Sanctuary of the Aftermath

Sanctuary of the Aftermath

Featuring works by Nica Aquino, Joseph Carrillo,

Jeff Frost, Anita Getzler, David Hollen, Jason Jenn,

Ibuki Kuramochi, Rosalyn Myles, Vojislav Radovanović,

Alison Ragguette, and Kayla Tange.

Sanctuary of the Aftermath is an exhibition of Angels Gate Cultural Center, with generous support from WE RISE, made possible by the Los Angeles County

Department of Mental Health.

Curated by Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović

View the virtual exhibition, videos, and additional photos at angelsgateart.orgImages courtesy of L.A. Art Documents

http://www.angelsgateart.org

https://www.angelsgateart.org/otw_pm_portfolio/sanctuary-of-the-aftermath/

http://www.laartdocuments.com/

Art and spirituality have been intertwined since their origins. Only in recent centuries have secular motivations displaced Art’s primary function of expressing and connecting with the transcendent. Sanctuary of the Aftermath affirms the sacred role of art, and redefines the gallery as a place to experience solace during troubled times. The exhibition presents artworks demonstrating a strong spiritual component in their creation while addressing some of the challenges of contemporary existence. Site-specific installation art, video art, and auditory art are highlighted within an immersive atmosphere, which invites safe engagement to explore the issues and make personal discoveries.

The current pandemic has resulted in estrangement from both the social and the natural world. After our prolonged period of physical separation and quarantine, the exhibition investigates how art can create new channels for connection. The exhibition provides a space that is simultaneously removed from and deeply connected to our shared reality. The works form a dialogue with perspectives on the cycles of life, entropy, destruction, death, memorial, and rebirth. Beauty is used as a tool, encouraging visitors to view the world anew. Sanctuary of the Aftermath offers an opportunity to reflect upon the artificial divisions as well as the innate relationships between humanity and nature.

Hailing from diverse backgrounds, the artists of the exhibition take inspiration from various timeless practices and historical approaches. However, rather than adhering to a particular institutionalized religious form, the artists utilize their own unique interpretations of traditional methodologies. They employ meditative, introspective, interactive, and sometimes visionary approaches in pursuit of the numinous. The journey of making works of art is an organic experience, which evolves over time. It is sometimes premeditated, sometimes serendipitous, but always driven by an intuitive impulse. The personal path uncovers the universal. For many of the artists herein, it is a therapeutic process, inviting the viewer to share in the result.

Departing from the usual materialistic goals of society, the exhibition embraces a communal need for more ritual-like experiences. Many of the pieces on view were designed for this specific opportunity, inspired by this particularly unusual era. During a time of intense socio-political injustice, environmental disaster, rapid technological changes, prolonged physical isolation, and anxiety - art can be a remedy.

- Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović

Curatorial Statement


Nica Aquino

A 2020 ReflectionAltar installation: 2 single channel videos, ocean audio, LED candles, digital self-portrait on printer paper, beaded curtain on bamboo, real and fake flowers, plants, personal items, 2021

Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents


Veil of ForgetfulnessBeaded curtain, 2021

Mama Mary, Pray for Usdigital self-portrait on printer paper, 2020

Danum (Water) #1Video, 20185:37 minutes

Isolation 2020Video, 20203:35 minutes

It's 2050. Half of my friends and family were wiped out due to a deadly virus that spread around the world. We needed a fresh start, so we packed our family up & moved to a Spanish coastal town. With the little savings, we built running a makeshift convenience store out of my ancestral home.

Water levels keep rising due to global warming. We were able to rent a cheap house by an ocean that gradually submerges adjacent homes. Here we are, the best we could do. We'll enjoy the ocean view & breeze before we lose our home to the water one day.

I just got home from work. It's 13:00; time to relax. I turn on the TV & they are playing a nature documentary from 2020. Perfect for watching and unwinding before my siesta.

As I sit here, relaxing & watching this documentary, I remember 2020. My family & I pray to Mama Mary every day that our earth and people will heal one day.

-Vera Icona20/05/2050

Isolation 2020:I filmed this footage for an online class I taught last year and decided to repurpose it. A friend posted a silly video game meme that inspired me to make this video. Really, I just wanted an excuse to listen to this relaxing song from one of my favourite games growing up. Fun fact: I was raised on video games. My parents were strict and didn’t let me go out. My mother was busy working 7 days a week, back-to-back jobs, going to her part-time job on the weekends and weeknights after her full-time day job. My dad was already well into his fifties when I was born, so he was much too old and tired to raise a little kid. I’m the youngest of 7, but grew up an only child. My older brother handed me down his old video games to keep me occupied. Playing video games together, or watching him play, is one of my favourite childhood memories with my brother, the little time we did get to spend together.

Fast forward to more recently: After my accident and multiple surgeries, I was in agonizing pain and was disoriented, dizzy and sick from my meds. I tried everything to keep my mind off the pain. Watching my favourite shows, reading, drawing, etc. Nothing distracted me enough. My best friend lent me her Nintendo DS and that was the first time I had played video games in a really long time. It kept my mind so occupied, the pain was hardly on my mind. Now during isolation, I’ve been playing a lot and honestly, it makes me happy. Building my dream world, the escapism, connecting with friends in ways we can’t right now, being someone else. I don’t know. People think my affinity for video games is

Nica Aquino


silly. But what people don’t realize is, the stories, the art, the music and gameplay have gotten me through some hard times. I hope this song and footage from my neighbourhood relax you all during these tense times. (I sampled the audio from Nobuo Uematsu from the FFVIII game.)

Veil of Forgetfulness:Before one's soul descends onto planet earth to carry out its mortal life, one must bear the Veil of Forgetfulness to forget their premortal life. It defines the binary between mortality and a world without end. Once bearing the Veil of Forgetfulness, you no longer remember your life in the spirit world and are born into a human vehicle. Living a human existence through the veil, one must then go through the motions of learning all of a mortal's life lessons and undergo a mission of rediscovery. Oftentimes this includes experiencing suffering and darkness in order to find ourselves again. Like the rest of us, we must limp through this life of suffering to recover these memories and find the light again.

Danum (Water) #1:Originally part of my installation “Memory Room,” Danum (Water) #1 is a reflection of my ancestral heritage as a diasporic Ilokana. All footage was shot in my ancestral homeland of so-called La Union, in the Northern Philippines. By lending visual queues to the work through water, it expresses our identity as Ilokanos and our proximity to many bodies of water and the healing properties of water in my works. (I sampled the audio from Nobuo Uematsu from the FFVIII game.)

Nica Aquino (b. 1990, Los Angeles) is a practicing visual artist and curator. She received her BFA in Photo from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and her MA in Contemporary Visual Culture from the School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom). Her work has been shown locally, nationally and internationally.

In her artwork, she primarily experiments with 35mm analogue photography, just documenting life as she sees it. No fancy bells and whistles, no manipulations, just a cheap point and shoot camera (the exact same model from her childhood), cheap film and what’s in front of her at the time. She believes art making should be accessible, and that you don’t always need the newest fanciest toys to create something meaningful.

She also experiments with textiles, video and sound to create interactive, intimate and very personal installations that often reference memory, nostalgia, and different tiers of loss ranging from death, historical amnesia to post-colonial melancholia. This work is often rooted in her experience as a diasporic Ilokana (“Filipina”).

Nica Aquino


Biography

Aside from spending her early adolescence moving between states & continents, Nica grew up within immigrant, working class inner-city neighborhoods on the cusps of Koreatown, Pico-Union & Mid-City, Los Angeles. She is now residing in the Northeast LA community, where she works as a full-time curator and freelance arts administrator. In her curatorial practice, Nica aims to provide a platform for artists of color and others navigating feelings of unbelonging. As an individual that has had the opportunity to geteducated and access many resources, she knows it is her responsibility as an artist and curator to use her privilege to uplift others also existing within the margins, and lend visibility to the communities and stories experiencing erasure.

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Alternative gallery project: mataartgallery.orgLearn more and view additional works at: nicaaquino.com, instagram.com/nica_aquino,nicaaquino.tumblr.com

Nica Aquino


https://www.mataartgallery.org/

http://www.nicaaquino.com/

https://www.instagram.com/nica_aquino/

http://nicaaquino.tumblr.com

Joseph Carrillo

Five Sanctuary Songs1. Song for the Lost2. Song for the Missing3. Song for the Wandering4. Song for the Forgotten5. Song for the FoundMusic Composition, 2021

Composed and produced by Joseph CarrilloBansuri performed by Dr. Sarah May RobinsonEnglish horn performed by Phil PophamCello performed by David Mergen



My father passed away last October. His cause of death was not COVID-related. He was remarkably resilient his entire life, so, even at his age, an impressive 95 years old, hearing the news was a surprise.

An example of the intense rollercoaster of 2020: the day before my father died, my niece got married and had a modest yet joy-filled celebration. I have never gone from being so happy to so sad and lonely in 24 hours.

My mother passed in 2014 from lung cancer. Coincidentally, in 2013, I composed music for what would be her last art show. She was an oil painter. Her collective, For Women Art, in northeastern Nevada, had an exhibition called Five Elements. I was not an official part of that show, but the music played in the gallery in the background.

For this show, I am exploring the five stages of grief as part of my grieving process for my dad. I am well aware that I am not the only one experiencing grief at this time, given all that has happened this last year. Also, bearing in mind that grief is triggered by more than just the death of a person. It can be triggered by a dramatic loss or a change in a situation or relationship. It feels as though grief has become part of our daily life in big and small ways, and many are experiencing it for the first time.

In an ordinary time, I would be looking forward to a pilgrimage to Burning Man, a highlight of which is meditating at the Temple there to explore healing and loss with close friends and strangers from around the world, who often gather for a common purpose. So presented with the opportunity to contribute to this show, I composed the following pieces, my contribution to an atmosphere of welcoming, healing, and meditation.

Song for the Lost is about denial. To deny reality is to be lost. To be unable to accept the journey forward is to risk losing oneself self amid distractions. This piece doesn’t have a steady tempo, so the musicians are playing freely out of time, the melodic gestures at odds with the more pensive drones in the background.

Song for the Missing is about anger. The cello notes refuse to resolve in a standard way, often holding on longer than they should. The pulse and layered cello techniques create an undercurrent of tension, despite the predictable chord progression adding an element of inevitability.

Song for the Wandering explores bargaining. The cello continues to offer nuanced elaborate phrases, but the music moves steadily downward until it lands back where it began, and there is no choice but to alter the step-wise motion in order to stop the cycle. At the end of the piece, it settles in the lower register, resigned.

Joseph Carrillo


Song for the Forgotten is about depression. The cello primarily plays in the lower register, with long, sustained notes that barely move, progress, or resolve—at the end, holding the lowest note possible on the cello, the open C string, unable to resolve to the Bb.

Song for the Found has the most modern approach, and in a way, is the most traditional song-like. Even though it is optimistic, there are still several minor chords. For me, acceptance is not necessarily moving beyond grief but finding a way to move forward with it. I don’t want to forget about the things that make me sad or the complicated nuances of my relationship with my parents. Because within that rocky slope are beautiful gem fragments of everything, all the treasured, messy pieces of our history that shaped our relationship and made us who we are to each other.

The full duration of this experience is approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. There are nature sounds and some sparse musical elements, chimes, bells, or drones in between each piece.

The music is a series of cello solos against ethereal background accompaniment. Two guiding voices supplement the cello: Bansuri, an Indian flute, and English horn (Cor Anglais)—performed by Dr. Sarah May Robinson and Phil Popham, two incredible L.A. musicians and founders of Helix Collective (HelixCollective.net). Half Moon Song and Crescent Moon Song are unaccompanied pieces, featuring each player, respectively. The cello solos are performed by David Mergen, one of the most sought-after cellists in the L.A. area.

Joseph Carrillo is a composer who focuses his talents in the film music industry in Los Angeles. His work can be heard in numerous features, commercials, web series, and short films.

Joseph has also prepared scores and parts, served as orchestrator and arranger for other industry colleagues, including Emile Mosseri (2020 Sundance Winner Minari, Homecoming Season 2), Miriam Cutler (Dilemma of Desire, RBG) and Penka Kouneva (Life Link, Blue). Additionally he has performed oboe parts, whistling, vocals, and voice-over narration.

The early years of his career spent working for Universal’s sound department inspired him to expand his work to include sound design, editorial, and re-recording mixer for multiple projects. He has also composed music for the concert stage, enjoys writing poetry, and painting unusual landscapes._

Joseph Carrillo


Biography

Jeff Frost

Circle of Abstract Ritual Video (300,000 still photos), 201312:32 minutes

Image courtesy of Jeff Frost, still from Circle of Abstract Ritual


My work exists on a spectrum of duality between creation and destruction. Recurring themes center around agents of entropy, dismantling civilization as humanity constructs it. Our Universe seems unaware of Einstein’s insistence on his ‘elegant theory of everything’ and instead appears to function as a fractured megastructure rife with paradox. This is wildly exciting! It’s also brutally confusing. I can’t seem to resist poking around the edges of unreachable knowledge.

Simultaneously, I live in the awe. Woven into the background fabric of my work is the mysterious wonder I feel on a moonless winter night in the desert.

I find that disrupting real time human chronology induces the Overview Effect. From space, the boundaries between humans, countries, and ideologies, aren’t visible and thus lose importance. Many astronauts aboard the International Space Station continue to report a profound cognitive shift that results in acute awareness of the interconnectedness of humanity to itself and the planet. The Overview Effect naturally induces a wider view, much like my films. For example, a wildfire is a fast-moving situation where the slow process of time lapse photography is inherently incongruous. Recording an event in this manner permits the viewer to see a wider reality via chronological disruption.

Unearthing and manipulating time and sound allow me to peer into hidden worlds. They are my primary mediums and manifest in a number of sub-mediums such as painting, photography, video, and installation. I combine these, along with other subjects that fascinate me – decaying animals, abandoned structures, optional illusion paintings, riots, large-scale scientific facilities, stars, and wildfires – into films created with hundreds of thousands of photographs.

My projects have many configurations: I pluck moments like an individual photograph from a 12-hour time lapse, and create a standalone piece of art. For the aural experience, it works in reverse. I cut moments from larger pieces of sound art and create soundtracks.

I’m fascinated by noise and recording quotidian acoustics. The flashing lights of a fire engine emit rhythmic bursts independent of its sirens. Listening to and capturing its electromagnetic pulses (with specialized equipment) facilitates my creation of auditory compositions and textures. An unlikely pursuit pioneered by the great Christina Kubisch and Kim Cascone, sound completes the visual component of my work. It is paramount.

Informed by movements and artists, from street art to the subversion of utopian pursuits of minimalist painters such as John McLaughlin and Piet Mondrian, I often gravitate towards optical illusion minimalism as both a window into another world and – when viewed out of perspective – a way to generate thought defying abstractions acrossarchitectural forms.

Jeff Frost


Abandoned buildings hold a special place in my imagination. I perceive them as doorways to the past, modern ruins that function as future canvases.

When I find a room in one, my brain ignites. Pacing around the space, I sketch paintings in my mind and consider the nature of the elements and my own films. This part of my practice draws primarily from the exploration of Native American ruins with my grandfather while growing up in the southeastern corner of Utah.

I am a huge believer in DIY. Everything is self-funded through art collectors and commercial production jobs. Currently, I’ve opted out of representation by a gallery, despite exhibiting in numerous museums. It may be unconventional to disclose this piece of information within an artist statement, but it feels important to state, primarily for the benefit of other artists. What could be more essential to an artist statement than a few words about forging your own path in the world?

Jeff Frost grew up in a remote corner of Utah hiking with his grandfather and has livedin southern California for the last 22 years. Time and sound are his two primarymediums, often expressed through a number of sub-mediums including painting,photography, video, and installation. Nearly all of the above are combined into shortfilms exploring themes on the spectrum of creation and destruction.

Frost’s work has been shown at the California Museum of Photography (UCArts), Museum of Art & History Lancaster (MOAH), Museum of Sonoma County, Palm Springs Art Museum, the Center for European Nuclear Research (CERN), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and many others. In 2020 his video art projects, California on Fire and GO HOME won numerous awards at international film festivals including the Clermont Ferrand Intl Film Festival and ÉCU The European Independent Film Festival. He was selected for the Nordic LA residency at the ACE Hotel & the FBAiR Los Angeles residency programs in 2019. He performed a soundart set at the Desert Daze music festival in 2019. He was both a producer and subject of the 2017 Netflix docuseries, Fire Chasers. That same year he contributed to the National Geographic series, One Strange Rock. He has been featured in numerous online publications and TV interviews such as PBS Newshour, TIME Magazine, Artnet, and American Photo. He has spoken at the Seattle Art Fair, University of Southern California, Palm Springs Art Museum, Orlando Museum of Art, Snap! Orlando, and photoLA.

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Jeff Frost


Biography

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/artists-harness-the-power-of-fire-and-ice-to-shape-attitudes-on-climate-change

https://time.com/california-on-fire/

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jeff-frost-1463923

http://www.americanphotomag.com/jeff-frosts-stunning-photos-unforgettable-wildfires

Anita Getzler

EVOCATION 1Wood, rose petals, glass, cork, 2021Printer’s drawer: 19½” x 32¼” x 1½” EVOCATION 2Wood, rose petals, glass, cork, 2021Printer’s drawer: 19½” x 32¼” x 1½”

EVOCATION 3Rose petals, thread, brocade fabric, 202153” x 45” x 3”



EVOCATION (not pictured)Video, 20218 minutes Featuring Mourner’s Kaddishcomposed by David Marenbergperformed by the L.A. Choral LabMichael Alfera, Artistic Director

EVOCATION: the act of bringing or recalling a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious mind.

A remembrance of Love for those who were lost in this pandemic.

The impulse for this installation materialized over several decades. It began with the first roses I saved –a red bouquet my parents gave me at the opening of my first photography exhibit. More bouquets of love were saved over many years – letting them dry in their vases and saving them in a basket. Eventually, I had to get a really big basket.

Over 20 years ago, I saved some small vials – just because they were wonderful. Several years later I was in a thrift store and bought the printer’s drawers. They reminded me of my uncle who had been a printer in Europe before WWII. My mother told me that my uncle’s wife and children were murdered in a concentration camp, but his life was spared because he was a printer and could be put to work. I kept the drawers.

Over the years, I’d open the box of vials, I’d see the printer’s drawers, and I knew something would come of them. Ideas and images whispered in my mind - about placing the vials in the drawers, then about creating a piece in remembrance of my family murdered in the Holocaust during WWII. But what goes into those vials? I had no answer. And I wasn’t ready to dive into that difficult topic – too much pain in that past as well as in my own life.

In 2013 I moved back into my parents’ house in Los Angeles and took care of my father. My mother and sister had passed, so I was his touchstone for many years. My father had just undergone a traumatic experience that altered him completely. It was a painful time.

What brought me solace, joy, and reminded me of the power of Love, were the eleven rose bushes in my mother’s garden. I tended them and they were stunning. Each had a unique, strong and beautiful scent. The roses reminded me of my mother, whom I cherished. I could see the bushes outside my windows as I painted. But I wanted them inside--to smell and touch them as I walked through the house. It’s what made the days bearable, what sustained me during this tragic time. With so many roses blooming at once, I could fill vases of different colors: red, yellow, white, peach, and lavender. Once dried, I put them in grocery bags and stored them. I was infatuated.

My father passed on in August 2014. I stayed in the house until March 2018 and continued to save the rose petals. Sometime during those years, my answer arrived: the dried petals from my mother’s garden would go into the vials.

Anita Getzler


I began working on this installation in the summer of 2020. Contemplating the meaning of this piece, I recognized that even as EVOCATION memorializes my family and all those lives cut short by the Holocaust, I had to address these present times: our world’s current global catastrophe. And in my country, the United States of America, we will lose close to 600,000 precious souls to COVID-19 by the time this exhibition opens in April, 2021 – a tragedy of epic proportion.

I affirmed the power of Love as I filled each vial with crushed rose petals and strung each petal on its thread, in dedication and remembrance of those lives lost to this pandemic of 2020-2021.

Anita Getzler lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Raised in Brooklyn, she was influenced by her many encounters with great art in the museums of New York City. As a teenager, her family moved to Los Angeles where she started high school. After earning her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and MA from California State University, Los Angeles, Anita pursued careers as a museum educator, a high school art instructor, all the while working as a fine art photographer and raising her two sons.

It was while directing education programs in contemporary public galleries in Los Angeles and Las Vegas that Anita broadened her vision and sharpened her photographic eye. She later designed and directed the Education Program for the Guggenheim/Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas.

She has participated in numerous group art exhibitions, including several solo photography shows. Anita’s imagery continues to evolve into new approaches to abstraction and metaphor, as well as expanding into digital fabric printing.

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Learn more and view additional works at: anitagetzlerstudio.com

Anita Getzler


Biography

https://anitagetzlerstudio.com/

David Hollen

Indra’s NetWood, glass, epoxy, copper, 201552” x 44” x 24”



I like to play with forces hidden in plain sight. I have great interest in structural forces that form the world around us. Whether it’s biological, chemical or even astronomical, there exists underlying patterns that emerge from the interaction of simple physical forces.

The underlying framework of my sculpture rests upon an intuitive understanding of the geometry residing in such things as hexagonal prism structure of beehive, the tetraradial structure of a simple sea-sponge, the gravitational superstructure of galaxy clusters, and even the geometric elegance of soap bubble foam. All of these organizing structures are a result of interaction of the fundamental materials and the physical forces they exert.

Even though I reject supernaturalism, I find the idea of spirituality to be a rich vein to mine with my manipulations of these ubiquitous geometries. The experiences that we all bring to these encounters create new ways to understand how the “spiritual” infuses our lives.

David Hollen is a sculptor living and working in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles for over 13 years. David works in various materials, including stainless steel cable, rope, and cast porcelain.

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Learn more and view additional works at: www.hollenart.com

David Hollen


Biography

http://www.hollenart.com

Jason Jenn

Angels Gate Leaf MandalasDried leaves, gold and copper leaf, pins, 2021variable dimensions



Leaf Mandalas are site-specific installation works created from a process of gathering leaves from the local environment close to the exhibition site. They are dried and painted with gold leaf in different patterns, then arranged into custom mandala shapes based on site-specific conditions.

In various spiritual traditions, mandalas’ geometric configurations help focus both the creator and viewer and establish a sense of sacred space. Their circular design represents wholeness and as symbolic maps of the cosmos; the microcosm becomes the macro.

In this day and age, there are so many ways we are disconnected from the natural environment. By creating these mandalas and using leaves from the surrounding region, I aim to help re-establish a connection between the natural world and gallery space. Despite its meager size, the complex structure of a leaf is a thing of beauty in and of itself. It inspires many meanings and possibilities. Even in death, the dried form is intimately connected with life. As part of nature’s sublime cycle, it will return to the earth via decomposition to feed other forms of life. The addition of artificial gold and copper leaf on the leaves (a knowing pun) while pretty, serves to both remind the viewer of nature’s divinity and humanity’s folly. It echoes the use of precious metals in holy items throughout cultures.

I encourage and invite viewers to develop a unique relationship with the mandalas, whatever form that may take. Whether one slows down to admire the details or has a quick moment to take a selfie, each possesses its own particular merits in this context as both are reinserting themselves into a symbolic reconnection with and appreciation of nature.

Jason Jenn is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist. His works vary in roles as performer, writer, visual artist, director, producer, designer, curator, and video editor. He creates for exhibition on stage, on screen, on the page, in galleries, and at site-specific locations. When he’s not busy being lazy, the work is about making adjustments to obtain balance in an era of extremes. The aim is to engage the mind conceptually and perhaps tickle the heart, often mixing humor with tragedy and beauty with pain.

Works frequently contain sociopolitical and queer empowered themes. There is keen interest in reexamining familiar archetypes and universally appealing topics, infusing them with a fresh, revelatory perspective. Visuals often take on a dream-like quality, evoking fantastical events and suggesting strange narratives, pulling viewers in for an unexpected journey. _Learn more and view additional works at: JasonJenn.com

Jason Jenn


Biography

http://JasonJenn.com

Ibuki Kuramochi

The Memory of PhysicalityCanvas, monitor, video, human hair, chain, acrylic, 2021wall installation: 70” x 96” floor installation: 92.5” x 23”



“The seat of the soul is where the inner and outer worlds meet Where the inner and outer worlds permeate, every part that permeates becomes the seat of the soul.” - Novalis.

In 2020, when we were cut off from direct and physical relationships with others, our awareness of physicality and physical sensations changed. Every shield blocks our direct physicality. My work is a memory of my physicality sealed by self-confidence, in which the captured spirit exists. Hair is a dead cell, however it grows every day, so there is a view of life and death there. Also human skin is said to be the third human brain. My body trapped inside has spirituality and heat, breathes and continues to exist.

Physicality is the key point of my art’s theme.

Every human being owns their body, but it is different for each person. As anatomist Takeshi Yoro says, “There is nothing more personal than your own body.” Each body is born to and owned by each individual and is completely original.

My work exists in various media such as video works, performances, and painting. It is produced with the consciousness of improvisation of the body-performance. It can be said that both video works and painting works are extensions of performance works. I am very attracted to the improvisation of the body that is created through my performance. It is also interesting to see how the physicality of each type of performance is cut out in every different time axis. The performance is very ephemeral, as the time that is flowing now passes by in an instant. I feel that it is valuable to engrave a special and living art moment in my body. Because my body will eventually decline and die.

My father is a devoted Shintoist, and I grew up listening to stories of Shinto mysteries. In the world of Shinto, it is said that spirits dwell in everything in this world. For example: in an eyeglass case, in stuffed animals, or in anything that has been used for many years, there is a Kami (spirit) named (Tsukumogami). Spirits are always present in my life and are reflected in my own body. I have long hair, and it feels like countless spirits are living in each strand. Hair is a dead cell, but it grows every day, so there is a simultaneous view of life and death. I like to create artwork where spirituality (invisible) and the body (visible) intersect and change positions.

Ibuki Kuramochi


Born in Japan, multi-media artist, Ibuki Kuramochi specializes in artworks for exhibition (paintings and media arts) and live performances that combine her live painting with Japanese Butoh dance. From 2012, Ibuki started exhibiting works in major cities in Japan, U.S.A., Taiwan, France, Italy, and Australia. She studied Butoh dance at the world-renown Kazuo Ohno Butoh Dance Studio in Yokohama in 2016. Her work pursues the physicality of Butoh’s poetic choreography and the human body in anatomy. She visualizes her performance and body movements as two-dimensional works and video works. Ibuki explores concepts of the body, thought and physical resonance, metamorphosis, and fetishism. In 2019, Ibuki received a USA O-1 artist visa. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

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Learn more and view additional works at: www.ibuki-kuramochi.com

Biography


http://www.ibuki-kuramochi.com

Rosalyn Myles

Pieces of UsInstallation, flowers, lace, black eye peas, basket, 2021variable dimensions



As we are all learning how to conduct our lives while experiencing a worldwide epidemic, making artwork and maintaining an art practice has been challenging. It has also been a unique opportunity to really focus on what really important, what are our true needs, our real obstacles. In quarantine we’ve been given the time to sit and be quiet with our thoughts. We are rethinking the way we make art in this, our New Normal.

As long as I can remember, I have been interested in working with rich textures and bits of pieces of history. Found traces of life, recycled trinkets, film, fabric, wood and text are used in mixed media artworks and installations to create three dimensional scenarios. These stories can be subtle, they are often autobiographical and hopefully exploring stories that are at their core, universal. I use various mediums to explore both social personal issues that are often erupting from the discourse of Modern American Culture and its problems of race and gender. Constructed assemblage boxes, recycled windows, doors, chairs are combined with paint and text, light and shadow to become alternate universes that engage the viewer.

No matter the medium, I am investigating the treatment of women and what it means to be a person of color living in the United States of America. I explore concerns that continue to plague underrepresented communities and disenfranchised people despite the cries for social justice. I am interested in exploring the very painful conversations going on in this country today and how we as a people can move forward together to navigate a better future.

Born and raised in a neighborhood just off the 110 freeway between Gardena and Compton, Rosalyn Myles has spent most of her life in the City of Los Angeles. She grew up traversing the entire city, playing games with her friends in Watts, swimming with her brothers in South LA, riding the bus to attend art classes at Barnsdall Park in Hollywood and eating Japanese food with her classmates from Narbonne High School in Torrance. She attended Mills College in Oakland on a scholarship, spent a few years at CSDHU then completed her Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the California College of Arts. For a few years she resided in Napa California, then in San Fransico where she worked at the Yuerba Buena Center for the Arts. Rosalyn has exhibited her work all over the US. She recently had the opportunity to create a Satellite Installation project for PR4 art event in New Orleans. Rosalyn currently resides in the West Adams district in the center of LA.

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Rosalyn Myles


Biography

Vojislav Radovanović

Descent of the Holy SpiritWood, glass, paper, acrylic, rope, 202110’ x 4’ x 4’



The installation, Descent of the Holy Spirit, consists of a ladder leaning on the gallery wall adorned by glass jars filled with recycled drawings of fire and a vintage cobbler’s shoe mold stepping onto the ground.

Ladder imagery has been used throughout history to symbolize the connection between heaven and earth and higher knowledge ascension. The vertically oriented Ladder represents the journey and our need for growth in our mental, spiritual, and social consciousness to face our era’s issues. The glass jars are filled with drawings of fire - a direct reference to the devastating wildfires the planet has recently experienced and the tongues of fire that often accompany the arrival of the holy spirit. The shoe mold is a symbol of the new quest that everyone must join in step.

My work often pulls from and quotes different religions as one uses a familiar language to tell stories that concern all of life. In this piece, I reference classical Christian concepts with the title and thematic elements, not for the common religious meaning, but to explore the need for an urgent reaction toward the ecological and environmental crises we face today. In personally addressing that goal, all elements of this installation are created from reused and recycled objects.

Vojislav Radovanović (1982. Valjevo, former Yugoslavia) is a Serbian visual artist and director based in Los Angeles, California. Witness in his youth to turbulent political unrest and war in the Balkan region, his work advocates for beauty, environmentalism, mental health, and societal transmutation. His work often utilizes a conceptual concentration on various plants, specifically weeds. The resilient, boundary-defying plants can be viewed as a metaphor for nature’s powerful ingenuity as well as applied to varied aspects of humanity’s endurance, the immigrant experience, and/or colonization.

Since his first solo exhibition in the National Museum of Valjevo at age fifteen, he has gone on to participate in over 200 group exhibitions. Important cultural institutions where he presented his works are UNESCO Headquarters and The Institut Suédois in Paris (France); Mall Galleries in London, (Great Britain); Museum of Art and History in Lancaster and Brea Art Gallery (California, USA); Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun, (Poland); The Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid (CBA), Madrid, (Spain); Belgrade City Museum, Museum of Yugoslavia, Art Pavilion Cvijeta Zuzorić and The White Palace in Belgrade, (Serbia).



Biography

http://www.vojislavradovanovic.com

His career in television as a journalist and presenter for Serbian and European TV stations led him to found the media company Art Documents which serves to preserve, promote, and curate the contemporary art scene primarily working in Los Angeles.

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Learn more and view additional works at: www.vojislavradovanovic.com



http://www.vojislavradovanovic.com

Alison Ragguette

Cross Section EllipseSilicone rubber, porcelain, silk, 201126’ x 5’ x 4’

Cross Section Tryptic (not pictured)Silicone rubber, porcelain, silk, 20085’ x 4’ x 4’



Cross Section Ellipse is a sculptural wall work created in thrown porcelain, medical grade silicone rubber, and silk thread. Inspired by biological cross sections revealed under a microscope, Cross Section Ellipse expands to a superimposed scale of twenty-six feet wide. This piece is activated by light, as the silicone rubber is translucent and diffuses color, light, and shadow. The combination of thrown porcelain with this highly engineered material intended to manufacture medical tubes and human prosthetics makes this sculpture enveloping and mysterious, yet playful. Cross Section Ellipse’s extraordinary scale and synthesis of materials proposes a duality between the organic and technological, as informed by biomechanics, the technology of life, and the mechanical world of nature.

Working for over fifteen years, Alison Petty Ragguette has developed an expansive approach to making sculptural objects in porcelain, glass, and rubber. She has studied at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London (England), received her BFA from Concordia University (Montreal), and MFA from the California College of the Arts (San Francisco). She is currently a Professor of Art at California State University, San Bernardino.

Alison’s work has been included in national and international exhibitions, including her most recent solo exhibitions at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona), the International Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago), Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (San Bernardino) and Launch LA (Los Angeles). She has exhibited at venues including Durden and Ray (Los Angeles), the Architecture and Design Museum (Los Angeles), The Contemporary (Austin), and international venues including the Galleria De Los Oficios (Santiago de Cuba), Shanghai University Art Gallery (China), and Harbor Front Center (Toronto). She has also been commissioned for multiple public artworks. Alison has been a resident artist at the Taller Cultural in Santiago de Cuba, Jingdehzen Pottery Workshop in China, and the Purosil Rubber Company in Corona, California. Her work has been highlighted in several art publications and textbooks, including Ceramics Monthly, LA Art Week and Artillery Magazine. Alison has been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Durfee Foundation in Los Angeles. Alison maintains an active studio where she lives with her family in Claremont, California.

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Alison Ragguette


Biography

Kayla Tange

The Rise and Fall of Decadence (We Both Enjoy the Same Fruit series)Sculpture installation, 2021variable, 12” – 36”

Adapted IntentionsIntentions original 2019, updated 2021Interactive installation with light box 72” x 37.5” x 5.5”



Intentions is a multi-sensory installation which becomes activated by each viewer. In utilizing web technologies, creating a tactile, visual and aural experience, we are interested in exploring the way human memory is constructive and destructive. Intentions is inspired by the meditative elements of the Japanese Zen garden, incorporating the freedom and imagination on a childhood playground and the beauty and impermanence of clearing each intention by the Tibetan sand mandala. In providing a familiar communal space such as a sandbox, participants can illustrate old memories or create new ones. The sand, when written in or moved makes the light shine through, giving dynamism to the words in the dark room. Using light-colored sand allows the patterns to emerge from the light below.

The Rise and Fall of Decadence The Hachiya persimmon, a fruit highly regarded and enjoyed in both Korea and Japan, yet can hardly escape the history of these two countries. These sculptures were a physical exploration of the dichotomy between mutual enjoyment/freewill and complete destruction/possession inspired by/recalling the horrific histories of the comfort women of Korea, look into the history of the kisaeng, and the fascination with the rise and fall of the empires. There are different and similar ways the Japanese and Koreans hang the persimmons to dry. Hoshigaki is a Japanese process where they are hung and massaged daily. This is a question I wonder about...how a country who shares the love of a fruit with another country could commit such crimes? The gisaeng were the legal entertainers of the government, originally emerging in Goryeo. Despite the enforced duties to perform, they possessed an ability to move somewhat effortlessly in society, due to their exclusive position as respected performers. Although considered a nominal social class, the gisaeng were appreciated as intelligent artists and writers, while retaining a particular part in ancient Korea’s society.

Kayla Tange was born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted at age six months, by a Japanese American family residing in Lemoore, California. She moved to Los Angeles in 2000, and among other endeavors at the intersection of art-making, self-discovery, and survival, began performing as an exotic and burlesque dancer, where she served not only as a sexual projection, but as a private confessor. These experiences inspired the performances Confession Box and A Bare Witness in which public space became an interactive confessional. In 2016, Tange created Confession Room, where these stories collected over a two year period were presented in an interactive multimedia installation at Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown. Under the name Coco Ono, she dances with the Bootleg Bombshells at Townhouse in Venice as wells as venues around Los Angeles and New York. She uses confession, sexuality and dark comedy in her performance work to explore love and longing, cultural stereotyping and societal taboos, catharsis and fetish._Learn more and view additional works at: kaylatange.com

Kayla Tange


Biography

http://kaylatange.com

Sanctuary of the Aftermath

Documents

Transcript of Sanctuary of the Aftermath