ZEN PSYCHOSIS
by Shana Nys Dambrot
Photographs by Osceola Refetoff
ARTIST TALK, BOOK SIGNING & EXHIBITION
Saturday, February 29 (Leap Year!)
6-10pm; artist talk at 7pm
Chungking Studio
975 Chung King Road
Chinatown 90012
Facebook Event Page: facebook.com/events/122978135694275
Zen Psychosis Instagram Account: instagram.com/zenpsychosis
Griffith Moon Publishing: griffithmoon.com/zen
ZEN PSYCHOSIS is a work of oneiric fiction -- a personal memoir culled not from diaries, but dreams. A critic of art and an amateur student of Jungian psychoanalysis, Dambrot is often compelled to decode intuitive, inscrutable symbols and assemble meaning from the clues the dream or the artist leaves behind. In this novel, she applies the technique to her own inner self.
The accompaniment of fantastical pinhole photographs by Osceola Refetoff augments and expands on this dynamic, bringing a beguiling dreamlike quality to what are in fact people and places in the real world outside. As an artist and student of cinema, Refetoff has long been fascinated with the conventional visual language of what dreams are supposed to look like.
Praise for ZEN PSYCHOSIS:
“The new novella by Shana Nys Dambrot, Zen Psychosis is so serpentine sandy dreamy hyper-romantic Anais Nin naked Joan Didion kissing Henry Miller… not to mention the lush pinhole camera photographs by Osceola Refetoff…” -- Poet, Milo Martin
“The Los Angeles-based art critic, curator, and now author has taken scenes from her unconscious and transposed them into something tangible and inventive.” -- Bree Castillo in FLAUNT Magazine.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Downtown LA. She is the Arts Editor for the L.A. Weekly, and a contributor to Art & Cake, Whitehot, Flaunt, Artillery, and other publications. She studied Art History at Vassar College, writes essays for books and exhibition catalogs, curates and juries exhibitions, and speaks at galleries, schools, and cultural institutions nationally. Dambrot is a member of ArtTable and an award-winning member of the Los Angeles Press Club. sndx.net.
Osceola Refetoff is a photographer interested in documenting humanity’s impact on the world, both the intersection of nature and industry, and the narratives of the people living at those crossroads. His parallel careers as an editorial and fine art photographer are characterized by an evocative, cinematic understanding of how scale, point of view, architecture, and motion can express the essence of a given place. Osceola graduated from NYU Film School and is the recipient of the 2018 Los Angeles Press Club National Photojournalist of the Year. ospix.com.
Griffith Moon Publishing is a publishing house based in Santa Monica, California, celebrating the works of contemporary artists in the form of exhibition retrospectives, artist/writer collaborations, and innovative storytelling. Find them on Facebook & Twitter.
IMAGE ASSETS (cover, head shots, interior images) For Web: dropbox.com
CONTACT for inquiries:
Shana Nys Dambrot: [email protected]
Osceola Refetoff: [email protected]
Top photos: Shana Nys Dambrot – The Getty Villa – Pacific Palisades, California – 2018
Osceola Refetoff (self portrait) – Chung King Road – Los Angeles, California – 2019
Multispectral Pinhole Exposures
Book Cover: Woman in Doorway – Pinhole Exposure – Union Station – Los Angeles, California – 2010
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JETT KWONG: CREAM SINGLE RELEASE
at Chungking Studio
Thursday, May 30, 2019 from 8-10pm
Chungking Studio
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
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WOMEN IN WINDOWS
at Chungking Studio this Saturday!
"The Women in Windows project emphasizes a different type of body; a body of work by women artists of color in the windows of Los Angeles. It hopes to draw in audiences and showcase work that reflects the diversity of culture and conversation belonging to women across the globe.
This time the windows allow a view that goes beyond the physical; a view into the mind, soul and spirit of women. In these redefined windows women create their own context and meaning within the same frames that once framed their bodies. This time they are here to be heard and their work to be seen."
- Zehra Ahmed, Producer, Women In Windows
Join us in celebrating female film makers, creatives, and DJs this
Saturday, March 2, 2019 from 7-10pm
Chungking Studio
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT: LA Weekly – Hyperallergic
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Play Time
Chungking Studio
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 8, 2018, 6pm-9pm
By Peter Frank
The medium of collage can be said to be the quintessential art form of the modern era. Certainly, the aesthetic it promulgates – of rapid, jagged juxtaposition, of quick change and interior contradiction – has dominated the mental and visual patterns of society since the early 20th century. But there is another side to collage, a gentle, contemplative, and even restfully coherent side, that persists in our time as well. For all the wit, vigor, and even disruption that manifest in the work of Claudia French, for instance, it is the “rational” side of collage upon which she draws to assemble her elements into forthright, starkly described images of self-possessed gravity. Employing a medium prized for its discontinuity, French conjures stark apparitions of ponderous solidity – apparitions, however, whose features shimmer with the electricity collage brings to a surface.
The collage aesthetic dominates French’s entire oeuvre. Even her series of quasi-traditional religious icons (based equally on the opulent but austere Eastern Orthodox votives she grew up with in her native Romania and on the florid depictions of La Virgin de Guadalupe and other saints that recur throughout the Mexican culture now surrounding her in southern California) have been built up out of myriad diverse segments. Indeed, French treats collage as if it were a direct descendant of mosaic art. A body of collage work from the beginning of the 2000s, for instance, seems at first to present diverse, or broadly related, images in rolling cascades, the appropriated pictures attached to one another obsessively rather than logically. But French’s hand gently guides the myriad elements into a coherent structure – not a “whole” per se, as she deliberately maintains the quick cuts and jumps of the collage aesthetic, but a rhythmic continuity that covers its ground with wit and brio.
In her recent series, French pays homage to nature, finding in some of its most representative factors – trees above all, but also geological strata, the occasional animal, and the qualities of decay – a sensual field no less than an ecological presence. The renditions of trees range from the nearly naturalistic to the highly stylized and almost abstract; but the fact that, regardless of picture size, they are all composed of collaged segments of paper unifies them into a statement as well as into a format. With few exceptions (exceptions that seem quite deliberately to prove the rule), the tree rises from the soil, defines the vertical center of the image, and, somewhere just north of the picture’s epicenter, breaks into myriad branches and, often, foliage (as well as, less often, fruit). The formulaic armature allows for a great deal of variation, dictated as much – but only as much – by French’s own fantasy as by the species of tree depicted in each work. In all cases, no matter how varied in form, color, or visual texture, the work is constructed of so many (relatively) small collage elements, laid in side by side with others of their ilk to create skies or tree trunks or other pictorial surfaces. It is a visual reasoning, again, that descends directly from ancient mosaic art. It gives the treeworks a multiple quality: that of paintings, that of stonework, that of a cultivated garden, and that of paper, almost of a page. The medium disappears behind the message by alluding to many media. French’s is an art of observation, but equally of construction.
The work immediately preceding the trees set the tone for that series by exploring even more directly the possibilities and ramifications of collage technique. A series of small, colorful abstractions, featuring an icon-like form (or compounded forms) framed by so many undulating rectangles, set a playful tone that is never entirely absent from the tree images. These eccentric presences, decidedly organic but otherwise unidentifiable, hop and writhe like marionettes on an invisible string. Their palette, similarly vivacious, is almost fructose in its sweetness. While working on these, French also realized a contrasting series of collage works composed similarly of many small strips of paper, but this time hewing towards a worn and earthy palette. These materials were in fact harvested from old books, including bibles, atlases, and sheet music, capitalizing on their evocative texts as well as textures. They invite closer inspection, which reveals their discontinuity as much as their antiquity, bringing them into modern form. They constitute not simply a recycling of the old into a newer modality but a kind of eidetic nostalgia, a quiet celebration of the forms knowledge once took. Such forms are at once revealed and disrupted – but never quite destroyed – by French’s recycling activity.
Claudia French has lived in and through the extremes of European culture and those of American. Her use of collage embraces her experience on both continents and her pictorial sensibility reveals a natural link between the two places. In this respect her oeuvre argues for the commonality of human insight; even as her work derives from and contributes to the visual culture of Western civilization, its breadth and symbolic ambition – ultimately resting on that universal signifier, the tree – point outward from Europe and America. French has found her fertile ground in collage, and from it her cultivations show us the world.
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ÉTRANGERS
OPENING:
Saturday, June 31, 6pm-10pm
Chungking Studio
975 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Étrangers
It is our privilege to invite you to attend “ÉTRANGERS” an art exhibition by Gareth Maguire and Ugo Nonis at the Chungking Studio in Chinatown, LA.
This show is a rare opportunity to see the collision of artistic styles of two internationally recognized artists bringing their latest creations
together for your pleasure at a one night only event at the Chungking Studio.
French artist Nonis’s passion for curves and shapes are highlighted throughout this body of work. Mostly inspired by early 90’s video games visuals, Ugo’s work is based on the simplification of form to connect with his emotions and the world. At times depicted in soft monotones and other times vivid colors, the current compositions are layered with stories. The curves, abstracted shapes, layers of color and symbols combine together to create a truly unforgettable finished product.
Irish artist Maguire works primarily in neo-expressionist style paintings and prints with a focus on social dichotomies that range from simple and humorous to insightful and highly provocative. The work is punctuated with phrases and doodles from his daughters, to poetry and words from his favorite authors. Colorful yet blacker than black, unique yet familiar Maguire’s work is truly a unification of the obscure and the obvious.
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Claudia French
“Growing Collages”
Art exhibit
Chungking Studio
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Closing Reception
Saturday, December 16 2017, 6pm-9pm
CLAUDIA FRENCH: GROWING COLLAGES
By Peter Frank
The medium of collage can be said to be the quintessential art form of the modern era. Certainly, the aesthetic it promulgates – of rapid, jagged juxtaposition, of quick change and interior contradiction – has dominated the mental and visual patterns of society since the early 20th century. But there is another side to collage, a gentle, contemplative, and even restfully coherent side, that persists in our time as well. For all the wit, vigor, and even disruption that manifest in the work of Claudia French, for instance, it is the “rational” side of collage upon which she draws to assemble her elements into forthright, starkly described images of self-possessed gravity. Employing a medium prized for its discontinuity, French conjures stark apparitions of ponderous solidity – apparitions, however, whose features shimmer with the electricity collage brings to a surface.
The collage aesthetic dominates French’s entire oeuvre. Even her series of quasi-traditional religious icons (based equally on the opulent but austere Eastern Orthodox votives she grew up with in her native Romania and on the florid depictions of La Virgin de Guadalupe and other saints that recur throughout the Mexican culture now surrounding her in southern California) have been built up out of myriad diverse segments. Indeed, French treats collage as if it were a direct descendant of mosaic art. A body of collage work from the beginning of the 2000s, for instance, seems at first to present diverse, or broadly related, images in rolling cascades, the appropriated pictures attached to one another obsessively rather than logically. But French’s hand gently guides the myriad elements into a coherent structure – not a “whole” per se, as she deliberately maintains the quick cuts and jumps of the collage aesthetic, but a rhythmic continuity that covers its ground with wit and brio.
In her recent series, French pays homage to nature, finding in some of its most representative factors – trees above all, but also geological strata, the occasional animal, and the qualities of decay – a sensual field no less than an ecological presence. The renditions of trees range from the nearly naturalistic to the highly stylized and almost abstract; but the fact that, regardless of picture size, they are all composed of collaged segments of paper unifies them into a statement as well as into a format. With few exceptions (exceptions that seem quite deliberately to prove the rule), the tree rises from the soil, defines the vertical center of the image, and, somewhere just north of the picture’s epicenter, breaks into myriad branches and, often, foliage (as well as, less often, fruit). The formulaic armature allows for a great deal of variation, dictated as much – but only as much – by French’s own fantasy as by the species of tree depicted in each work. In all cases, no matter how varied in form, color, or visual texture, the work is constructed of so many (relatively) small collage elements, laid in side by side with others of their ilk to create skies or tree trunks or other pictorial surfaces. It is a visual reasoning, again, that descends directly from ancient mosaic art. It gives the treeworks a multiple quality: that of paintings, that of stonework, that of a cultivated garden, and that of paper, almost of a page. The medium disappears behind the message by alluding to many media. French’s is an art of observation, but equally of construction.
The work immediately preceding the trees set the tone for that series by exploring even more directly the possibilities and ramifications of collage technique. A series of small, colorful abstractions, featuring an icon-like form (or compounded forms) framed by so many undulating rectangles, set a playful tone that is never entirely absent from the tree images. These eccentric presences, decidedly organic but otherwise unidentifiable, hop and writhe like marionettes on an invisible string. Their palette, similarly vivacious, is almost fructose in its sweetness. While working on these, French also realized a contrasting series of collage works composed similarly of many small strips of paper, but this time hewing towards a worn and earthy palette. These materials were in fact harvested from old books, including bibles, atlases, and sheet music, capitalizing on their evocative texts as well as textures. They invite closer inspection, which reveals their discontinuity as much as their antiquity, bringing them into modern form. They constitute not simply a recycling of the old into a newer modality but a kind of eidetic nostalgia, a quiet celebration of the forms knowledge once took. Such forms are at once revealed and disrupted – but never quite destroyed – by French’s recycling activity.
Claudia French has lived in and through the extremes of European culture and those of American. Her use of collage embraces her experience on both continents and her pictorial sensibility reveals a natural link between the two places. In this respect her oeuvre argues for the commonality of human insight; even as her work derives from and contributes to the visual culture of Western civilization, its breadth and symbolic ambition – ultimately resting on that universal signifier, the tree – point outward from Europe and America. French has found her fertile ground in collage, and from it her cultivations show us the world.
Los Angeles
May 2017
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PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS BY CRISTOPHER CICHOCKI, JAY MARK JOHNSON & OSCEOLA REFETOFF
AN OFFICIAL MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY LOS ANGELES EXHIBITION
A Featured MOPLA Event (Month of Photography Los Angeles)
www.monthofphotography.com
Exhibition Dates January 7 – February 11
Opening Reception January 12, 8:30-11pm
Pre-opening: January 7, 7-10pm
Directions to Chungking Studio
The earth’s landscapes are both eternal and ever-changing. Human activity in the Anthropocene has reworked the character of the topography in majestic, surreal, and troubling ways. Salt flats, strip mines, and the cracks of dry lake beds offer mysterious, often painterly surfaces that tether the universe to intimate experience. Dust on the horizon, in the air, and under our feet catches the light, refracts and radiates. These three artists use photography and photogenic means to both depict and evoke the visual and geological territory of the new terrestrial normal.
–Shana Nys Dambrot
Chungking Studio: www.chungkingstudio.com
Cristopher Cichocki: www.cristophersea.com
Jay Mark Johnson: www.jaymarkjohnson.com
Osceola Refetoff: www.ospix.com
Please RSVP on our Facebook event page:
www.facebook.com/events/1893242657572313
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Bill Leigh Brewer & Osceola Refetoff
Curated by Shana Nys Dambrot
A Featured MOPLA Event (Month of Photography Los Angeles)
monthofphotography.com
TWO DAYS ONLY April 18-19 12-5pm
Opening Reception April 18 7-10pm
Directions
MAGIC AND REALISM
Magic, truth, objectivity, reality. What differentiates photography from other visual art forms is its indelible, inescapably direct relationship to the external world. This tether is both a semiotic and technological constriction, a challenge that has given rise to a seemingly endless debate about photography’s status as a “fine art” rather than say, an “applied art” -- and is ultimately also the source of its unique, evolving appeal.
The pairing of work by photographers Bill Leigh Brewer and Osceola Refetoff -- contemporaries working independently -- explores photography’s paradoxical capacity to simultaneously document and interpret the world around us, to elicit fresh details and construct new experiences and narratives from its raw materials. The interaction between their work is particularly well suited to exploring this dynamic, because Brewer and Refetoff are uncannily drawn to many of the same specific topographies of desert and industry, yet they return with vastly different works of art.
Some of these differences result from the intentionality of how they work. Brewer could be said to work somewhat loosely, guided more by cultivated serendipity than by an agenda -- his camera functioning as an extension of an intuitive attention, his series grouped by evocative formal or narrative suggestions in a subsequent process sorting the harvest of his wanderlust. Refetoff, for his part, sets out in a nearly cinematic quest for certain specific stories he feels require telling, set against and among the details and vistas of an archetypal set of lands -- speaking directly to how humans have historically manipulated these lands throughout the mythology of the American West.
By considering them together, it is our hope that not only will further facets of their individual practices be highlighted, but so will certain fundamental circumstances of their shared medium’s paradoxical ability to preserve evidence of actual events while sustaining personal interpretation, in so doing reconciling documentation and invention, experience and imagination -- and, by somehow showing more than can be seen, to reconcile magic and realism. –Shana Nys Dambrot
billybrewer.com
ospix.com
Please RSVP on our Facebook event page
facebook.com/events/895589867150906/
For inquiries please contact Kristine Schomaker at Shoebox PR Visual Artist Marketing shoeboxpr.com T: 661.317.1069
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A museum for animal lovers of all ages, the new National Museum of Animals and Society is hosting a two-part Fundraiser Exhibition:
The mission of the exhibit, curated by Peter Frank and Delia Cabral, is to raise awareness about our relationship with rabbits, both the animals and what they have come to symbolize in our human experience. Prepare yourself for the cute, the grotesque, the beautiful...and everything in between! The exhibit will explore our perceptions of rabbits as individual beings, muses, companions, and as dynamic cultural symbols.
Curators:
Peter Frank, Los Angeles Art Critic
Delia Cabral, Exhibit Producer
Directions
Artists:
Adonna Khare, Bibi Davidson, Bogdan Dumitrica, Brian Duda , Corrie Gregory, Dana Feagin, Daniela Schweitzer, Dave Ghilarducci , Debra Broz, Doug Uyesaka, Georgie Flood, Gretchen Ryan, Heather Mattoon, Inge Dehenin, Jane O’Hara, Karen Florito, Karrie Ross, Kathryn Pitt, Kim McCarty, Kim Tucker, Lara Regan, Marina Hebert, Mark Gleason, Mary McGilli, Michelle Page, Michelle Waters, Moniuque Rebelle, NAMAAK Collective, Nancy Lane, Nina Salerno (aka: Perfect Reject), Osceola Refetoff, Paul W Evans, Paula De La Cruz, Penny Collins, Rafael Perea De la Cabada, Raul Contreras, Rebecca Midford, Rhea Korito, Rikki Niehaus, Sally Ann Field, Salomon Huerta, Sarah Hardt, Sarah Stone, Susan Coates, Suzanne Walsh, Trine Churchill, Valerie Daval
Stay up to date by visiting our Facebook event page:
www.facebook.com/events/639285792842804
Or the museum’s website:
www.museumofanimals.org
Or on:
http://bunnymania.org/
Contact: Delia Cabral, (310) 770-2525, [email protected]
© Corrie Gregory
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