Alex Kritselis: Travelers of Glow and Sorrow
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 25, 6-9 pm
Artist’s Talk and Closing Reception: Saturday, March 25, 4-6 pm
Exhibition Dates: February 25-March 25, 2017

Alex Kritselis is an artist whose practice I have admired for many years.  Creating art that is always a conjunction of awarenesses, Kritselis captures through his kaleidoscope lens perceptions of his experience and through those perceptions makes art.  No matter the medium, his artwork is always visually rich – but doesn’t necessarily yield to interpretation easily. It’s slow and primarily non-verbal, even as it flirts with semiotics.

The paintings in Travelers of Glow and Sorrow each represent a moment, each painting caught in a metamorphosis from the painter’s first act, articulating a subject matter, to his second act, obscuring his subject in veils of translucent, gravity ridden paint. The viewer’s participation is in the act of erasure itself, like that moment when the present transforms into the past, a memory soon shrouded in history and myth. These paintings are large scale and epic, almost cinematic in feel.
I am very happy to host Alex Kritselis’ second solo exhibition at Groundspace Project. The first, also a large scale installation, Imperial Eden/After the Dissent, was held in 2013.

Artists’ Statement:

It’s imperative to examine and understand the past, to remember where we came from and the journey we took to arrive where we are today. Through our work we find the passage that takes us to ourselves. From the beginning the eyes of the child see the world, ineffaceable experiences that form the imagination.

My current work continues the ongoing examination of human history’s indelible impact and influence on our modern psyche and physical environment.  In my work I juxtapose incorporeal fragments of thoughts, memories, and universally recognized symbols of civilization over time into dense, almost pixelated, configurations – In my current process I have moved toward fewer but more expansive panels through which to explore and question the same threads that continue to drive my work:  the chronicling of civilizations’ historic and current affairs, socioeconomic quagmires, conflicts, and the collective behavioral patterns they generate—ultimately, man’s ability to spawn narrative and create meaning from fragments.

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1-6 pm.

1427 E. 4th St. #4
Los Angeles, CA 90033

KOKO’S LOVE, Yoshie Sakai
Opening Reception:
6:00-9:00 pm, Saturday, Jan 21
Artist’s Talk and Closing Reception:
4:00-6:00 pm, Saturday, Feb 11
Exhibition Dates:
Jan 21 – Feb 11, 2017

Touchdown! KOKO’s Love has landed with an exciting cast of characters for the Los Angeles premiere of its long-awaited Episode 2, about the ongoing saga of one Japanese-American family with their overbearing patriarch, Hiroshi, a liquor store owner in South Central Los Angeles, and his annoying insistence on having a male heir. KOKO’s Love is an original East-Asian/Asian-American hybrid soap opera series that re-imagines the melodramatic tropes of TV dramas to challenge the myth of the “model minority” and reveal the guise of superficial “perfection” of being both Asian-American and a woman. Loosely autobiographical, Sakai felt it was important to write, produce, direct, and act out all 9 characters from the first episode and 11 from the second episode of this dark dramedy. It has various manifestations as a video installation and changes form dependent on the related videos and the space. For this exhibit, Groundspace Project will be transformed into a psychological playhouse for the everyday doubts, anxieties, hopes, and daydreams that come from living while challenging the notion of fictitious and non-fictitious storytelling.

The KOKO’s Love series originated from the artist’s interest in the quotidian, and since moving back home with her mother, she has been immersed in how her 82-year-old, first-generation Japanese mother entertains herself, which is by watching hours of East-Asian soap operas daily because it is “what she lives for.” The melodramatic and highly addictive narrative genre of the soap opera fascinates her, not only for its outrageous characters and scenarios, but also for how it touches upon the most fundamental emotions and at times spews familiar life lessons and moral clichés that are highly accessible.

Biography:

Yoshie Sakai is a multidisciplinary artist (video, sculpture, and installation) living and working in Gardena, a city southwest of Los Angeles. She sees herself as an undercover cultural agent exposing the absurdities of a manipulative social structure while at the same time humorously struggling and reveling in it as a participant. She attended the 2014 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and received the 2012 California Community Foundation for Visual Artists Emerging Artist Fellowship. Her work has been shown throughout the United States in film festivals and art exhibitions from Los Angeles to Miami, as well as internationally in Cambodia, Canada, and Japan. This summer she was at the ACRE Residency Program in Steuben, Wisconsin and had her first solo show at Antenna in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sakai is very excited to have her first Los Angeles solo exhibition at Groundspace Project. She received her BFA from California State University Long Beach and her MFA from Claremont Graduate University.

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1-6 pm.

1427 E. 4th St. #4
Los Angeles, CA 90033

Please join us for Ann MItchell, The Chance Chronicles, Artist’s Talk and Closing Reception on Saturday, November 12 from 4-6 pm.

Ms. Mitchell will talk about her process in creating this evocative body of work. Ann Mitchell is a Los Angeles based photographer whose work ‘created a bridge between analog and digital’ more than a decade ago, developing the psychological territories of her potent imagery. Derived from meditation, The Chance Chronicles explore the deep processes of intuition played out in process and material.

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1-6 pm.

1427 E. 4th St. #4
Los Angeles, CA 90033

The Chance Chronicles: Ann Mitchell

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 22, 6-9 pm
Artist’s Talk and Closing Reception: Saturday, November 12, 4-6 pm
Exhibition Dates: October 22 – November 12, 2016

Please join us for The Chance Chronicles, a solo exhibition by Ann Mitchell.  Ms. Mitchell is a Los Angeles based photographer whose work ‘created a bridge between analog and digital’ more than a decade ago, developing the psychological territories of her potent imagery.   Derived from meditation, The Chance Chronicles explore the deep processes of intuition played out in process and material.

Artist’s Statement:

This series began with the title, The Chance Chronicles, because the images were inspired by a series of randomly selected prompts. Starting with a large set of Buddhist meditations I would randomly select one to write about each day. Through this process an image would “arrive” and then I would start the process of creating it. The concept of randomness and chance interested me in that I was both giving up control and having faith in where the process would lead me. I allowed chance to take me on a journey.

When I first imagined these images I wanted them to feel as if I was gazing at them from inside a great storm…probably that’s what my life felt like at the time. For the past four years I’d been working in color, but I’ve always been drawn to monochromatic imagery for its narrative qualities. I’m also exploring an aesthetic far removed from the current deadpan vogue – with a nod to popular culture, this “instagrammed visual choice is part of the vocabulary I want to use. Scanning the glass from a set of vintage proof frames gave me the textures and created a bridge between analog and digital.

These are the stories that came to me by chance…my hope is that the viewer can find their own stories in them as well.

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1-6 pm.
1427 E. 4th St. #4, Los Angeles, CA 90033

Fantastic Feminist Figuration, curated by Betty Ann Brown and Wendy Sherman

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 17, 6-9 pm
Curator’s Talk/Closing Reception: Saturday, October 8, 4-6 pm
Exhibition Dates: September 17 – October 8, 2016

Curatorial Statement:

“Fantastic Feminist Figuration” (FFF) features the work of seven Southern California artists: Jodi Bonassi, Bibi Davidson, Enzia Farrell, Laura Larson, Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman, Tslil Tsemet, and Lauren YS. Larson is a sculptor, the rest of the artists are painters. All of them present human figures–most often female figures, but not always–in fantastical worlds that recall the work of Surrealist “Grandmothers” Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Remedios Varo. Much like the Surrealists, the FFF artists depict the special relationships between women and their animal familiars.

Echoing the wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, the FFF women recognize that the human and animal worlds are indelibly interwoven, and we gain personal power through our intimate interactions with four-legged companions. Sphinxes (Egyptian human-lion beasts) and Lamassus (Assyrian deities combining human, eagle, lion, and bull features) embodied the protective powers of the human-animal connection. And just as the ancients represented spiritual power by combining human and animal features, Larson transforms a medieval model of mourning monks by giving animal heads–rat, bear, lion–to the robed religious figures. Davidson depicts women with bright red hair (painted avatars of the artist herself) with feline companions. And Bonassi allows cats and other mammals (especially giraffes) to emerge magically from the ether around her human subjects. Farrell depicts dark-haired beauties with dog and chicken comrades. (Not surprisingly, the artist herself lives with a dog and several chickens.) Sullivan-Beeman, Tsemet, and YS all depict women with animal allies, and do so in remarkably diverse styles, from the almost academically precise work of Sullivan-Beeman to the superflat, graphically impactful YS.  (Betty Ann Brown, July 2016)

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1-6 pm.
1427 E. 4th St. #4, Los Angeles, CA 90033

The Chance Chronicles: Ann Mitchell

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 22, 6-9 pm
Exhibition Dates: October 22 – November 19, 2016

Please join us for The Chance Chronicles, a solo exhibition by Ann Mitchell.  Ms. Mitchell is a Los Angeles based photographer whose work ‘created a bridge between analog and digital’ more than a decade ago, developing the psychological territories of her potent imagery.   Derived from meditation, The Chance Chronicles explore the deep processes of intuition played out in process and material.

Artist’s Statement:

This series began with the title, The Chance Chronicles, because the images were inspired by a series of randomly selected prompts. Starting with a large set of Buddhist meditations I would randomly select one to write about each day. Through this process an image would “arrive” and then I would start the process of creating it. The concept of randomness and chance interested me in that I was both giving up control and having faith in where the process would lead me. I allowed chance to take me on a journey.

When I first imagined these images I wanted them to feel as if I was gazing at them from inside a great storm…probably that’s what my life felt like at the time. For the past four years I’d been working in color, but I’ve always been drawn to monochromatic imagery for its narrative qualities. I’m also exploring an aesthetic far removed from the current deadpan vogue – with a nod to popular culture, this “instagrammed visual choice is part of the vocabulary I want to use. Scanning the glass from a set of vintage proof frames gave me the textures and created a bridge between analog and digital.

These are the stories that came to me by chance…my hope is that the viewer can find their own stories in them as well.

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1-6 pm.
1427 E. 4th St. #4, Los Angeles, CA 90033

Groundswell

• Opening Reception: Saturday, July 30, 6-9 pm
• Exhibition Dates: July 30 – August 13, 2016

Groundspace Project is pleased to announce Groundswell, an exhibition curated by Mat Gleason. Groundswell is Groundspace Project’s first juried show and we are pleased to say it was a resounding success, with a tremendous response of wonderfully qualified entries.

The Groundswell artists are: Douglas Alvarez, Donna Bates, Andrea Bogdan, Holly Boruck, Rude Calderon, Kate Carvellas, Larry Caveney, Diane Cockerill, Lynn Coleman, Jeanne Dunn, Kathi Flood, Dwora Fried, Damian Garcia, Peter Hess, Daphne Hill, Veda B Kaya, Kerry Kugelman, Faina Kumpan, Heather Lowe, Gregory Martin, Kerri Sabine Wolf, Cory Sewelson, Stephanie Sherwood, Shubs/Roeder, Nancy Spiller, Anna Stump, Terry Tripp, Todd Westover and Mara Zaslove.

Please join us for the opening reception, 6:00 to 9:00 pm, Saturday, July 30.

Curatorial Statement:

Los Angeles is the creative capital of visual art and to offer aspiring artists a chance to get noticed is always an honorable effort. As part of a fundraiser, juried shows insist that artists join the community with a show of good faith in the efforts of exhibition spaces outside of the commercial mainstream (that good faith is a small admission fee for competing). The symbiosis produces a thicker skin on which to build among those rejected and a success experience on which to build among those selected. I aimed for a fun show, selecting pieces that played off strengths unique to these artworks. George Herms once famously observed that he liked juried shows because among them you could find some pretty flowers, but acknowledged that the effort to grow them required a lot of manure along the way. Your highlights might be the next person’s lowlights but the cacophony of stimuli that produces the Los Angeles art scene is inevitably the hodgepodge that these walls reflect.  (Mat Gleason, July 2016)

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.

1427 E. 4th St. #4, Los Angeles, CA 90033

Fred Hoerr: Promised Land

Closing Reception: 4:00-6:00 pm, Saturday, July 9

Please join us for the closing reception of Promised Land, Fred Hoerr’s second solo exhibition at Groundspace Project.  Or stop by Friday or Saturday, 1-6 pm through July 9.

In Promised Land, Hoerr takes us through his further explorations of the downtown Los Angeles area, including spectacular views of the city at large, gritty scenes of abandoned industrial neighborhoods and the ever growing unsheltered population trying to maintain a foothold in the interstices of a changing city.

Here’s a couple of great write-ups on Promised Land.

http://www.loeildelaphotographie.com/en/2016/07/01/article/159912896/los-angeles-fred-hoerr-promised-land/

Groundspace Project is an artist-run alternative space located just east of the 4th Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.
Exhibition hours are Friday and Saturday, 1 to 6 pm.
1427 E. 4th St. #4, Los Angeles, CA 90033