EC- Culver City Gallery Opening

A few weeks ago I attended the Culver City Gallery openings, and was very inspired by the great art I saw.

My new favorite artist of the day, Nate Frizzell was not showing there, but was in the next month, and had cards with his art on them. I researched his art, and was captivated by his illustration based paintings. I was surprised how young he

was, and how quickly his art had matured. His pieces delt with the human condition and the difficulty we have with being honest with ourselves and others. By using children, he shows false innocence.

Another exhibition I really enjoyed was Edwin Ushiro's "Softly Encompassing the Womb". They were mixed media pieces which appeared as almost anime paintings, but were actually illustrations. They were illustrations of fascinating Hawaian legends, a tribute to Ushiro's Hawain culture. I was very surprised about how much I loved his art, because I usually don't prefer anime or anythig cartoon like. But I was really impressed and moved by

the stories and how he chose to illustrate them. I also loved Ushiro's soft, oceany and Islandy color palatte for the paintings. But the muted colors still worked for the scarier legends.

I also saw Claire Oswalt's "Peril in Perfection." She works with graphite on wooden movable puppet-like human cut outs. They were of struggles between people. While I liked it on a technical level, there was nowhere where it explained the meaning behind the

pieces. I looked it up online, and it said that they were supposed to represent the push and pull between control and freedom. The fixed movement is supposed to represent the control of the artist. The men fighting address the topic of male aggression and fighting. Her art was very good, but it spoke to me the least.

James Everett Stanly's "Let it Burn" was one of my favorites. He creates portrait-based watercolor paintings of the after effects of fire and natural destruction. The paintings are of the

subjects dealing with the after effects of destruction and loss. Stanly was inspired by the California fires and conflicts in the Middle East, both manmade and natural disasters. As a watercolor artist, it was really exciting to see accomplished artists using it, because I usually don't see watercolors portraits in fine art galleries. He combined my two favorite media- photojournalism and painting- and the results were phenomenol.

It was very inspiring and exciting to see artists reaching their goals of having their own show. Placing the art in the context of its creator made the art even more interesting. I hope to get a chance to go back to Culver City soon.