists who balance full time employment with their studio practice. Some of the work represented in the show highlights devices used to overcome the fragmentation of studio time associated with the disruptions of work and life. For example, Allison Stewart's photographs focus on the little disruptions of the work day, a stolen moment looking for keys, a glance in a handbag. Her work relishes the distractions and finds meaning there. Another artist Ryan Lamb, approaches the metaphor of time management with literal aplomb, "juggling" video camera devices for experimental effects. Similarly within Wendy Given's practice, a fractured time structure creates quick images and their subsequent epitaphs as brief moments of private contemplation.

In other cases an artist's full time job affects both the content and materiality of the product. In other cases, an artist's full time job affects both the content and materiality of the product. Kathleen Divney, is a full time interior designer. Her paintings inspired by fabrics are at once subtle and decorative focusing on pattern at an almost cellular level. Oliver Held the German filmmaker here plays out his other role as a fine artist, turns his lens to the street outside a movie theater to record pedestrian traffic. Out of a five hour video recording he choose an exemplary part of three minutes to insert into a digital sampling of the entire five hours. Complex and meditative, Held's piece runs with an eerie effect much like an old silent movie.

Then, there is the transformation of material through labor in the work of Sonia Madan, Eric Smail, Megan Geckler and Julie Zemel. All three elevate the materiality of their sculptural material (paint,paper, flagging tape, and plaster respectively) through an obsession with finish. Sonia Madan focuses on a highly refined and patterned finish in her delicate paintings of hair. Eric Smail's paper sculptures are reminiscent of the fantastical creations of M.C. Escher and architect Buckminster Fuller. Megan Geckler's flagging tape sculptures are plastic constructions reminiscent of light+space and op-art movements Herculean in scale and effort Geckler's sculptures incorporate thousands of yards of tape and are physically anchored to the architecture of a space. Finally, Julie Zemel achieves an opulent almost velvety surface in her sculptures of rock chiseled to resemble a monstrous but beautiful face.

Finally,there is the interpretation of the artist as small businessman with Terence Hannum's homemade enterprise the zine "The Future Belongs to Ghosts".Hannums's accompanying record sleeve paintings of musicians evoke an artist's devotion to creative energy. Oscillating between art and writing Terence embodies the spirit of the show with a jack of all trades production that includes writing, drawing and painting.

-Mary Anna Pomonis

Matt Monroe, Cycle

with prints by Patricia Mitchell

Patricia Mitchell, Cycle

with sculpture and drawings by Matt Monroe

Fun and Games, an outdoor group show curated by Julie Zemel

with work by Mike Arata, Tamara Fites, Bridgette Burns, Marc Housely, Brian Cooper, Mary Anna Pomonis, Cherie Benner Davis, Eve Wood, Todd Feldman, and Julie Zemel.

a summer group show of artists in a more playful mode, relaxing, enjoyoing seasonal pleasures of a less serious nature, with an occasional hint of the dark side of the playground. Displayed in the garage or out on the yard for play or observation

Gabrielle Jennings

Night Watchers, a video presentation curated by Michele Mano

with work by Rodney Austin, Tucker Bennett, Mark Boswell, Seth Childs, Kalissa Conlon, Patricia Esquivias,

Dale Hoyt, Gabrielle Jennings, Alex Killough, Lynn Marie Kirby, Kent Long, Katina Papson, Jose Ruiz, and Samantha L. Stowe.

Winslow Garage in collaboration with Mechele Manno announces, "Night Watcher's, a Night of Video on the Lawn."  On August 11th, 2007, the residence at Winslow Garage in Los Angeles will be transformed into an outdoor video extravaganza. In the spirit of the drive-in movie theater--reaching it's peak popularity in the late 1950's and early 1960's, particularly in rural areas--combined with the tailgate party, a supercharged, urban picnic centered around a sporting event sets the tone for non-narrative video to wipe out any memory of the Hollywood Blockbuster.

The pieces selected for Night Watchers centers around a consistent theme of performance and gesture. Many of the artists perform literally, in front of the camera, while many use moving image to convey their positioning in an extended reality. The camera can become the eye as they see, and video technology carries a personality through editing processes. No matter what angle, tool or approach they chose to take, their presence is inherently obvious. The artists curated for this show come from different cities and varied degrees of experience. Some have long-standing careers and are recognized internationally and some are self-taught. No matter age or education they are serious and committed to their medium using humor in all possible iterations. Come out to the "lawn" they'll put a smile on your face and we'll feed you. (Drinks and refreshments will be available for purchase.)

The screening begins at 9:30pm and is in no way designed for classic viewing. Building on performance and gesture, all work will be delivered "live" in a vj style format by VJ M.MANNO. There will be two segments with a thirty-minute intermission

Stephanie A. Stein

Recent Landscapes: Orienting our interiority into the exterior world.

Allison Stewart, Jane's Earthquake kit

BUG OUT!

Winslow Garage is pleased to present a selection from Allison Stewart's ongoing series of photographs of disaster Preppers’ emergency supply bags. The Bug Out Bag (BOB) is usually a backpack or duffel bag filled with a three-day supply of essentials. What one considers to be essential becomes the subject of this fascinating collection of images. Opened and photographed on a plain white background, it is not surprising that the contents of these bags reveal a lot about the personalities of their packers. Becoming a type of portrait of their owners, the Bug Out Bag speaks to the fears and desires of Post 911 America. Running the range from housewives with earthquake kits to Survivalists hoarding for the end of civilization, these kits exhibit anything from bandaids to phenobarbital.

Stewart has photographed over 30 bags in 5 states since beginning this project a year ago.

Allison Steward is a native of Texas and received her MFA from Cal State Long Beach in 2011. She is an experienced educator and has shown her work both nationally and internationally. Ms. Stewart's Bug Out Bags were

recently featured on Wired at http://www.wired.com/2015/08/allison-stewart-heres-what-disaster-prepperspack-

to-survive-for-72-hours/.

If you have a Bug Out Bag that you would like to have photographed, please

contact Allison Stewart at http://allison-stewart.com

Elizabeth Wild

Grow

Grow is a selection of photographs that serve as a meditation on the wonder and magic

of childhood. It is also a record of my personal growth as I witness the development of

my children as they approach adulthood. Like all my photographs they reflect my

attitudes and interests outside of being representation of the subjects, so they are not

really nice pictures of kids. Many of them are humorous because living with children

makes the world seem funny- at least most of the time.

Elizabeth Wild is a multi-media artist and designer living in Los Angeles, California. She works in a wide range of materials and is primarily interested in the interaction of humans and the environment. Wild earned her MFA from The Ohio State University with a concentration in glass and her BA from The University of Virginia with a major in painting and a minor in Art History.  Ms. Wild has gone on to create a number of public artworks in southern California including works for the Department of Cultural Affairs/LA, the Community Redevelopment Agency/LA and the Art Council of Long Beach. Wild is the recipient of numerous fellowships including one from the Fundacîon Valpariso in Almerîa, Spain, a FIVA fellowship from The National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts in cooperation with the Corcoran Callery of Art, and two fellowships from The Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, Washington.

Cindy Rehm

The Unconsummated Act

“Unleashed and raging, she belongs to the race of waves. She arises, she approaches, she lifts up, she reaches, covers over, washes a shore, flows embracing the cliffs least undulation, already she is another, arising again, throwing the fringed vastness of her body up high…”

    Hélène Cixous “The Newly Born Woman”

For her first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Rehm has taken the title of a cryptic and sparsely documented work that dancer Hélène Vanel performed for the opening of the 1938 International Exhibition of Surrealism. While details vary, all accounts describe the work as an erotically charged hysterical fit performed on disheveled beds inside Duchamp’s coal sack room. The evocative photographs of Vanel’s performance served as the inspiration for Rehm’s new series of drawings that continue her exploration into the complex relationship between the female body, representation, and myth.

While “The Unconsummated Act” has been noted as the first surrealist dance, Vanel has been nearly erased from history and multiple sources report that she perished in a concentration camp. In fact, she lived into her eighties and in later life penned a memoir of her rich life in the avant garde of Paris and London.

The exhibition is accompanied by an artist pamphlet featuring a collage by Rehm and a text by Sara Fowler.

Cindy Rehm is an artist and an educator. She is the co-founder and director of Craftswoman House, a project dedicated to presenting feminist centered works in Southern California. From 2003-2006, Rehm directed the DIY installation space spare room in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship in Media from the Tennessee State Arts Commission, a Learning to Love You More Grant, and a Faculty Development Grant from Middle Tennessee State University.

Rehm’s work in drawing, performance, and video has been shown at national and international venues including: Woman Made Gallery: Chicago, LACE; Los Angeles, Goliath Visual Space; Brooklyn, Paul Robeson Gallery; Rutgers, ARC Gallery; Chicago, Transformer; Washington DC, Interaction IV; Sardinia, Italy, and the Archeological Museum; Varna, Bulgaria and at Mains d’Oeuvres; Saint Ouen, France. Rehm’s work may be viewed at cindyrehm.com

Elizabeth Withstandley, The Accident

The Accident” is a new mixed media installation by artist Elizabeth Withstandley. The installation is comprised of a series of photographic images and an accompanying audio loop. In this work, Withstandley explores the frankness of children and how they express their thoughts and emotions through words. Images of a child with a head injury are paired with “get well” cards from children who witnessed the accident. Audio of the victim’s recollection of events turns a seemingly tragic moment into a poignantly humorous observation.

Withstandley’s work has taken the form of conceptually based photographic series, film, video and installation.  Exploring American culture through non-fiction and fictitious situations, the work explores self worth, ones’ position in society, and how we are defined as people with an emphasis on social norms and outcasts.

Withstandley studied photography at Pratt Institute and The University of Alabama. She is a co-founder of the not-for profit space, Locust Projects, in Miami, FL.

Her work has been exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; The Moore Space, Miami; Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami; The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; The Tel Aviv Artists’ Studios, Israel; The Bass Museum, Miami; Cultural Center, Sao Paolo, Brazil, and many others.

Twilight Girls, Consider Her Ways,

 LA Connection, a group show from Australia

with work by Francesca Mataraga, Philipa Veitch, Paul Borderi, Paul White, Sarah Newall, Anne Kay,

and Ryszard Dabek

LA Connection is part two of an exchange between two garage spaces, Winslow Garage in Los Angeles and Marrickville Garage in Sydney. Marrickville Garage hosted the exhibition LA Woman in September, and now Winslow Garage is hosting LA Connection. The disparate nature of the works and artists included in this show is testimony to the eclectic range of contemporary practices in Sydney and to the variety of artists that have been part of a long lasting and fortuitous art connection between Elizabeth Wild and Jane Polkinghorne.

Twilight Girls, Consider Her Ways,

 LA Connection, a group show from Australia

with work by Francesca Mataraga, Philipa Veitch, Paul Borderi, Paul White, Sarah Newall, Anne Kay,

and Ryszard Dabek

2

Jacobine Van Der Meer, Black Box Requiem

For the exhibition BLACK BOX Requiem,  Jacobine van der Meer has created an installation in which the point of departure is the Winslow Garage building itself. A space like a box, in a bucolic neighborhood of Los Angeles, with a large crack in the floor caused by an earthquake.

Once inside the viewer becomes part of a multidimensional hallucinatory visualization of the aftermath of a disaster where nature has taken over.

Through the use of a total mix up of drawing, painting, sculpture and projections van der Meer explores the separation between the natural and the manufactured, the outside and the inside as well as the role of the viewer.

Van der Meer has an extensive background in special effects make up and prosthetic sculpture for the film industry. She incorporates materials and techniques used for film and stage productions. Dividing her time between Los Angeles and Landers in the Mojave desert, she often lets the contrasts of these disparate environs inhabit her work.

Van der Meer has had solo exhibitions at Conduit Gallery and at The Public Trust in Dallas, Texas. Her work has been included in exhibitions in Riverside, Los Angeles, Miami, and Joshua Tree and is represented in private collections in The United States and The Netherlands.

www.jacobinevandermeer.com

Lorraine Heitzman, Building Memories

The facades and iconic forms of churches and domestic architecture are the subjects of Lorraine Heitzman’s collages in an exhibit opening May 31, 2015 at Winslow Garage.  Inspired by the aspirational nature of church architecture as well as the humble character of more prosaic buildings, Heitzman uses postcards, paint and paper to construct her iconoclastic portraits.  In the buildings of her imagination and memory, she seeks to celebrate their individual personalities and reveal the ecstasy, strength, whimsy and boredom that we uncover and project onto these structures.

Lorraine Heitzman is a Los Angeles artist, living in Eagle Rock since 2011.  Her architectural influences began in New York where she was born and followed her to the Midwest where she received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  She continues to find inspiration in the houses, churches, storefronts and garages of California.

Axel Wilhite, Drone Constitution

State of Emergency, curated by Thin Nyguen

with works by Chris Christion, Zavé Martohardjono, Olivier Mirguet, Azadeh Tajpour, and Axel Wilhite.

The term “Big Brother” as it is used in George Orwell’s seminal novel, 1984, has been

incorporated into the English lexicon as a synonym for the abuse of governmental

power, particularly in respect to civil liberties and often specifically related to mass surveillance.

The phrase "Big Brother is watching you” becomes particularly relevant as it is now common

knowledge that we are almost constantly being watched by cameras from both private and public

sources. As we enter the epoch of the police state, our increasing awareness of police brutality

reveals both abuse of power and violations to our Fourth Amendment rights.

This diverse group of local and international artists use various mediums to explore how

surveillance is being used as a tool of power and subversion as part of a policing state in

operation.

Ana Fernandez

Texas: recent paintings

Winslow Garage is pleased to present "Texas", a series of new paintings by artist Ana Fernandez. In this most recent body of work, Fernandez depicts landscapes from her largely middle-class neighborhood in San Antonio, Texas. Fernandez, who frequently augments her observational paintings with an ominous sky or super-saturated color, paints landscapes filled with party balloons, left over holiday decorations, and bad-ass trucks. In her hands, elements of Chicano ritual and mythology enliven deadpan scenes of banal domesticity. Fernandez's engaging works expertly negotiate the uneasy relationship between the lively exuberance of the inhabitants of her paintings and the reality of their mundane existence.

Fernandez holds an MFA from UCLA and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been shown in cities throughout the United States, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Antonio. The exhibit will travel

to Chicago this summer.

A Group Exhibition organized by Elizabeth Wild at Pierce College with work by

Claudia Bucher, Elizabeth Withstandley, Beth Elliot, Holly Topping, Mary Anna Pomonis, Julie Zemel, Patricia Mitchell, Rachael Neubauer, Cindy Rehm, Allison Stewart, and Haunted, feminist video shorts by Craftswoman House.

LA Woman: On Her Own Terms is a group exhibition of female visual artists who have a connection to Winslow Garage, an artist-run project space in Silverlake. Conceived as an exchange between Winslow Garage and Australian project space Marrickville Garage, the exhibition highlights the diversity of creative works produced by professional women artists residing in Los Angeles who have utilized the unique benefits provided by a non-traditional venue. Project spaces free artists to produce new or experimental works that may fall outside of their usual milieu without the pressure of commercial sales. Winslow Garage offers artists deadlines for the completion of ideas, exhibition opportunities for transitional periods, and potential peer engagement in an intimate setting.

For this exhibition, works were selected that both reflect an arguably feminine quality and also take into consideration some aspect of the environs or culture of the City of Los Angeles. From personal meditations to more overt political statements, these works investigate many of the concerns of Southern Californians from the exquisite natural landscape to the artifice of Hollywood. Through collage, painting, video, sculpture, and photography, many of the artists present fragmented images of the self or environment. Like the passing of cars on the freeway, the viewer has time to focus briefly on a detail of hair, a passing email, the blue sky, or a line of text. Others filter anxiety and escapist fantasies through technology. Survivalist skills and utopian dreams hardwire their way into reality. Not to be ignored, the Entertainment Industry makes itself visible on the glittering surface of a sculpture or in a mother’s studio portrait of her child. Included artists are Claudia Bucher, Beth Elliot, Mary Anna Pomonis, Patricia Mitchell, Rachael Neubauer, Cindy Rehm, Allison Stewart, Holly Topping, Elizabeth Withstandley and Julie Zemel.

The diversity of woman’s creative vision is further augmented by the inclusion of the video program Haunted. Haunted is an impressive series of feminist video shorts by Craftswoman House a group whose mission is “to foster dialogue on feminist issues through projects and exhibitions that pay homage to the rich legacy of feminist art in Southern California.”  The program which has been shown at Winslow Garage among other venues includes the work of Ursula Brookbank, Simone Stoll, Nina Lassie, Min Choi, Anne Colvin, Elizabeth Leister, Micol Hebron, Marisa Williamson, Shana Robbins & Alberto Roman,

and Tracy Abbott Szatan.

Ursula Brookbank, HM.GDN.1

Haunted, feminist video shorts

with works by Ursala Brookbank, Min Choi, Anne Colvin, Micol Hebron, Nina Lassila, Elizabeth Leister, Shana Robbins and Alberto Roman, Simone Stoll,Tracy Abbott Szatan and Marisa Williamson.

Ana Fernandez

Eastside Westside

Winslow Garage is pleased to present Eastside Westside, a series of watercolor paintings by Texas artist Ana Fernandez based on the ten years that she spent living in Los Angeles.

Fernandez is an observational landscape painter with a clear focus on the discrepancies revealed between aspirations and the economic realities portrayed in her Latino centered urban scenes. Depicting inflatable party castles and businesses “under new management,”

Fernandez is frequently drawn to imagery that speaks to the temporary nature of existence. The delicate, uncontrollable qualities of watercolor highlight the beauty and the struggle of these sometimes fantastic and forever fleeting moments.

Fernandez received her MFA from UCLA and her BFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, the Institute of Texas Cultures, Women & Their Work in Austin, Guadalupe Cultural Center, Blue State Art Museum, and at many other venues throughout the United States. This will be her second exhibition at Winslow Garage

Carrie Ungerman

unstrung

Born and raised in Dallas, TX, Carrie Ungerman lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Her work moves between sculpture and drawing and often takes the form of large scale, site-specific sculpture, installation and wall works whose ephemerality is both offset and underscored by labor intensive processes. Ritualized collecting, sorting and arranging of common and culturally encoded materials is an intrinsic part of her work.

For her exhibition at Winslow Garage, Underman works with items recovered from a legendary downtown LA bead store. Idiosyncratic hanging and display solutions, beaded signage, repurposed tags, and tiny handwritten labels are the historically rich material that form the foundation of her new work.

Carrie Underman has exhibited in Southern California and has participated in exhibitions andresidencies in the US, Europe, Israel, and India. Ungerman is the recipient of the California Community Foundation Fellowship (CCF), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA) and a Durfee ARC Grant. She received her BA from Brandeis University and a BFA and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Underman is an alumna of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

Elizabeth Leister

Three Walks: St. Thomas/Red Bank/Salton Sea

Three Walks: St. Thomas / Red Bank / Salton Sea began with Elizabeth Leister’s research into a phenomenon where lost architectural structures and entire communities are being revealed, as waters recede in lakes and reservoirs due to extreme drought conditions. Leister visited three such landscapes, walked these arid terrains, to tran witness and experience each environment.  Her three-channel installation and artist’s book are a contemplation on the shifts in nature due to climate change and the impact of these troubling man-made transformations.

Her personal exploration of these places: searching for exposed ruins, witnessing the devastated landscape while enduring debilitating temperatures are the subject of this work.  They can be read as a metaphor for what we remember and what we choose to forget, personally and collectively.   Handwriting, a disappearing practice, no longer being taught in many schools, figures as a storytelling tool in the work.  The physical and psychological experience of walking alone in nature as a woman, an ongoing theme in Leister’s work, also figures prominently.

Animated drawing and hand-writing, as well as video footage from these sites comprise the installation at Winslow Garage.  Leister has published a book with her photographs and text further examining these places and her experiences within them.

Elizabeth Leister engages a practice that includes video, performance, drawing and virtual reality. Time and memory are key themes that are woven together often through drawing as a performative act.  Temporality and connection to place are at the core of her work where travel, loss and memory are illuminated.

Her work has been presented at the Torrance Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Morris Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and the Delaware Museum of Art; The Drawing Center, Art in General, Apex Art and P.S. 122 in New York, Counterpath in Denver and Highways Performance Space and Gallery in Santa Monica in addition to various artist run spaces.

Leister has performed at homeLA, LACE, and Highways Performance Space, Perform Chinatown, Beyond Baroque and Electric Lodge in Los Angeles. Her networked performances have been presented at the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries in Wales, the Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery at University of Reno, Outpost Artists Resources in New York and in Low Lives, among other venues.

She has received an ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation in Los Angeles, and grants through The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Leeway Foundation of Philadelphia.  Leister was awarded a

2014-15 COLA Fellowship grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs in Los Angeles.

She earned an MFA from The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Fine Arts at Bard College and a BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University.  Leister is Assistant Professor in the Multimedia Option in the Cinema and Television Arts Department at CSUN.

Elizabeth Withstandley

The Symphony of Names: No Man is an Island

The Symphony of Names : No Man Is An Island is a video/sound installation by Elizabeth Withstandley. The piece is a collaboration with the Icelandic composer Gunnar Másson, created during a month long residency in 2017 at SÍM in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The installation explores individual identity in culture that is not tied to their name as a form of uniqueness. Throughout the world surnames play a large role in ones identity often seen as an identifier providing cultural and familial history. Icelandic surnames are not used in the same manner, making it a unique culture to explore identity and naming. The project uses a modern interpretation of “the symphony” using the human voice as the primary instrument speaking all the Icelandic names with an ambient soundtrack tying the whole experience together.

In the video, four different video channels are composited into one view showing a young boy on a journey through the unique countryside of Iceland. We follow the boy while he travels from one screen to the next while being surrounded by the sound of the symphony. The audio track uses all 4129 names from the government name list and presents them in a melodic yet slightly chaotic form featuring a variety of Icelandic people reciting the names.

________________

Elizabeth Withstandley is a Los Angeles based artist originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She is one of the co-founders of Locust Projects, a not-for-profit art space in Miami Florida.  Recently she organized the exhibition Smoke & Mirrors at The Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA. Select exhibitions include The Arte Laguna Prize, Arsenale, Venice Italy, SIM gallery Reykjavik Iceland, Dimensions Variable, Miami, FL, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, The Moore Space, Miami, Fredric Snitzer, Miami, The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, The Tel Aviv Artists’ Studios, Israel, The Bass Museum, Miami, Fl.

Gunnar Karel was born in Reykjavik, Iceland. He started studying music at an early age and has played a diverse range of instruments. As a composer Gunnar mainly focuses on chamber music as he finds that his music gets the attention it deserves in smaller setups. Besides his composing he has been making his mark as concert producer. He founded the Sonic festival in Copenhagen with Filip C. de Melo in 2012. He is also one of the curators for the Peripheriberry group and the artistic director of Dark Music Days in Reykjavik. He is a member of Danish Composers Society, the theater group 16 elskendur and the Icelandic composers collective S.L.Á.T.U.R..

Malado Baldwin

Films and Adornment

Winslow Garage is pleased to present a selection of films and sculptural works by Malado Francine Baldwin-Tejeda. The daughter of Peace Corps volunteers and development workers, Malado spent her childhood in Senegal and Mali. Her diverse cultural background becomes a rich source for her telling of personal narratives as presented through larger cultural myths and histories. Beautiful, highly researched, and richly textured, Malado's work draws us into stories where symbolic artifacts from one culture can be reworked by another. New meaning is created in objects by allowing cultures to mix in surprising ways.

LUX/NOX (film)

The film is a journey of discovery set in the framework of an alchemical process through the performances and embodiment of two women. The story was written using the stages of alchemy as described in ancient texts, fused with a new visual language, to form a cross-cultural creation myth. The materials and objects used in the film have multiple references. Each scene was designed using specific color palettes and symbols, referencing the stages of alchemy: light/dark, wet/dry, male/female, day/night, illusion/clarity... and animal symbolism, including: peacock, white wolf, green gryphon, and finally, the penultimate and final goal: the achievement of the philosopher's stone; or the turning of lead into gold. These ideas are expressed explicitly through costume, art direction, choreography, sculpture, and painting, in a densely-layered and evocative film.

God_my_GODDESS (film)

A portrait of man as muse, the Dominican writer Octavio Gonzalez. Shot on VHS in 1997 and re-discovered as a part of the series: "Lost Tapes" in 2017. The VHS footage, over time, has become muted and grainy, and the effect is one of a time-capsule and window into a moment in time. In the film, the gaze is flipped: woman looking at man, man looking into mirror. We recall Narcissus' eye in the water. The mirror serves to transport us as an intimate witness to the transformation of the man, the recognition of his own beauty, and back again.

INNER LIGHT: (sculptures)

Symbolic  artifacts  are  significant as a way we understand and honor our own histories.  The "wind breastplate" of the "feathered serpent"- a Meso-american iconic image of Quetzacoatl’s pectoral is created in a 3D print as a "ghost image" in white of a disappearing artifact for a symbol of the past.

The  textile "colliers" were made in the style of contemporary Senegalese embroidery. The designs are based on research into representations of sacred “inner light,” sometimes depicted as a halo or rays of light in Christian and other religions. By flipping the imagery, and turning them into vibrantly-colored collars made by Muslim tailors, they become newly symbolic works of art.

Malado Baldwin is an American multi-media artist based in Los Angeles. She received a BA in comparative literature from Swarthmore College, and an MFA in painting from the New York Studio School. Recent projects include curating an inaugural show of female-identifying artists called: “X Marks the Spot: Women of the New York Studio School,” a film screening at FAIR PLAY Miami Basel, an article in Hyperallergic.com, and a publication and reading for 7x7.LA at the Torrance Art Museum. Recent group shows include Hackett Mill San Francisco and KeyHole Gallery in Brooklyn. Her early film work was acquired as a part of Miranda July's Joanie4Jackie feminist film archive at Bard College and the Getty Research Institute. She is the recipient of the Buckingham Prize for music in art, and the Eugene Lang Scholarship for community service. Her new artist book "L'Amour Encore" (Love Again) is available on Blurb.

Sarah Granett

The Galloping Snail

Our perception has to be tickled all the time. --Agnès Varda

At a gallop, the snail! We scribble while crawling in the wake of God.

We live more quickly than ourselves, the pen doesn’t follow. To paint the present, which is

passing us by, we stop the present.

--Hélène Cixous, Without End, No, State of Drawingness, No, Rather: The Executioner’s

Taking Off

After the Galloping Snail, 2019

18 minutes, loop.

After the Galloping Snail is a digital slide show by Sarah Granett. It gathers and presents a

sequence of digital collage-drawings which were initially shared on the instagram feed

@phoneypntng. These images were made by Granett from 2014-2017 using an android

phone, its native camera function and the drawing app, PicsArt.

By taking phone-photographs, and drawing on tthem, and manipulating them digitally, the

artist practices a graffiti-esque, material-defying engagement with time and place. Granett

describes the process as compulsive, habitual and addictive, driven by desire, feeling,

reverence and curiosity for the temporal world.

This drawing activity was repeated on a near-daily basis snd generated nearly 1000 imagea,

of which roughly 600 were posted to @phoneypntng.

Now presented in a slideshow format, the images are set in the system of a projected video

loop. The viewer cannot pause, rewind or speed forward. In this context, the images replace

typical units of time and position the viewer in a durational experience marked by drawing.

In this experience of image and time, Granett suggests we might think of the visual cadence

as a variety of respiration in which these images-- improvised, provisional records of fleeting

experience-- pass in and out, and carry us along.

________________

Sarah Granett is a visual artist. Her work investigates painting and its structures through

psycho-materially engaged abstraction.

Bio

Granett earned an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts. She also studied at Bard

College (BA), the New York Studio School, and CSU Sacramento. She attended Red Gate

Yesterday's Tomorrowland Today:

A Retro-Rocket Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing!

Curated by Alexa Hunter & Ann Magnuson

Dedicated to the memory of Keith Haring

Yesterday's Tomorrowland Today is a group show of xerox artwork (both new and vintage) by West Coast alumni of Club 57.

Club 57 was the infamous neo-Dada performance/art space that existed in New York’s East Village from 1978-1983 and was the subject of a recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Many of the artists featured in this new show, including the curators, had work in the MoMA exhibit which also highlighted the early careers of Kenny Scharf and Keith Haring. Haring curated many of Club 57’s first art shows, including 1980’s  “Club 57 Xerox Art Invitational.” This new exhibit,Yesterday’s Tomorrowland Today is, in part, inspired by that 1980 show as well as Haring’s generous and joyful approach to creativity.

Opening the Sunday before the 50th anniversary of the moon landing,  the show will explore the hopes and shattered dreams of postwar America’s ‘Atomic Age’ and how that legacy affects us today.

Magnuson explains: “Much of what we did at Club 57 was informed by the optimism of post-war America that defined our childhood. The NASA moon landing was the apex of that optimism, which was ultimately eroded by Vietnam, Watergate and the recession of the 1970s. By the time Club 57 opened its doors in 1978, we were hard at work rebuilding that optimism in the crime-ridden, drug-addled dystopia of New York City. We felt a connection to the spirit of the moon landing and a yearning for new, uncharted territory.

We think the relaxed, open environment of the Winslow Garage gallery is perfect for resurrecting the DIY spirit of Club 57. Plus, in a city and era where everything - especially in the art world - is becoming progressively more high-rent and luxury-obsessed (not to mention the existence of a concurrent dystopia escalating with the homeless crisis,) we wanted to revisit and perhaps revive the spirit of low-cost/high-fun ‘art for art’s sake’ from our youth. Think Just Kids meets 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The show will also include artwork and photographs from the era (including pieces from the original Haring-curated 1980 xerox art show) as well as Kenny Scharf’s space-themed video “Carousel of Progress” and rare video from Scharf's “Salute to NASA” event held at Club 57 in 1980. There are also plans to screen NASA footage from the Apollo moon missions and clips from Magnuson’s new music video (co-directed by Adam Dugas) for the song “I Met An Astronaut” (written about her experience meeting Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott while working on the HBO series “From the Earth to the Moon” produced by Tom Hanks.)

Carolyn Mason

Be the Snake

Winslow Garage is pleased to present “Be the Snake,” a site-specific, mixed media installation by Los Angeles artist Carolyn Mason. Embracing the context of the garage as a place where utilitarian materials abound and pipes and fittings are left exposed, Mason combines mass produced items with the handmade to create hybrid forms both fantastical and potentially ominous. In her imagining of “the secret lives of materials” Mason creates richly tactile objects with delicate beauty and other worldly oddness that seem to possess a strange intelligence of their own.

Mason’s materials and processes are reflective of her childhood and make visible her mother’s love of sewing and upbringing on a sheep farm, as well as, her father’s career as a manager of a textile factoy and skill as a home mechanic. Starting her creative process by collecting everyday supplies used to build, plumb, clean, provide warmth or serve as decoration, Mason explores the potential of her materials and combines them to make surprising new forms.

Carolyn Mason was born in Walnut Creek, CA and lives and works in Los Angeles. Among the venues she has exhibited are d.e.n. contemporary art, Los Angeles; the London Design Festival; the Los Angeles World Airport; Loyola Marymount University, and The José Drudis-Biada Art Gallery at Mount Saint Mary’s University. Mason has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Banff Center for the Arts. She received her MFA degree in Sculpture from Mills College in 2005.

Anne Kay

Parent Material

 Both embracing and dissecting the concept and material of drawing, artist Anne Kaye presents a compelling installation of photographic reproductions based on illustrations from covers of eighteenth and nineteenth century novels.These novels written by female authors of the time including Mary Shelly, Jane Austen, Anne Bronte, and Mary Ann Evans ( writing under the pen name George Elliot), offer Kay access into the attitudes and customs of the time and highlight the transitory nature of cultural values and ideals.

Choosing to create a series of pencil drawings based on book illustrations “ that seem intended to represent the novel’s entire narrative in one image”, Kay frees the images to separate from their source material and create new narratives of their own. These are drawings that have been photocopied, physically cut from their backgrounds, hinged with grommets, and pinned to the wall with dissecting needles. Arranged with a nod to the classic mystery novel, this eclectic selection of images clearly carries its history with it, but is now free to tell a wholly new story.

Anne Kay is an Australian visual artist, currently working in drawing, photography and photomontage. She is a graduate of the MFA program at CalArts, supported by a Samstag International Travelling Scholarship. Her work has been exhibited in Australia since 1992 at contemporary artspaces, artist-run-galleries and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. The Museum of Contemporary Art acquired a work produced collaboratively with Jane Polkinghorne for the MCA’s Contemporary Art Archive. In 2005-6, Anne completed an interactive video installation for a major Sydney public art commission. Anne has worked collaboratively with other artists on a number of occasions and has been active in various Sydney Artist Run Initiatives. She was also a sessional academic for seven years at various universities in and around Sydney.

Anne Kay

Parent Material

2

Spirtual Lap Dance

Per Hüttner and Carmina Neusser

Spiritual Lap Dance is a performance by visual artist Per Huttner and choreographer and dancer Carima Neusser. The individual members of the audience are invited one by one to sit on a chair in the virtually empty and dark garage. In the dark there will be loud music, spiritual matters addressed and some dancing. The Performance forms a part of Huttner and Neusser's ongoing investigation into how our lives, technologies, sciences, entertainment and fashion would be different like if humans were endowed with more eyes than the two we currently have. Connected events will be performed in Torrance CA, Mexico City and Sao Paulo in February and March. They collaborate with choreographers, artists and neuroscientists as they travel. For the current event very little of the higher brain functions will be activated. 

Spiritual Lap Dance is supported by the Swedish Arts Council and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse

http://www.carimaneusser.com/

http://www.perhuttner.com/

http://www.visionforum.eu/