©Amir Zaki. On Being Here: Built in 1927. Renovated in 1936, 2021. Ultrachrome Archival Photographed. 60” x 48” Framed. by Meg Linton “Photography is so much about cultivating a skill of sustained observation.” – Amir Zaki Recently, a colleague, Edward Cella, recommended I go visit the studio of Amir Zaki, a photographer he has worked with over the years located in Huntington Beach. The studio is hidden in a nondescript business complex amongst wood finishers, commercial printers, and a jet...
By Walpa D'Mark I attended Albert Lopez Jr’s show at Crear Studio on September 4, 2021. It might seem like it’s a little too late to be talking about it, but the exhibition had many layers, and eventually it led me to think about Albert’s creative process. Full disclosure, I know Albert, we both attended Cal State Long Beach in the late 90’s, and I worked for him at OCMA in the 2010’s. Albert’s show at Crear Studio, titled “The Dollar Dance I Never Had!” featured works from different periods...
By Liz Goldner Gilbert “Magu” Luján was a visionary artist who helped define and promote Chicano art. The founder of the art collective, “Los Four”—which first exhibited Chicano artwork in 1973 at UC Irvine—wrote in 1969, “I believe there is a Chicano Art form and that it has been around for many years without formalization and recognition…Most Chicanos are aware of our current new breed renaissance which has flowered many investigations, probes and introspection in most areas of our life...
I recently had the opportunity to visit another exciting new space in Orange County, S/A Exhibitions. S/A Exhibitions is a nonprofit space headed up by curator Maurizzio Hector Pineda. Mr. Pineda background includes receiving his undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000. From 2001-2005 he was the owner and director of SWYS Gallery in Long Beach, CA, and has worked at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and for Regen Project in Beverly Hills. His...
Q: With COVID and all, I have felt stuck for a year now. What can I do to get unstuck? Dear Fellow Traveler, The word stuck typically brings images to my mind of being five years old, venturing out into a deliciously dirty, mostly dried-up creek behind my house—and in my quest for fun not noticing nighttime raindrops had created a form of muck, which snatched a flip flop from my foot, swallowing it whole. Ah, well I’ll abandon it there, I’ll be barefoot and free! What’s the point in...
Have you ever had a moment where you felt connected to an animal? Where you looked deep into its eyes and felt a sort of mutual understanding? Like, you exist with them and not just near them? Have you ever felt an internal pull toward a special crystal or rock formation? Has the color of a fire or a sunset reached into your soul and just stopped you dead in your tracks for a moment? Artist Cody Jimenez has the uncanny ability of catching those moments, among other extraordinary instances and...
Last month, over thirty artists from the 2020 Festival of Arts of Laguna Beach opened their private art studios and gallery venues for visitors to take a no-cost, self-guided journey through the Orange County coast in an event called “Art Along the Coast.” For two consecutive weekends, artists from San Clemente to Santa Ana shared their new art as well as works in progress to locals looking to support and connect with the art scene in their community. This was a great opportunity for both...
The world has come to a standstill. In the wake of COVID-19, people find themselves spending more time with themselves than they ever have before. It is a prime opportunity for the creation of art. Enter Abigail Albano-Payton, a 21-year-old artist from Laguna Beach via Dallas who has dedicated her quarantine to researching new ways to hone her artistic craft. She has dedicated herself, specifically, to learning how to paint black, indigenous and people of color; a methodology that she feels...
On the first day of June, while the entire country was still heartbroken and mourning the cruel torture and murder of George Floyd in the hands of police, Larissa Marantz, a multitalented published book illustrator, cartoonist, gallery artist, educator, and owner of OC Art Studios, was hit by yet another institutional betrayal, this time coming from Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD), the school she has taught at for years: Artwork by Larissa Marantz “The moment I heard about the LCAD...
While most cling to the familiar, artist Sureya Davis strives for the unknown. Davis is an African American Orange County-based artist who was originally born in Staten Island, New York, but would ultimately move to Southern California to pursue her career in art. “I knew going into this profession as a woman of color, it would not be simple, but my drive to create is stronger than my fear of failure.” Study of Vanna, Sureya Davis, Oil on canvas board. When asked what the driving force...
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the existentialist anti-hero, is punished for being so full of himself that, as he valiantly rolls his rock up the mountainside, the Gods have it roll back down just as he nears the top, doomed to do it again and again forever with the same result. In his way, he’s the perfect absurdist saint for artists: Daily work in isolation, never reaching the end of the journey, valiantly continuing, despite the cost of supplies, the inability to make rent, or difficulty...
The City of Fullerton has for the better part of the last decade been the favorite rebellious and beloved artistic community of Orange County. Laguna Beach can keep its seascapes and figurative sculptures; Santa Ana can dominate street art; but, Fullerton has led the county in art walks and offbeat artworks. Santa Ana took a lesson from Fullerton in art walks, and now seems to be the leader in interesting contemporary art, but just a few years ago, most people would say that Fullerton was...
Some traditions never die; and, one that has stood the test of time is art itself. Despite the trying times of the COVID-19 quarantine, the California Art Club and Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University are working together to bring the 109th annual “Gold Medal Exhibition” to the public virtually. The California Art Club was founded in 1909 with the intention of bringing together artists in California—a place to share ideas, teach, and hone their craft....
Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep. - Claude Monet The recent release from Doppelhouse Press, Even When Fall is Here is a bilingual, fictionalized, multi-seasonal, communication between now deceased landscape architect Chris Shea, Painter Erick Meyenberg, garden owner Eloisa Haudenschild, and curator and writer Ruth Estevez. In it, Estevez creates an intertextual, fictionalized narrative that brings together Meyenberg’s observations, various email...
With the art world on lockdown, and with many of us desiring, even needing, to feed our art addictions, many visual and performing arts organizations throughout the OC are getting creative with how they remain relevant to the larger OC art scene. Luckily, many art organizations are offering opportunities for the public to still engage and enjoy art digitally, whether it be through live streaming, virtual tours, social media engagement, online art collection browsing, film screenings, videos of...
I am in quarantine. Not sure how long this will last. And like many others, in an effort to find something to do that isn’t staring into one of the several glass screens in my home, I am thinking this would be a good time to clean my office. I mean really clean my office. According to Kyle Chayka’s recent release, The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, a new survey of the minimalism of the moment, I may be suffering from an abstract desire for a different and simpler world that will...
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Kyoto, Japan during peak fall season. As I understand it the last two weeks of November are the prime time in Kyoto to visit temples, explore zen gardens, and take in the sight's and sounds of this unique city, while the local foliage burns red, yellow and orange. In between visits to the many breathtaking temples and gardens, we found some time to take an art break and check out the fairly new contemporary art museum in Kyoto, the Forever Museum of...
Saturday night I made it to the opening of Re:Balance at the Irvine Arts Center. All around a great show but the stand out in the show was the work of Ching Ching Chen. I wanted to write something more detailed here but for the sake of transparency, I bought a piece from the show. That's how much I liked the work. As I was standing in front of one of the pieces from the Letting Go series, I overheard a couple behind me discussing the work. The woman said the work wanted to make her cry. I...
As I was watching the Price of Everything last night on HBO, the latest documentary to examine the white hot contemporary art market, I found myself one more time, in fascination with the art world. I love these sorts of documentaries, probably not for the reason the producers would hope for, because I imagine they would want me to walk away from this sort of project with a bit of amused skepticism, or exuberant cynicism. However, after this show was over, I was once again inspired, hopeful,...
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 but still incredibly rare. Religious dialogue in art tends to be highly...
The OC Art Blog was created in 2004 as a way to build community and promote the marginalized but dynamic Orange County art scene.
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Rachel Adams at OCCCA/GCAC The first talk in a new curatorial lecture series brought the Chief Curator of the Bemis Center to Santa Ana and she had a lot to say about art, empathy, and saying yes. On Thursday evening, March 12th, a small crowd gathered at the Orange...
By Maggie Luy What do we keep, and what do we let sink? Kristina Rose Baker Installation Shot Daniela García Hamilton approaches it through hand-embroidered cultural objects set afloat in painted water. Suspended between air and a spirit realm below, Kristina Rose...
By Mason Fujikawa | Feb 13, 2026 Interstitial at Gallery Sonder is the first solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Sheng Lor. Lor, a Hmong American, learned to embroider at a young age and began her career as a weaver. She has since shifted to a conceptual...
Metalabel's second annual Anonymous Creative Futures survey just dropped, and it reads like a dispatch from the creative frontlines. Over 300 artists and creative workers across disciplines and geographies were promised anonymity and asked to be brutally honest about...
Orange County is home to Pacific Symphony, Segerstrom Center, South Coast Rep, Laguna Art Museum, the Bowers, a thriving gallery scene in Santa Ana, and hundreds of independent arts organizations serving millions of residents. The creative economy here generates...
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