Cogratulations Maya Gurantz , our New Work: Focus on Los Angeles, 2021 Grantee!
As well as to our FINALISTS, Luciana Abait, Heimir Björgúlfsson, Olivia Fougeirol, Capt. James, Michele Jaquis , Debbie YJ Lin, Garen Novruzyan, Liz Nurenberg, Monica Rodriguez, Sichong Xie and to ON OUR RADAR artists Michael Chang and Whitney Weir.
Maya Gurantz is an LA-based artist and writer who interrogates social imaginaries of American culture, and how constructions of gender, race, class, and progress operate in our shared myths, public rituals, and private desires. She's shown her videos, performances, installations, and social practice projects at the MCA Denver, Grand Central Art Center, Catharine Clark Gallery, MoCA Utah, Oakland Museum of California, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, Navel LA, Art Center College of Design, Goat Farm Atlanta, Great Wall of Oakland, High Desert Test Sites, and Movement Research at Judson Church, among others. She was a recipient of the inaugural Pieter Performance Grant for Dancemakers and an Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation. Maya is a regular contributor to The LA Review of Books (where her essay, Kompromat, was the most-read article of 2019), and has written for This American Life, East of Borneo, The Frame at KPCC, The Awl, Notes on Looking, Avidly, Acid-Free, and an anthology, CRuDE, published by the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Bourges.
POEM OF ELISA LAM (2021) video still (channel 1)
PINK SMOKE ; mixed media on wood panel (2021).Luciana Abait was born in Argentina and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Her photo-based two- and three-dimensional works deal with climate change, environmental awareness, immigration, displacement, assimilation and adaptation. Abait’s artworks have been shown widely in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia in solo shows in galleries, museums and international art fairs. Recent projects have been shown at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the Palm Springs Museum of Art. She has completed numerous public art commissions and installations and is the recipient of the 2016 Santa Monica Individual Artist Fellowship. Abait is a resident artist of 18TH Street Arts Center in Santa Monica.
IS IT JUST ANOTHER DAY? ; deer antlers on photograph in wood frame (2021-detail)Heimir Björgúlfsson (b.1975, Reykjavík, Iceland) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He received his MFA from the Sandberg Institute in 2003; and his BFA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2001, both in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In 1998 he graduated from the Sonology program at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, The Netherlands. His work has been exhibited widely in Europe and the United States in solo and group exhibitions. In 2012 he was nominated for the Carnegie Art Award in Stockholm, Sweden.
from the photographic series THE PROPHETOlivia Fougeirol is a French photographer living between Los Angeles and Paris. She began taking photos as a way of becoming acquainted with the California landscape, spending much of the time in the desert, as well as urban Los Angeles. For the past twelve years, Olivia has worked as a photojournalist, shot for commercials and editorials, and traveled around the US and abroad shooting for films. In 2016, she published a book of photographs, DAVID, a 5 year study of a single man who lives anywhere between downtown Los Angeles and Venice Beach, and PLATEAU (2019), a collection of images from her work on movie sets. Olivia has shown at Gallery 8633, the Sundance Film Festival, Keystone gallery, and Show Gallery, plus a number of group shows. She has a background in theater, and is currently experimenting with stitching, sculpture and ceramics.
https://www.oliviafougeirol.com
Capt. James is a self-taught artist from Altadena, CA. Capt. started his career in San Diego as a caricature artist at Sea World while studying advertising. After dropping out of school to pursue his practice full time he traveled doing residencies, murals, and shows gaining a better grasp and understanding of what his work is and what it truly means to him and the world around him.
http://nobodiescaptain.com/
THE SCAPEGOAT AND THE PRECIPICE ; installation view (2019)Trained in the expanded field of sculpture, Michele Jaquis combines strategies of conceptual art, performance, documentary and social practice to examine the complexities within personal and social relationships, identity, language and communication. Her work has been presented in alternative spaces, galleries, museums, film/video festivals and conferences throughout the Los Angeles area, across the US and abroad- most recently Cerritos College Art Gallery, the Shalom Institute, Proxy Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art LA, and Shoebox Projects, to name a few.
Currently Associate Professor and Director of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Artists Community Teaching Program at Otis College of Art and Design, Jaquis oversees all undergraduate minors while engaging students in collaborating with each other and various community partners. She lives in Los Angeles, with her husband and son, who are sometimes her collaborators.
http://www.michelejaquis.com/
HORIZONTAL SOWING video/voice performance (2019)Debbie YJ Lin, born in Taipei and raised in Vancouver, is an East Asian Canadian Californian interdisciplinary artist interested in site-specific work focused on the architecture of human sound and languages. Her works address reconciliation of self to human/other/technology and have been exhibited in Barcelona, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York and S. Korea. She graduated cum laude from UCLA and holds a Masters in Media Studies from The New School for Public Engagement and a Masters from Berklee College of Music.
https://www.dbyj.com
KNOW THAT I'M DREAMING (FOR POP SMOKE) tengucho 9g paper, hydrangea petals, beeswax, damar resin on butcher tray (2021-detail)Garen Novruzyan (b. 1983, Yerevan, Armenia) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Recent exhibitions include In, On, and Around, at California State University Northridge, Messy, at Blowing in the Wind, Chatsworth, CA, 5th ANNUAL ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION, at Open Mind Art Space, Santa Monica, CA , Videoooohhhhh, a digital exhibition curated by Candice Greathouse, @ Young Space, https://yngspc.com, Here to Make Wishes Come True, at the Shed Gallery, Northridge, Spin, at WOW Project LA, and SHOES, at the Bendix Building, Los Angeles.
https://www.garennovruzyan.com
Liz Nurenberg (b. 1978) is a Los Angeles based artist. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Grand Valley State University (2003) and a Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University (2010.) Liz is an Associate Professor in the Foundation department at Otis College of Art and Design. She is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles. Liz was awarded a fellowship to Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency, a Helen B. Dooley Fellowship at Claremont Graduate University, and received a California Community Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at such venues as the Holter Museum (Helena, Montana), Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA), Elephant Art Space (Los Angeles, CA), HilbertRaum Gallery (Berlin, Germany), and the Torrance Art Museum.
Monica Rodriguez (b.1980, San Juan, Puerto Rico) examines the history and impact of colonialism on the political, economic and social conditions of the Caribbean. Her work often takes up archival documents in order to question the ways in which dominant historical narratives of power are constructed and represented. By juxtaposing and connecting historical documents that she re-creates into drawings, photographs and videos her work prompts new spaces for critical thinking where the past is no longer a fixed set of facts, but a tool that helps us imagine alternative possible futures. Rodriguez received a BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico (2005), an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, California (2011) and she was a fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York (2012 – 2013). Rodriguez has exhibited her work internationally, group exhibitions include TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Santa Cruz,Spain (2021); Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, Richmond, VA (2020); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR (2019); Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA (2019); LACE Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA (2019); Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, IL (2018); 19th Contemporary Art Festival Videobrasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2015); among others. Rodriguez lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
https://monicarodriguezmedina.tumblr.com
DO DONKEYS KNOW POLITICS? Scaffold Series Sichong Xie combines movement and material in body-based sculptural forms, including masks, costumes, and other objects. By placing traditional sculptural forms within new sites, materials and social constructs, Xie investigates these forms and movements within global communities to re-consider and re-envision shared spaces and performative practices. She raises questions about identity, politics, cross-culturalism, and the surreal characteristics of her body in the ever-changing environment. Xie received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, CA. Her most recent multi-media installation “Memory Sculpture, Scaffold Series” is currently on view atthe Wende Museum Garden in Culver City, CA. She was a fellow at MASS MoCA, YAddo, and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.
http://www.sichongxie.com
All Artists Images Courtesy of the Artists, Unless Otherwise Specified
We would like to acknowledge the artists who have made it ON OUR RADAR; Michael Chang and Whitney Weir.
Michael Chang: http://www.michaelchang.us/
Whitney Weir: https://whitneyweir.com/