Features

Based in the abstraction of the human form, "Figurative Perplexities" at the Q Art Salon in Santa Ana takes a different look at the classic fine art subject, through the lens of six very different artists. Jason Shawn Alexander, Shay Bredimus, Alex Krigbaum, Cecilia Paredes and Orion Fischer join Dan Catalano in the exhibit, tranforming the space of the Q into a kind of cathedral, in worship of the human form. Each room is precisely arranged and glows like smaller altars to the figurative gods....

31 March, 2015 /

Saturday night the Mat Gleason curated exhibition conTEXTual abstraction opens at Peter Blake Gallery. This group show will feature artists that utilize various forms of text in their work and includes Mark Dutcher, Jonmarc Edwards, Gary Lang, Molly Larkey, Adam Mars, William Powhida, Cole Sternberg, and Tim Youd. Gleason, a long time art critic and curator, founded the Coagula Art Journal in 1992 and now runs the dynamic exhibition space Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown.  Gleason is also a long time Angels fan and is no stranger...

16 March, 2015 /

If you happen to be traveling through John Wayne Airport over the next few months please take a look at the show OC Art Blog publisher Chris Hoff curated titled Hidden Treasures: Art from the Permanent Collections of Orange County Colleges and Universities. In this exhibit travelers to and from OC can explore local art from five Orange County colleges and universities in the HIDDEN TREASURES exhibit on display at John Wayne Airport now through August 2015. From the art collections of California State University, Fullerton;...

08 March, 2015 /

[caption id="attachment_6257" align="alignleft" width="470"] [/caption] An exhibit of Iberian Peninsula-inspired paintings by Laguna College of Art + Design students and faculty opens this week at the LCAD Space at Forest & Ocean Gallery in Laguna Beach. “The Majesty of Spain and Portugal” shows the artistic response of participants in last summer’s LCAD summer abroad tour in Madrid, Toledo, Salamanca, Porto and Lisbon. The artists are Amy Bergener, Aaron Brown, Gabriel Castro, Andrea Clarke, Lani Emanuel (whose oil painting Sorolla’s Steps is shown above), Madelyn Foster, Juliette...

02 March, 2015 /

Every arts district needs a Bavarian beer hall serving fancy Old World weiners. Downtown Los Angeles has Wurstküche, San Diego's Gaslamp has the sausage fest known as Sausage Fest, and now, on Santa Ana's Fourth Street, with a soft opening through March, comes Wursthaus. Some kinks are still being worked out, but the food is worth engaging. Order at the front counter — try the smoked cheddar bratwurst on a pretzel bun or go exotic with the hickory smoked wild boar — then look for the...

01 March, 2015 /

In the sculptural work of Portuguese artist Miguel Palma, a cast concrete block might mark the open page of a favorite book. A half-finished Erector set model of the Eiffel Tower might appear alongside a 19th century photograph of the real Eiffel Tower at a similar stage in its construction. Engineering, architecture, history and even biomechanics all provide stimuli for the artist’s toylike imagination. Currently wrapping up a three month residency at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, the Lisbon-based artist's recent focus is on...

17 January, 2015 /

With gas prices down and the stock market reaching all-time highs as we approach the end of 2014, no doubt you’re looking for a place to put your excess cash to work. If so, you might want to consider throwing your weight around in the local art market this holiday season. Here are a few options in and around Orange County:   Cal State Long Beach’s 47th Annual Holiday Art Sale runs through this Wednesday, December 10, and features everything from ceramics to printmaking. Something tells us...

08 December, 2014 /

[caption id="attachment_6093" align="alignleft" width="465"] Las Damas, oil on canvas, appeared in the 2008 issue of OCC's Orange Coast Review. [/caption]A celebration was held Saturday in Santa Ana for Newport Beach artist Marilou Hogeboom, who passed away this month at the age of 87. Her work in recent years was seen most regularly at Orange County Fine Art’s co-operative Showcase Gallery, where the memorial was held, but in the early 1950s, as daughter Katy recalls, she exhibited large tapestries at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts....

23 November, 2014 /

Chiron Review has long been one of America’s most respected literary journals. After a brief hiatus, they have returned with a new 6 x 9, perfect-bound, softcover format, as well an e-book option supporting kindle, iBooks, Nook and most other readers and devices. In 1989 Gerald Locklin came on as poetry editor and Ray Zepeda as the fiction editor. Since then the magazine has showcased consistently raw, vibrant, often controversial writings from the likes of Charles Bukowski, William Safford, Marge Piercy, Edward Field, Albert Huffstickler, Lyn Lifshin, James Broughton,...

17 November, 2014 /

[caption id="attachment_6055" align="alignleft" width="349"] Pamela Diaz Martinez  |   Holy Spirit - II  |  Pastel on dura-lar[/caption] The physicist Carlo Rovelli mentioned in an interview recently that religion was a subject of interest to science but only out of respect for the religious as a group and very little scientific study has been dedicated to finding out the wellspring for a belief in “God” specifically. This aversion to exploring the subject of faith in a manner that approaches a possible "source" is not as lacking in fine art...

24 October, 2014 /

A to Z Featuring: Craig Antrim Casper Brindle Christopher Georgesco Donald Karwelis Eric Zammitt For galleries, presentation is paramount. The alchemy of impeccable lighting, thoughtful curating and an intimate knowledge of the artist's process combined with behind-the-scenes sweat and elbow grease can transform even the most humble space into a cathedral. For this reason, it is often times the smaller galleries that can be the most inspiring. Tucked away into the end corner of a small row of shops along Old Newport Blvd, the Brett Rubbico Gallery is quietly putting together some...

17 October, 2014 /

You probably didn't notice unless you rode a bus to the beach this summer, but for a while there was a bit more art in the streets than usual. Sponsored by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and with monetary support from various related advertising companies, the Art Everywhere US project featured reproductions of American art from the collections of LACMA, the Whitney and other participating museums. The outdoor exhibit was nationwide, with billboards and subway posters in some locations. But in the local area it...

05 September, 2014 /

Late summer is hardly peak season in the art world: Schools are out of session and gallery owners are on vacation. If art is being seen, it’s most likely at one of the outdoor festivals at the foot of Laguna Canyon Road or in the art competitions at the local county fair. Obviously nobody wants to be indoors when it’s 90 degrees, but there are a few shows ending soon that will make a quick venture indoors a worthwhile endeavor. [caption id="attachment_5974" align="alignright" width="135"] A.M. Rousseau,...

19 August, 2014 /

In many areas all over the world, the dirtiest, grimiest places are also the places where the creative people are. Whether it be for low rent, more space, the love of the metropolis, or to invigorate communities through gentrification, sometimes the art is just better in the shitty neighborhoods. With low brow art movements originating in grimy areas of cities like NYC, L.A., Paris, Berlin, etc—Orange County is no different. The grimiest of grimy cities is also our beloved art-hub, the glorious downtown Santa Ana. The...

01 July, 2014 /

illustration by Jared Millar (after Alfred Lutjeans) Museums these days are in the content creation space: From MOCAtv to the obligatory museum blog to the iPad apps put out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art — for better or worse, it’s about more than just publishing a scholarly catalog with a section of color-printed plates. Lately the Laguna Art Museum has entered the multimedia fray with a series of documentary films by Dale Schierholt entitled “California Masters.” The first of these, “Tony DeLap: A Unique Perspective,”...

01 July, 2014 /

Last Saturday Peter Blake celebrated his 50th birthday at his namesake gallery in Laguna Beach. Milestone birthdays have a way of causing us to re-evaluate our lives, and the world around us. It is in this vein that the work of Dutch artist Jan Maarten Voskuil was a fitting centerpiece to the event. The archetypal painting gives no acknowledgement to the canvass it’s created on, it serves as background and is meant to be regarded (if it is regarded as all) as  a mere substrate to...

22 June, 2014 /

I first discovered Tom Backer's work in the early 80's when he was documenting the burgeoning So Cal punk rock scene. Backer's extensive photographic collection of early punk shows, although unheralded, rivaled the work of better known punk rock documentarian's like Edward Colver. I was a fan. However, as the 80's progressed Backer disappeared from my radar and I wasn't sure what happened to this talented photographer. But as fate would have it, I was fortunate enough to run into Backer's wife Jennifer recently who pointed...

21 April, 2014 /

"We Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust" is a participatory sculpture project by Los Angeles-based artist collective Finishing School  in collaboration with artists Nadia Afghani and Matt Fisher that utilized the fabrication of a full size replica of a MQ-1B Predator drone aircraft. Over two hundred people helped FS and collaborators at Occidental College hand-finish the drone with an age-old application method using architectural-grade mud to the surface of the cnc'd substrate. In the dichotomy between the drone's form and its surface,...

06 April, 2014 /

Painter, curator, and educator David Michael Lee has been a stalwart of the Orange County art scene for many years now. Lee's work hangs in several prominent collections including the Phyllis & Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art. He serves as Director and curator for the Coastline Art Gallery and has a long history of creating various "happenings" in Orange County, many during his stint as a member of the now legendary Santa Ana Seven. If all that isn't enough, Lee is also one half...

17 March, 2014 /

I know a concert was good when every time I try to sit down and write my review of it, I get distracted by composing music myself instead. This was most gloriously true of the Children of Bodom concert at the Observatory in Santa Ana on March 2, supported by Tyr and Death Angel. Even though I love the word, I reserve it only for special occasions like this one- fuck… Children of Bodom were so fucking good. That does sum it up, but I...

09 March, 2014 /