NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS ALUMNI TAKE OVER LA: 7 Shows to See This Week

1. Alex Jackson (Midwest cover artist #111): Wild Topiary at Zevitas Marcus on view: September 8 – October 27, 2018

Alex Jackson Untitled (detail) 2018 oil on canvas over board 48 x 48 inches

photo courtesy of the artist and Zevitas Marcus

Alex Jackson Cambium 2018 oil on panel 18 x 14 inches

photo courtesy of the artist and Zevitas Marcus

From the Zevitas Marcus press release:

1. Naming is the enemy. 2. Unknowing is a path to freedom. 3. Unlearning is a path to freedom. 4. Ignorance is not freedom. 5. To arrive at new questions, one must be lost at all times. 6. To be lost is to always be engaged with the present. 7. Painting is a space for imagined possibilities. 8. The imagination must remove all regulation. 9. The manipulation of space is the manipulation of perception. 10. The manipulation of perception is an illusion. 11. The painting knows all secrets. 12. Nature knows all secrets. 13. Walls hold secrets. 14. Secrets have no language. 15. Color theory is not to be trusted. 16. Blackness is not an object. 17. An object is not a Subject. 18. A Subject is not a position to desire. 19. Commit to the theory and practice of entanglement. 20. Learn from heroes, never rely on them. 21. The picture must push and pull. 22. The picture must engage the body. 23. Painting is a mirror, always. 24. Understanding Nonlinearity is key to survival. 25. Engage only in dialogue about the work. 26. The artist monologue is a eulogy for the object. 27. To claim an object as art, is to claim an understanding of its function. 28. Unlearn to claim understanding. 29. Do not make art. 30. Disappear and never return.

Alex Jackson The Den of E oil on canvas, 2018 72 x 54inches

photo courtesy of the artist and Zevitas Marcus

installation view: Alex Jackson: Wild Topiary, Zevitas Marcus, Los Angeles, CA, September 8 – October 27, 2017

photo courtesy of the artist and Zevitas Marcus

Zevitas Marcus 2754 S La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90034 424 298 8088

2. Nasim Hantehzadeh (MFA #129and #135) AS I TRAVEL at OCHI PROJECTS on view: September 15 – October 27, 2018

installation view: Nasim Hantehzadeh: AS I TRAVEL, OCHI PROJECTS, Los Angeles, CA, September 15 – October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of OCHI PROJECTS

installation view: Nasim Hantehzadeh: AS I TRAVEL, OCHI PROJECTS, Los Angeles, CA, September 15 – October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of OCHI PROJECTS

From the OCHI PROJECTS press release:

Since I moved back to the United States from Iran, making daily works on paper where I draw my everyday emotions and sentiments is a way to deal with the isolation and the alienation that the situation initiated to my body. Sometimes the outcome of those drawings is abstract and may prevent a read based on the semiology of the visual system that our eyes are educated with. Other times it is direct enough to make links to familiar forms, such as objects, body organs, and figures. Can the otherness be rejected if the human body is read as an entity, a solid form in space, or a molecule?

installation view: Nasim Hantehzadeh: AS I TRAVEL, OCHI PROJECTS, Los Angeles, CA, September 15 – October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of OCHI PROJECTS

OCHI PROJECTS 3301 W Washington Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90018 323 641 7177

3. Sarah Awad (MFA #93): Double Field at Night Gallery on view: September 8 - October 6, 2018

Sarah Awad A Single Woman 2018

photo courtesy of Night Gallery

Sarah Awad Everything All at Once 2018

photo courtesy of Night Gallery

Installation view: Sarah Awad: Double Field, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, September 8 - October 6, 2018

photo courtesy of Night Gallery

Sarah Awad Derriere 2018

photo courtesy of Night Gallery

Night Gallery 2276 E 16th Street Los Angeles, CA 90021 323 589 1135

4. Eleanor Swordy (Northeast #134): IS THIS REAL at Moskowitz Bayse on view: September 8 - October 27, 2018

installation view: Eleanor Swordy: IS THIS REAL, Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles, CA, September 8 - October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of Moskowitz Bayse

installation view: Eleanor Swordy: IS THIS REAL, Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles, CA, September 8 - October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of Moskowitz Bayse

From the Moskowitz Bayse press release:

Each of the nine new paintings is a distinct dynamic flatland, where open-ended allegorical content frees the figure to coexist between narrative and formal dimensions with unironic levity. A symphony of ideas and visual languages seem to swim, yet are frozen. From disorientation of space and perspective, to variations in representational styles–this stillness affirms a deliberateness that informs each element of the works. The painting is not going anywhere, but your eye will dance to new rhythms.

installation view: Eleanor Swordy: IS THIS REAL, Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles, CA, September 8 - October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of Moskowitz Bayse

installation view: Eleanor Swordy: IS THIS REAL, Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles, CA, September 8 - October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of Moskowitz Bayse

Moskowitz Bayse 743 N La Brea Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90038 323 790 4882

5. Celeste Rapone (Midwest #125): Five Propositions at Roberts Projects on view: September 8 - October 13, 2018

Celeste Rapone Flirt 2018 oil on canvas 30 x 24 inches

photo courtesy of Roberts Projects

installation view: Celeste Rapone, Five Propositions, Roberts Projects, Culver City, CA, September 8 - October 13, 2018

photo courtesy of Roberts Projects

From the Roberts Projects press release:

Five Propositions features contributions by Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, Danielle Orchard, Naudline Pierre, Celeste Rapone and Tschabalala Self. The exhibition brings together an inspired selection of artworks focusing on artists deconstructing identity, appearance, and perspective through painting. The works on view - meditations, really – are variations on the theme of narrative portraiture: distinct yet interconnected experiences, derived from reclaimed spaces of power, desire and form

This exhibition intentionally places one known image next to another in order to create new and unexpected meanings: stylized and idealized portraits of fictional lives; escapism; playful yet still mysterious acts. Portraiture wielded as a weapon. The artists’ use of figures, or avatars, some as stand-ins for the artists themselves, thwart the proprieties of presentation that have long held structured meaning within institutional spaces.

installation view: Celeste Rapone, Five Propositions, Roberts Projects, Culver City, CA, September 8 - October 13, 2018

photo courtesy of Roberts Projects

installation view: Celeste Rapone, Five Propositions, Roberts Projects, Culver City, CA, September 8 - October 13, 2018

photo courtesy of Roberts Projects

Roberts Projects 5801 Washington Blvd Culver City, CA 90232 323 549 0223

6. Summer Wheat (Northeast #104 and #98): Catch and Release at Shulamit Nazarian on view: September 8 - October 27, 2018

Summer Wheat Catch and Release 2018 acrylic on aluminum mesh 68 x 96 inches

photo courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

installation view: Summer Wheat: Catch and Release, Shulamit Nazarian, September 8 - October 27, 2018

photo courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

From the Shulamit Nazarian press release:

Wheat’s paintings present a tradition in which women were the original hunters, technologists, and artists, and Catch and Release continues her exploration of this archetype and its many variations. The series depicts women catching and releasing fish as a symbol of fertility, creation, and transformation. In connecting to water and its creatures, the subjects demonstrate an inherent link to natural elements and to the intricate depths of the unconscious.

Summer Wheat’s works arise from an effort to harness paint as a three-dimensional object. From a distance, the paintings appear to be tapestries with a woven or beaded surface, but upon closer inspection the materials are revealed: Paint is pushed through the small openings of aluminum mesh, creating a soft, textile-like form that also evokes the pixilation of digital images.

The women in the paintings are connected by dense geometric patterns that explore psychological spaces, and the many narratives within each painting coalesce into one. Drawing on numerous rich art historical traditions—from Egyptian relief sculptures to Modernist painting—Wheat’s work destabilizes material boundaries and monumentalizes quotidian life through scale and movement.

Summer Wheat Daily Release 2018 ink and colored pencil on paper 8.5 x 11 inches

photo courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

Summer Wheat Fisher 2018 acrylic on aluminum mesh 68 x 48 inches

photo courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

Shulamit Nazarian 616 N La Brea Ave Los Angeles, CA 90036 310 281 0961

7. Joshua Nathanson (Pacific Coast #133): An Idea Because They Ate It at Various Small Fires on view: September 8 - October 27, 2018

Joshua Nathanson Kings Canyon 2018 oil on canvas 69 x 61 inches

photo courtesy of Various Small Fires

Joshua Nathanson Blue 2018 oil on canvas 69 x 61 inches

photo courtesy of Various Small Fires

From the Various Small Fires press release:

A woodland princess, a Pumpkin-headed spirit guide, a gargantuan creature drafted only in its contours,licking unseen wounds, a pale pink perspex shoe, possibly one lost by the princess, a chlorophyll canopy, a colour study: Joshua Nathanson’s paintings unfold with the keen interest of an enfant terrible who could care less for binding logic or “closure” as long as the action knocks you out enough to forget about the modernist infinite up there in T.J. Clarks’s top towers. His paintings crash-land into a place not unlike the Deadly Poppy Field from The Wizard of Oz, into which Dorothy falls half-dead just a hop and a skip away from Emerald City. Whatever pleasures of the poppy field we are denied in Dorothy’s awakening are here distilled post hoc; the paintings stay defiantly asleep in the poppies. If this sounds like I’m inviting death to the door dressed in the modern pathos of dreams and desire, think again: what’s at stake in the sleep/dream state is a refusal to stick to “received” or “accepted” common sense. What this means in terms of Painting, capital P—who knows. Too outrageous to claim that what’s happening in these works is an arrest of capital’s productive imperatives (because let’s face it, naps from the free market are as imaginary as fairies themselves) or that a wondrous painting’s liquid value could melt away the wicked West’s obsessions with productivity. Instead, relish in an image that acquiesces to the causal magic of “signs” or “signifiers,” and in doing so, rejects its fate as representation so as to embrace an even more defiant mode of discourse: fantasy.