Founded by Alaïa Parhizi and Aidan Nelson, the contemporary Wönzimer Gallery’s newest exhibition Star Goddess Island is on display through September 12th. Curated by Gregory Rourke, the show highlights five gifted women as they investigate cultural norms versus authentic self. The feminine energy between Kathryn Garcia, Katie Kirk, Jessalyn Brooks, Tahnee Lonsdale, and Liv Aanrud conveys an aura of strength. The walk-through experience is an immersive rainbow of identity. The pieces discussed in this passage are only a portion of the transcendent show. Star Goddess Island is well worth the appointment and socially distanced viewing in Downtown Los Angeles. Although there is an impressive 3D virtual tour available in order to view the show remotely, the in-person experience is second to none.
Jessalyn Brooks’ creative voice leaps off the canvas of her large-scale paintings. By mixing transparencies and extending the boundary of dimension, Brooks demonstrates her impressive technical ability. While Brooks’ style is uniquely her own, she toys with ideas that entered the western zeitgeist over one hundred years ago. Elements of cubism exist within her intimate compositions: Fainting Chair (2020) echoes Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Jessalyn Brooks integrates cubist ideals in a subtle manner. Space is manipulated masterfully, thus relating to works of Picasso. The journey from an atmospheric depth to flatness is a slow, smooth descent. Subtle shifts in color combined with the checkered textile produce a sense of space, while the bold color opposes the space created. Where Picasso’s subjects are confrontational, the figures of Brooks’ work exist freely and uninterrupted.
Tahnee Lonsdale’s Leaning (2020) is equally as impactful but distinct in its procedure. The exhibitionist portrayal of these forms is the source of vigor into this image: the female figure is delicate yet robust. Lonsdale’s painting Bather (2019) is also soft yet powerful. Bather contains a unique perspective that defies the western figure convention by perspective and body language. Traditionally in western works, the figure is rendered from afar, through contortion and impractical motion. Authenticity breaks tradition. The pragmatic action of bathing and the first-person point of view makes this painting special. This work portrays an element of storytelling through first-person perspective. This viewpoint is not always utilized, but its function is narrative. This painting, Bather holds a heavy narrative.
Tahnee Lonsdale’s portrayal of women reminisces the work of another female artist: Artemisia Gentileschi. The early Baroque painter also regarded her female subjects through an autobiographical lens, in dismissal of social expectation. Another painter that stylistically compares to Lonsdale is Matisse. Her vibrant palettes, conservative use of brushwork, an abstraction of figures, and decorative nature resembles the temperament of a Matisse painting. Much like Jessalyn Brooks, Lonsdale also experiments with transparencies on occasion. An example of this is in her painting Paper Thin (2020) [not pictured].
Kathryn Garcia’s works vary in media but correspond with each other in message and color. Her drawings are akin to her video installation, The Apparition (2020). The film’s location was Es Vedrà. This island is also known as Goddess Island and resides on the coast of Ibiza, Spain.
Garcia’s colored pencil drawings inhabit the shades of blue and sacred geometry featured within her film. It is suggested that this piece aimed to tap into the island’s ancient feminine wisdom through spiritual movement. Ancient iconography is present in each slow and rhythmic positioning in Garcia’s dance.
Katie Kirk’s gravity-defying coil sculptures are featured in-the-round and take on many soft, lady-like forms from every angle. With so much to digest within this art show, these smaller works of art have a stupendous impact. Variable physical dimensions boast divine color. The ceramicist and painter is not afraid of color as the soft colors rise and fall while bleeding and retracting into each other. The fusion of the colors combined with the fusion of the ceramic coils makes this piece appear weightless. The ceramic coils manage to retain their shape and integrity even through joints. Such execution demonstrates precise control over the medium and range of techniques at Kirk’s disposal.
Emphasis on texture is an underlying theme in Katie Kirk’s painting and ceramic sculptures. Although her works displayed are primarily sculptures, her painting Lime Yellow Spiral (2020) exhibits sculptural quality and fits perfectly. The painting inhibits feminine identity through raw emotionality. The abstract expressionist style Lime Yellow Spiral potentially draws influence from Jackson Pollock, or better yet his wife, Lenore “Lee” Krasner.
Liv Aanrud’s textiles are abstract landscapes. Their exuberant colors illicit excitement and intrigue from the viewer. Contemplative women submerge in large bodies of water on the foreground in Gauzy Afternoon (2020). Comparatively, her piece River Mother (2019) reflects and foreshortens the figures.
The softness of Aanrud’s women adheres to a non-western figure convention. Their voluptuous bodies manifest the energy of a Hindu goddess. Fine art in the form of textiles is also not a traditional Western medium. The Near East and the Far East have always given the mastery of stitch the praise it deserves, like Liv Aanrud herself. Aanrud puts so much of herself and her lived experience in her work. On her website, she commented on the subjects of her art: “Perhaps these women are versions of me—emotional states given physical form. They are allegories that depict certain dualities—at once placid and anxious, beautiful and treacherous.”
In all, Star Goddess Island is worth the visit. Each artist brought much of their lived experience into the show. Authentic and engaging, the showcase embodies womanhood. All original works by Kathryn Garcia, Katie Kirk, Jessalyn Brooks, Tahnee Lonsdale, and Liv Aanrud are worth a walk-through.
Is This How You Art 