Contributed by Lore Heller / “MILK TEETH,” the title of Kate Hargrave’s show at Karma, implies both permanent loss and permanent gain. One gains milk teeth as a baby and loses them as adult teeth take their place. If children place them under their pillows, fairies might bring rewards. Losing milk teeth is losing childhood, developing permanent teeth coming of age – reminders to parents that time inexorably arcs life. Joni Mitchell observed that “we’re captive on the carousel of time,” and my grandmother’s lullaby, “toyland, toyland, beautiful boy and girl land,” reminds us that “once you cross its borders you may never return again.” Hargrave, who painted this work as she raised two children, captures this pervasively bittersweet quality.
Tag: Joni Mitchell
Reaching back at Ruthann
Contributed by Natasha Sweeten / I thought of this quote as I viewed “Souvenir,” the current group show at Ruthann. Inspired by a poem of the same title by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the show brings together the work of 15 artists with a focus on moments “that touch on intimacy and affection, humor and sadness, absence, and memory.” That’s quite a bit of ground to cover, but for me – no doubt influenced by reading the poem posted on the gallery wall – the prevailing theme is memory and the emotional aftermath of happier times. As Joni Mitchell famously sang, you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.
Claudia Parducci: Catching the falling dust
Contributed by Doug Milford / Good art can have multiple sources of meaning – material, color, scale, intention, chance, change, process, metaphor, ontology, epistemology, philosophy, biography, zeitgeist, history, and more. These may or may not be apparent or even deliberate, but they make up the work’s internal structure and shape its style. Ideally though certainly not always, these influences operate in concert while remaining distinct. The nine works in Claudia Parducci’s exhibition “Blue”, at Ochi Gallery in Los Angeles in February and March, achieve this balance, both as individual pieces and as an ensemble. The six years that had passed since her previous show included a three-year hiatus from painting after the death of her husband, the artist Peter Alexander, in 2020. This body of work was a response to his passing.
Artist’s notebook: Nate Ethier
On the occasion of “Heavy Light,” Nate Ethier’s second solo show at David Richard Gallery, Two Coats of Paint invited him to share ten ideas and influences that inform his complex, pulsating abstractions. He is keenly interested in kinetic motion, precision, and repetition, and credits Agnes Martin for the sense of happiness and innocence that suffuses his paintings. Most importantly, he reveals a penchant for close looking: “You can learn a great deal about light and color from a slow walk in the woods.” The show includes twelve stunning paintings and is on view through June 27.
Links: Musicians who paint
For readers like me who are drawn to dopey famous-people-who-paint stories, The Observer’s Casper Llewellyn Smith points out five painter/rockers today.Marilyn Manson The controversial goth […]











