Gallery roaming in Culver City

On Tuesday, I visited two galleries across the street from each other in the 6000 block of Washington Blvd....just West of La Cienega.  The first was the Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects gallery.  This gallery featured the paintings of Iva Gueorguieva and Kevin Appel.

"Recoiling Earth" by Iva Gueorguieva

"Land Through Shoulders" (2012) by Iva Gueorguieva
"An aerial view of the "Recoiling Earth" as the show as a whole is called."

Leah Ollman of the L.A. Times wrote "Once inside a painting by Iva Gueorguieva, it's hard to leave.  It's hard to want to leave.  The surfaces, colors, shapes all clamor for attention, whisking the eye on a brisk, pinball course in disparate directions, then granting it moments of reprieve, small sanctuaries of brooding beauty."

Kevin Appel's paintings are also on view in this gallery.  In the painting below, you will see that Kevin takes a large photograph of a pile of discarded materials and paints over it.  The materials included broken scraps of wood and metal.  In some of the paintings he paints almost completely over the photo.  In the one below, you can see glimpses of the photo through a painted design.

Across the street at 6031 Washington Blvd., Culver City is the Koplin Del Rio gallery.  One of the artist is Josh Dorman a story teller at heart as described by the L.A. Times reviewer Leah Ollman.  He starts with antique  contour maps, mechanical and scientific diagrams and illustrations from natural history texts, collages them into new contexts and paints into, around and over the images.  His work "reads like a myth."

Yuriko Yamaguchi's "Infinite Growth", 2008 is made of cast resin and stainless steel wire.

David Hines's "North of Lancaster is painted with oil on linen reflects the simple beauty of wide open spaces in North Los Angeles County.