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by Liz Goldner UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California Continuing through October 18, 2026 Raymond Saunders, “Black is a Color,” 2010-2015, mixed media on wood, 72 x 79 1/2 x 8”. Courtesy Casemore Gallery, San Francisco, All works © 2025, Estate of Raymond Saunders. With narrative art the go-to topic in the SoCal art world (culminating with the recent opening of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art), it is refreshing to tour “Raymond Saunders: Flowers from a Black Garden,” the late artist’s long overdue retrospective. Saunders’ non-storytelling aesthetic consists of large canvases, most with black painted backgrounds. All feature collaged elements, including prints of flowers, torn newspaper clippings, wrapping paper, comic book covers, paint brushes, Coke icons, LPs by black musicians, and photos of famous black activists. Raymond Saunders, “Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, American Painting,” 1988, paint, found papers and objects on canvas, 85 1/8 x 84 x 3”. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Add to these elements Saunders’ extensive chalk markings referencing his favorite artists, including Andy Warhol (who he knew well in his hometown of Pittsburgh), black artists such as Jacob Lawrence (“The Migration Series,” 1940-41) and Romare Bearden, and his Carnegie Museum of Art teacher Joseph Fitzpatrick. Saunders’ extensive use of chalk, often employed for lists of his idols and for pictures of fruit and flowers, symbolizes deep respect and gratitude for his childhood education and for his two decade adult career teaching painting and drawing in the Bay Area. As a teacher, he explained, his main intention was to contribute to the well-being of his students. Saunders’ expressionistic swaths of paint, line drawings and chalk markings interact with a variety of found objects, including sections of doors, signs, and copies of Warhol’s silkscreen painting of Marilyn Monroe. It adds up to a rich body of work with a multiplicity of meanings and messages. Their multi-faceted quality stimulates our imaginations and invites us to look at on our own lives in new ways. Raymond Saunders, “Celeste Age 5 Invited Me to Tea,” 1986, mixed media on canvas, 104 x 83 1/8”. Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York. Photo: Dan Bradica. Although Saunders questioned the importance of Black artists representing black culture in their work, he ultimately accepted this responsibility. His identity as a Black man often pervades his compositions, with their chalk marking references to Black heroes, photos of artists and activists, and LPs of famous musicians. “Jack Johnson” (1971), the only figurative painting in the show, depicts the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson is not portrayed in a boxing pose, but off-duty and self-possessed, painted in an impressionist style against an abstract color field. “Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, American” (1988) pays homage to two major artists whose work was decidedly figurative. Far from following their lead, Saunders created a wildly colorful abstract canvas, emblazoned with paint swatches and doodles. Perhaps the most intriguing work is “Places” (1991). This seemingly random hodgepodge contains many symbols and images that Saunders often employed elsewhere in his work. A cursory look at the piece reminds us of vandalized scaffolding on a city street. It is packed with graffiti-style writing, splotches of paint, pages torn from flyers and newspapers, Chinese writing, chalk drawings of light bulbs, pears and hearts, and more. Raymond Saunders, “Jack Johnson,” 1971, oil on canvas, 83 x 58 x 65”. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The artist’s “The Gift of Presence” (1993-1994) is a horizontal canvas featuring salvaged Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola signs. There are also hearts, colorful pictures of flowers, splotches of paint and scrawls that a child might have drawn. The chalk markings reading “Miles, Diz, Pops, Ella, Sassy, Train, Max” are nods to famous mid-20th century Black jazz musicians who Saunders admired. One of the most recent works is the collaged construction titled “Pittsburgh” (2007), alluding to the city that Saunders grew up in. Its symbols reference jazz icons he revered during his youth there. Original LPs are affixed to the piece, one featuring Miles Davis, a second by Thelonious Monk. There is a flyer for a Davis concert, and a picture of Monk, probably torn from a magazine, sitting sublimely in a go-cart. There is also a picture of Malcolm X, an old-fashioned telephone sign with an arrow pointing to a phone booth, Chinese writing, splotches of paint, a large paint brush with black paint on it and cans of paint. This work is so visceral that we may virtually hear the sounds of the artist’s beloved jazz while looking at it. Raymond Saunders, “The Gift of Presence,” 1993-94, mixed media on wood, 83 x 178 1/2 x 3”. Courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California. The paintings and collages included in “Flowers from a Black Garden” encompass sources ranging from Dada, expressionism, assemblage, Fluxus, Pop and postmodernism. This retrospective establishes that Saunders’ work is deeply personal and impossible to pigeonhole, packed with imagery that both immerses and entrances us. Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009. Liz Goldner’s Website

by Donna Tennant Heidi Vaughn Fine Art, Houston Continuing through October 17, 2026 Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee, “Buffalo Bayou Connected I, II, III,” 2026, mixed media on paper, 21 x 17”. All images courtesy of Heidi Vaughn Fine Art. The five Chinese elements that make up the world — wood, fire, earth, metal, and water — have inspired and shaped Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee’s mixed-media collages and sculptures. Lee, a Taiwanese American, draws on her heritage, her philosophical beliefs, and 30 years of experience to create the geometric abstractions on exhibit. “Holding the World Together” refers to the interconnectedness of the five elements. When all the elements work together, they create beauty and harmony in nature. These elements form a cycle in which wood feeds fire, fire produces earth (ash), earth creates metal, metal collects water, and water nourishes wood, leading to plant growth. The seasons, compass directions, five shapes, and certain materials are also associated with each element. Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee, “Echoes of Colorado River,” 2025, mixed media paper collage on canvas, 30 x 48”. For her collages, Lee cuts and arranges pieces of colored paper into intimate constructions that reflect her impressions of nature's ever-changing geography, which she sees as a metaphor for life’s inevitable changes and uncertainties. Her palette is dominated by the five colors associated with the elements; wood is green, fire is red, earth is yellow, metal is white, and water is dark blue. Lee immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan with her family at age 18. Her father owned a textile factory in Taipei that produced garments, exposing her to fabric, color, and design. They lived alongside rice fields, and she kept chickens, rabbits, and a goat, instilling in her a love of nature. Nature is her primary inspiration, and she is sensitive to the fragility of the planet’s ecosystems, which are cyclical and subject to frequent disruptions, especially in recent years. When the five elements are out of balance natural disasters, illness, and other calamities result. Lee intimates this in her artworks. Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee, “Bonneville Salt Flat I,” 2024, mixed media, paper, colored pencil, ink, 21 x 17”. Three intricate collages are inspired by Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, the muddy waterway that meanders through the city’s greenways until a flash flood transforms it into a raging river. Titled “Buffalo Bayou Connected” (I, II, and III), they offer a bird’s-eye view of smaller bayous flowing into the larger one. Subtle shades of green represent the wetlands, banks, and greenways through which the water flows. Curving strips of brown and blue depict the water. For Lee, the tributaries flowing into the main bayou represent the diversity, shared experiences, and interconnectedness of the broader Houston community. Many of the works draw on studies of specific locales, including the Colorado River, the Enchanted Rock formation in Texas, and salt fields and flats in Australia, Bonneville (Utah), and France. “Echoes of the Colorado River” documents Lee's firsthand observations of the consequences of severe drought in the Colorado River Basin, which has created a crisis for people, animals, and agriculture. Narrow blue channels are sandwiched between broad areas of vibrant orange, symbolizing the planet's rising temperatures due to climate change. “Silence of the Reservoir” portrays layers of water, from the silvery reflections on the surface to multicolored shallows to dark greens and blues of the reservoir's depths. The image conveys how water connects us to one another and to nature. In the series “Stronger Together,” Lee explores the relationship among the five elements, using interlocking squares and rectangles in the colors to give visual form to her belief that only by working together can the chaos resulting from floods, forest fires, hurricanes, and other catastrophic events can be brought under control. Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee, “Stronger Together IV - 36,” 2024, mixed media paper collage, 36 x 36”. “Shadows of Elements” is one of two suspended sculptures in the show. Five rows of five translucent disks hang from the ceiling near a side wall. Each disk bears the Chinese character for one of the five elements, each color matching its element. The circular shapes also reference a pair of crescent-shaped divination blocks, or jiaobei, wooden divination tools thrown to seek divine guidance, an ancient Chinese ritual that continues into the present. The shadows they cast on the wall behind them remind us that every action we take has consequences and leaves a lasting imprint on the earth. The second sculpture, “Wu Xing: A Fragile Balance,” hangs from the ceiling at the center of the gallery. Wu Xing is Chinese for the five elements, also called the “Five Moving Ones” or the “Five Types of Energy.” Colored resin squares, each denoting an element, are suspended within five columns of fine silver wire that move in response to air currents. The squares reference pieces of joss (or incense paper) burned as offerings in Chinese ancestral worship to ensure the deceased have all they need in the afterlife. They are also used to pray for harmony in nature, which results in a bountiful harvest. The top of each column contains a crystal; if you have lived a life of meaning and contribution, you turn into a crystal after cremation. This piece conveys both the fragility and beauty of the natural world. Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee, “Wu Xing: A Fragile Balance,” 2026, mixed media, wire mesh, wire, bead, crystal, resin, 84 x 15”. A series based on Texas flowers — Indian paintbrush, bluebonnets, azaleas, and sunflowers — gives Lee a chance to step away from the five elements theme and experiment with other color combinations, including magenta, chartreuse, yellow, and orange. She also introduces curving elements that represent petals and stems, all collaged onto a rectangular base. They serve as a reminder that flowers, which symbolize renewal and resilience, thrive only when nature is in harmony. In 2020, the artist told Voyage Houston, “For art to possess beauty, it must possess harmony and balance. Beauty, balance, and harmony are inseparable … I hope [it] brings the viewer closer to nature, creating a feeling of peace and joy within.” Lee’s work, in all its forms, does bring us closer to the essential harmony among the five Chinese elements that sustain the natural world. Donna Tennant is a Houston-based art writer who writes reviews for various publications. Over the past 40 years, she has written about art for local and national publications, including Visual Art Source, Houston Chronicle, ARTnews, Southwest Art, Artlies, and the Houston Press. She has a bachelor of arts in art history from the University of Rochester and a master of arts in art history from the University of New Mexico.

by Liz Goldner Oceanside Museum, Oceanside, California Continuing through August 23, 2026 Aaron Kramer, “Pacific Gyre,” 2019, welded wire, various bits of household trash including a shaving cream lid, toothbrush, roasted chicken container, pasta box, kipper tin, chain, and vintage egg beater. All images courtesy of the Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside. Three-dimensional assemblage art of found materials by artists including the late George Herms and Betye Saar has been engaging art lovers for more than a century. It has been central to Aaron Kramer’s art practice from childhood, when he began scavenging junk from garbage bins as source material. This early passion continues to the present, with much of his assemblage work having become kinetic, expressing the concept of automata, or moving sculptures designed to imitate life. Much of the work in “Sense of Wonder” stems from Kramer’s penchant to mine his life experiences, and the results are designed to delight children of all ages, along with adults who are young at heart. He is also an ardent educator at the nonprofit Rediscover Center in L.A., dedicated to empowering children to embrace art as a living process. Among the best works is “Pacific Gyre” (2019), it’s title evoking a circular system of ocean currents and the crisis of endless trash in our oceans. Its elements, all neatly arranged within a welded wire frame, include emptied food cans, an egg carton, an empty water bottle, three toothbrushes and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, among other throwaway objects. When its handle is turned the various objects converge noisily towards each other, including a mallet beating on a plastic container and chains dragging over cans. This produces what Kramer refers to as ocean noise. Aaron Kramer, “Frankenstein,” 2023, vintage wooden box, laser cut internal and external components, plastic doll parts, vintage Japanese toys from the 50’s, and dollhouse piano. “Frankenstein” (2022) has the appearance of a child’s play toy rather than the expected macabre nod to Mary Shelley’s gothic novel referenced by the title. Five dolls’ heads, a few in a toy cradle, a toy piano and two disembodied hands on a piano, are watched over by an unclothed plastic clown. When the main shaft is turned and the automata rotates, the piece comes to life. The crib rocks, the doll heads open and close their eyes, and the two disembodied hands play the piano. While Kramer’s version of “Frankenstein” is amusing rather than scary, its deeper meaning is about creating life from inanimate objects — the very intention of Shelley’s book, and the defining modus operandi of Kramer’s body of work. Aaron Kramer, “Down on the Farm,” 2014, welded wire, bailing wire chicken and bug, lamp part, snooker ball, horseshoe, and Levolor mechanism. “Down on the Farm” (2012) is not only more conceptual than most of Kramer’s assemblages, its overall design is among the most elegant and harmonious. Affixed to a wooden mahogany base, reclaimed from a London door manufacturer, are various objects indigenous to farming, but that look more like sculptural elements than farm tools. These include horseshoes turned on their sides, a delicate bee made from old washers, a sculptural chicken artfully constructed from bailing wire, and lamp parts. All are composed under a yellow vintage snooker billiard ball, affixed at the top of the piece, that conjures up a sun shining over this ersatz farm. Among the most personal works are “Pin Spiral” and “Pin Spiral Set.” Hearkening back to his childhood in Chicago, the artist fondly recalls going to bowling alleys with his family, including his grandfather, reveling in the sights and sounds of the alleys, of the balls careening down the alley, of the pins being hit, creating cracking noises, and of the crowds reacting excitedly to the strikes. Aaron Kramer, “Pin Spiral Set,” 2001, welded ring rolled steel rod, washers, auto parts, vintage trophies from high scores in bowling leagues, and children’s toy pins. To pay homage to these memories, Kramer has created several spiral sculptures from ring rolled steel, constructed with bowling pins, children’s pin toys, and with washers breaking up the spaces between the pins. As with most works here, viewers are invited to play with the sculptures, which are made to be gently rocked in place. This action creates the sound of the pins shifting inside, evoking the bowling alleys drawn from the artist’s memory. The sense of wonder that pervades Kramer’s being translates to his salvaged materials and is a convincing foundation by which his imagination and formal expression result in delight. Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009. Liz Goldner’s Website

by Matthew Kangas Chatwin Arts, Seattle Continuing through August 29, 2026 James Leong, “Study, Fragments in Light Ochre,” 1961, mixed media on canvas. All images courtesy of Chatwin Arts. The reputation of many well-known and accomplished artists after their death can be difficult to fathom. In the case of James Leong, who died 15 years ago at the age of 82, well-meaning efforts to ensure his legacy have come to naught. That’s not for want of trying. In this, the second show of his work in two years, the gallery has once again displayed a chronological range of his subdued but colorful modernist abstractions. Whether they constitute an end point of “landscape” as the exhibit title, “From Abstraction to Landscape” suggests, is debatable. Leong’s last paintings address the history of Chinese landscape painting but do not arrive at anything close either to realism or conventional landscape. The artist, San Francisco-born and Chinatown-raised, and a product of California College of Arts and Crafts and San Francisco State College, fled to Europe as a young man in the face of a racially motivated attack. Living for decades in Rome, Oslo and New York, Leong digested a parade of contemporary painting movements from Abstract Expressionism to Hard-Edge and Color Field painting. He was included in dozens of international surveys of American and European art, but the smaller scale of his paintings, when compared to the bombast of leading New York school artists, placed him in a more intimate viewing relationship with Asian contemporaries. James Leong, “Dawning,” 1967, mixed media on canvas, 35 1/2 x 57 1/2”. Retiring to Seattle in 1990, Leong became a respected elder with appointments to public and civic cultural institutions and boards. The experience of owning and managing a studio building for many years in Rome prepared him for this late role. While there had he befriended many expatriate artists, among them Cy Twombly, Isamu Noguchi and Buckminster Fuller. While the bulk of his estate remains in storage in Seattle, the archives are at Stanford University. One scholar has spent nearly 20 years examining them but without publishing the monograph so sorely required to cement his stature. This is the main reason Leong’s reputation floats in limbo. James Leong, “Soft Stroke,” 1969, mixed media on canvas, 17 1/2 x 23 1/2”. All the same, we get a glimpse in this show of the fluidity, elegance and distinctive approach to abstraction Leong practiced for so many years. The earliest works, such as “Study for Fragments in Light Ochre” (1961), “Well of Dusk” (1966), “Dawning” and “Tromped Up” (both 1967) demonstrate the artist’s transition from textural surfaces to thin, filmy rectangles with ghostly, apparitional shapes emerging at their centers. In the latter works, a single horizontal band punctures the base of a mountain-like shape, pointing the way toward his next body of work. Consisting of ambiguous hard-edge shapes, often polygonal and set in pairs against neutral backgrounds, the paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as “In and Out” (1967), “Oscillines” and “Soft Stroke” (both 1969) and “Susan’s Floating Theatre” (1971), align with the geometric shapes of Minimalist painters such as in Robert Mangold or Dorothea Rockburne. But they exude a delicacy and indeterminate origin of imagery that is all Leong’s own. Could they be a response to Chinese bronze shapes or architectural fragments? Insistently doubled, they posit segmented forms, often split vertically or horizontally. With their darkened black notches, these works reinforce the artist’s originality, which was no doubt also due to having absented himself from the hubbub of New York in the 1970s, living abroad and finding his own path and exploring postwar European painting. James Leong, “Heather,” 1976, mixed media on paper on synthetic canvas, 23 1/2 x 23 1/2”. With such simplified shapes and seemingly anticipating Minimalist painting, it is important to point out by contrast Leong’s obsession with painterly surface. Spatters, blots, blurbs, dots and streaks cover not only the blocky pairs of forms, but also inform the paintings that came next, Leong’s arrival at the center-less, “all-over” composition so crucial to New York School painting and its Asian-influenced cousin in the Pacific Northwest. James Leong, “Monied Mountain,” 1999, mixed media on paper on synthetic canvas, 31 1/2 x 23 1/2”. These middle-period paintings are among the artist’s most compelling works. With the largest, such as “Jag” (1974), averaging around four feet, and smaller canvases such as “Heather” (1975) at about two feet, Leong’s center-less compositions extend only to their surface covering, hovering and covering shifting blocks of color beneath the drips and strokes, blending unexpectedly decorative colors such as purple and pink, green and orange. They are quiet rather than rambunctious, and tie the artist more closely to the subtleties of Mark Tobey whose “white writing” calligraphic brushwork finds a distant echo in Leong. The final paintings, the ones that supposedly culminate in landscape, may indeed look back to classical Chinese landscapes — river, mountain, rocky cliffs — but their agitated, rippling, repeated conical shapes and peaks hold thicker blobs of paint and, unlike the earlier works, expose a much wider palette. “Monied Mountain” (1999) and “Mountain Chop” (1998) reveal Leong more firmly as an Asian American artist who ultimately addressed his ethnic heritage and West Coast origin. They are a triumph in that sense but are overshadowed by the wholly abstract works of his middle period. Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas

by Matthew Kangas Nine Gallery Portland Continuing through September 26, 2026 Christopher Rauschenberg, “Untitled,” 2026, photograph. All images courtesy of the artist. The 17 untitled color photographs and photo-collages that Christopher Rauschenberg shows in “Italy 2026” are just the latest tip of the iceberg, that is, of a lifetime of photographing sites throughout the world. Focusing exclusively on Italy this year, Rauschenberg has extended his technique of mixing straight-on views with what he calls his “push-together” images, combinations within the same frame that might or might not be from the same location. The approach results in an embrace of the world through a blending of often off-kilter recognitions of familiar tourist sites with obscure positions of the camera that force us to accept the artist’s unusual attitude toward the familiar. Christopher Rauschenberg, “Untitled,” 2026, photograph. The works are displayed in a single row, showing alternations of single-view shots and mashups that composite two, three or even four different images within the same frame. Satirizing and confounding traditional tourist postcard mannerisms, Rauschenberg consistently alters the expected toward an unexpected outcome. As he once put it, ”I want the ordinary to appear un-ordinary.” Traces of Rauschenberg’s earliest work are evident in the reappearance of mundane still lifes, as in the bedside-table view of an electric iron with its sunny, mirrored reflection cast on the wall. Such tight interior views eventually gave way to the expansive outdoor vistas and the highly selective views of museum interiors. The latter have been the subject of two prior collections of his work, “Museum 1” and “Museum 2” (2022). One critic in the late 1970s named Rauschenberg and a group of other Portland photographers the “Gee Whiz School,” as in “Gee whiz, how can something so dumb seem so eerie or fascinating?” Further aestheticizing the dull object is one photograph’s allusion to Man Ray’s famous “Gift” (1921), an altered readymade of an iron with nails inserted into the steam holes. Christopher Rauschenberg, “Untitled,” 2026, photograph. The new Italian photographs continue the pairing of the everyday with the aesthetic not only of museum interiors but of the artworks themselves, as in the panoramic mixtures of Pompeii and Herculaneum ruins with interiors of more recent architectural staircases. Elsewhere, Rauschenberg seems intent on conflating the preciousness of the artwork with its inevitable commercialization, as in a wide view of plastic tote bags with pictures of a Madonna piled next to a Roy Lichtenstein woman’s head turned into its own bag or tea towel. Toying with deep perspective, in the same frame two color views of narrow streets on the Isle of Capri contrast a bright outdoor sunlight view against a gloomy darkened alleyway filled with refuse. Another, wider view focuses on Italian traffic danger signs, including one trampled beneath the wheel of a sports car. These are adjacent to formally restful images of Pompeiian bedrooms with their inhabitants encased. This is the closest the artist comes to any sort of social commentary, much of which depends on the juxtaposition of the past with the present or the crassness of the commercial (as only modern Italy can do it) with the sublimity of Italy’s art-historical past. Christopher Rauschenberg, “Untitled,” 2026, photograph. This past-and-present trope is another underlying thread of continuity in Rauschenberg’s art, most notably in his well-received book and two accompanying museum exhibitions, “Paris Changing: Revisiting Atget’s Paris” (2007) which re-photographed fin-de-siècle French photographer Eugène Atget’s many storefront and street scenes of Paris taken between 1898 and 1906. Displayed at the International Center of Photography in New York and The George Eastman House in Rochester, New York (where the original Atget prints reside), Rauschenberg’s 1997-98 labor of love shared with other photographers such as Mark Klett, Terry Toedtemeier, JoAnn Verburg and Ellen Manchester an exploration of the history of photography to establish an art-historical pedigree for its documentary origins. Christopher Rauschenberg, “Untitled,” 2026, photograph. Some of the wider mixed-image combinations at first appear to share little from image to image within each frame. Inspected more closely, however, they examine, for instance, the evolving interpretation of the female figure from Gothic and Renaissance times down through the ages to present-day cheesy Italian movie-star pinups and kitschy nude figurines. Without generalizing about the Italians’ tendency to reduce masterpieces to chocolate box pictures, Rauschenberg slyly points out their sense of ownership of such a cultural heritage, free to celebrate art, the female nude, and chocolate candies at once. In this sense, Rauschenberg’s encounter with Italy addresses past and present, seen through the multiple lenses of architecture, art, and consumer products — all without the presence of a single human figure. Thus, we see the subjectivity of the artist’s head-on confrontation with Italy, transforming its myriad extravagances into a tight, overweening aesthetic of inclusion and transformation. Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas

by Liz Goldner California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California Continuing through October 21, 2026 Willie Birch, “Uptown Memories (A Day in the Life of the Magnolia Project),” 1995, painted papier-mâché and mixed media, 82 × 62 × 60”. Courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Photo: Roman Alokhin. The works of Willie Birch are unusual and complex examples of narrative art. His first major retrospective portray him embracing life’s varied states of mind, including “pain and joy, vulnerability and pride, endurance and resistance,” according to the catalog, through a selection of 85 paintings, portraits, drawings, prints, sculptures and installations. Born in New Orleans in 1942, Birch draws on his diverse family background for inspiration. Relatives are activists, community leaders, teachers, and preachers. Birch studied art in disparate parts of the country and world, living in New Orleans, New York, Baltimore and Amsterdam, to achieve an abundance of perspectives. In many pieces, the artist, who has also worked as a community organizer, is informed by his African ancestry, the civil rights movement, jazz, Egyptian numerology, and American folk art. Willie Birch, “Street Musician with Guitar,” 1999, acrylic and charcoal on paper, 60 × 48”. Courtesy of Pettit Art Partners, New York. Birch’s oeuvre emphasizes accessibility, humanity and spirituality. Exhibition curator Russell Lord, chief of curatorial affairs at the Norman Rockwell Museum, sees a body of work rooted deeply in empathy and a holistic approach that is borne out by the exhibition. “Uptown Memories (A Day in the Life of the Magnolia Project)” (1995), composed from painted papier-mâché and mixed media, depicts a young Black man contemplating what his life might be like as an artist. The deftly crafted sculpture presents the subject absorbed in reading a book while perched on a city stoop. The stoop displays images of the city around him, and a small portable radio is placed next to him. While no other figures occupy this piece, there is a powerful sense of humanity gathered around the young man, as evidenced by other nearby sculptures. These include a family traveling, another family walking through town, a young man catching birds, and several of schoolchildren on whose backs are written phrases such as “Those who ignore the past will be forced to relive it,” “Why do we say Columbus discovered America?” Willie Birch, “Two Faces of a Nation,” 1968, wood, paint, and found materials, 35 1/2 × 60 3/4 × 7 1/2”. Courtesy of Willie Birch Studio. Photo: Sesthasak Boonchai. The implied sound of words and music is a key element that rises above the silence of Birch’s imagery. The acrylic and charcoal “Street Musician with Guitar” (1999) focuses on a man who Birch often sees in his neighborhood. The intense subject, depicted in a social realist style, stares out at us, establishing an immediate connection. I imagine him harboring stories about a life spent as a Black man in the south which he is bursting to share. The hieroglyphic writing of “New York City Jazz” (1978) is based on the synesthetic concept of sound becoming visible. “Two Faces of a Nation” (1968) is an assemblage of found objects representing a besmirched American flag. The caveat of the piece is expressed through the presence of a dustpan, broom, hammer, gloves and heavily worn shoes. These objects indicate that our country is no picture-perfect land of patriotic song and storybook, but a muddied continent, built on the back-breaking labor of marginalized citizens. The flag appears to be made of cloth that has been pulled over the tools of labor, rendering the stars and stripes folded and torn by the objects beneath them. The work expresses the then-young artist’s dark perspective on life during the 1960s. Willie Birch, “Two Faces of a Nation,” 1968, wood, paint, and found materials, 35 1/2 × 60 3/4 × 7 1/2”. Courtesy of Willie Birch Studio. Photo: Sesthasak Boonchai. Reflections on that tumultuous decade continue in the years since. “Memories of the '60s” (1992), a deftly crafted papier-mâché, canvas and mixed media sculpture, depicts an African American woman working on a blood-red quilt. It illustrates through pictures and text episodes of racial violence that Birch witnessed. Sewn into the quilt are pictures of protestors linking arms, members of the Ku Klux Klan, Martin Luther King, a clenched fist, a flag and statements such as, “The price of freedom is death.” “Freedom is not free,” and, “I don’t see an American dream. I see an American nightmare.” Beyond these highlighted works are spiritually-inspired installations portraying passages through life, deftly executed wood carvings, and semi-abstract paintings. Also featured are colorful works from the 1980s of people Birch encountered in New York City, including those in a barbershop, a multi-racial neighborhood dinner, and hanging out at home. The topical commentary is exemplified by “Keeping Up With the Iran-Contra Hearings” (1987), which centers on a Black woman, her head scarf signifying that she is a maid in a well-appointed home that is clearly not hers, becoming mesmerized by a news image on TV. Willie Birch, “Evoking the Spirits of the Ancestors,” 2002, acrylic and charcoal on paper, 72 1/4 × 79 1/8”. Courtesy of Willie Birch Studio. Photo: Sesthasak Boonchai. The final section of the exhibition is composed of several large-scale charcoal and acrylic works on paper from the artist’s “Seventh Ward” series. Birch began these pictures after 1994, upon returning to his hometown of New Orleans. He deftly captures street scenes, people and architecture from one of the city’s most historically vibrant neighborhoods. It was arguably the birthplace of jazz, home of the Mardi Gras Indians, and the marching ground of the annual Black Men of Labor Second Line Parade. While the scenes are local, the stories are universal. Images of horses, boys loaded into the back of a pickup truck, young men playing dominoes, people cleaning a street following a local shooting, and a 1977 Chevy all immerse us in the ward. Especially affecting is the spiritual drawing, “Evoking the Spirits of the Ancestors” (2002), of three hooded and robed men walking solemnly through town. This expansive aesthetic of “Stories to Tell” befits an artist who has imbued his body, mind and spirit into the many vicissitudes of Black life in America. The stories are compelling and, as numerous as they are we come away understanding that, in the best way possible, there are still many stories yet untold. Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009. Liz Goldner’s Website

by Jody Zellen Lisson Gallery, Los Angeles Continuing through August 22, 2026 Spencer Finch, “Gorgeous Nothing 10, After JJ,” 2026, archival inkjet print and collage on paper, 7 1/8 x 6 1/2”. All images courtesy of Lisson Gallery, Los Angeles. In 2013 “The Gorgeous Nothing,” a facsimile edition of fifty-two poems Emily Dickinson composed on scraps of paper and discarded envelopes was published, giving readers the opportunity to encounter these handwritten creations firsthand. Following Dickinson, Spencer Finch has created his own version, “Gorgeous Nothings,” a series of intimate, works on paper that are installed unframed as a frieze along the gallery walls. Spencer Finch, “Gorgeous Nothing 28, Sunset from Sunset Blvd. 3/3/26,” 2026. Finch is best known for ethereal light installations in which he covers windows with colored gels to transform the aura of an interior space so as to parallel his experiences of natural phenomena. “Balboa of House and Garden” includes two of these pieces, but they are not the primary focus of the exhibition. One consists of three fluorescent fixtures wrapped with blue filters or gels. In the main gallery, Finch has covered the skylights with transparent strips in various shades of blue — informed by light measurements Finch made of a passing cloud in Dickinson's Amherst, Massachusetts garden. When the light is right, they cast an array of blue-hued shadows onto the walls and floor. The second installation sits outside the gallery, “Wreck (Raft of the Medusa)” (2026) is situated in a found commercial dumpster filled with casually presented but carefully chosen detritus that resembles a dilapidated raft. It is, of course, a tongue-in-cheek interpretation of Théodore Géricault’s iconic “The Raft of the Medusa” (1818-19). Spencer Finch, “Gorgeous Nothing 16, Sunlight on the Gowanus Canal,” 2026, archival inkjet print, gold leaf, colored pencil on paper, 9 1/4 x 6 1/4”. While these larger pieces align with Finch's body of work in general, it is the “Gorgeous Nothings” that are the centerpiece of the exhibition. To realize this rich, subtle, evocative body of work Finch collected scraps of paper — picking up envelopes from the street or saving junk mail he received, as well as gathering fragments from his personal correspondence. Rather than draw atop the found envelopes or use them for collages, he scans the originals, prints and then cuts the shape to scale from pieces of archival inkjet paper. He uses these "reproductions" as backgrounds on which he draws, paints or collages other materials, often creating a trompe l'oeil effect. H andwritten poetic captions are present toward the bottom of many of the images to identify the what and the where. For “Gorgeous Nothing 10, After JJ” (all works 2026), Finch begins with a security envelope open so that the blue crosshatched pattern faces out. Over this he collages orange, green and purple shapes that quote Jasper Johns’ painting “Momoyama” (2025). In “Gorgeous Nothing 44, After Matisse,” Finch pays homage to the French master in his depiction of a small cluster of flowers — cyclamen — in the blocky style of Matisse's cut-outs. The ground is an off-white envelope that is open like a book and torn. Another homage, this one to Ed Ruscha, occurs in “Gorgeous Nothing 28, Sunset from Sunset Blvd. 3/3/26,” a watercolor of a lone palm tree set against a yellow-blue gradient — the referenced sunset — filling the top portion of the envelope. Spencer Finch, “Gorgeous Nothing 14, Following a bee,” 2026, archival inkjet print, colored pencil and collage on paper, 9 1/4 x 6 3/4”. Finch's envelopes are small, the size of the original correspondence, and because they are cutouts they are not uniform. This is what makes them intriguing. They are extremely personal, filled with observations that are more banal than extraordinary, but Finch elevates the everyday into something special and poetic. For “Gorgeous Nothing 16, Sunlight on the Gowanus Canal,” Finch adds gold leaf to a dark blue envelope referencing sunlight reflected on the famous canal in Brooklyn. The caption at the bottom of “Gorgeous Nothing 14, Following a bee,” simply states "following a bee." This image juxtaposes a printed piece of wallpaper from Emily Dickinson's bedroom that features a red flower. Finch has imposed a heavy pencil line emanating from the flower to the edges of the page that simulates the flight of a bee without depicting the bee itself. Spencer Finch, “Wreck (Raft of the Medusa),” 2026, commercial dumpster, paint, spray paint, paint marker, stickers, paper, wood, rope, messenger bag, hatchet and wooden cask, approximately 70 x 35 x 100”. Because envelopes are normally considered expendable, they are not something that most people pay a lot of attention to. But, given their variations in shape, size and color, as well as the patterns that fill many of the interiors, they exert their individuality. Finch's augmentation and interpretation further transforms them into something precious and valuable. In “Gorgeous Nothing 8, After Brecht (1939),” a beautifully rendered tree surrounds the address window of a direct mail campaign. The envelope from UNHCR addresses Spencer, stating, “an urgent request from the front lines of the war in Ukraine.” REMINDER is stamped in red. Finch has inscribed the envelope with a handwritten text inspired by Bertolt Brecht: “What times are these when a conversation about trees is almost a crime because it includes a silence of so many horrors.” Each of the 50 plus artworks is different type of meditation — be it on time, nature, culture, or art — his own or that by others. Some are simple, others are quite complex. The series displays both formal and conceptual rigor and when viewed in relation to the subtle transformation of the light in the room it becomes evident that Finch's intentions are to use everyday materials and experiences to change the banality of what he has been given into something unexpected that frequently offers a burst of surprise. It’s better than an homage to Dickinson, it’s an aesthetic collaboration. Jody Zellen is a LA based writer and artist who creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1989. For more information please visit www.jodyzellen.com

by David S. Rubin Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles Continuing through July 18, 2026 Angela Lane, “Burning Sky,” 2025, oil on birch plywood, 10 x 7”. All images courtesy of Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles. All images courtesy of Anat Ebgi Gallery. In “Phase Shift,” an exhibition of eighteen gemlike, delicately executed small scale oil paintings, Angela Lane investigates meteorological phenomena such as solar eclipses, Northern Lights (aurora borealis), twin suns, and mirrored moons. All of these celestial events are accompanied by bucolic landscape settings depicted in an Old Master style that resembles the misty sfumato atmospheres of Leonardo da Vinci and the serene pastures of Claude Lorrain, but without the solitude. The expansive skies in some, in fact, are rendered in shades of acidic pink that call attention to the increasing aberrations in weather that characterize global warming. At the same time, all are dominated by the luminosity of radiant light beams or glowing halos behind darkened suns that are so intense that they take on a psychedelic or supernatural dimension. Angela Lane, “Firefall,” 2026, oil on birch plywood, 10 x 7”. In that respect, Lane is working within a tradition that includes William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, William Pinkham Ryder, Maxfield Parrish, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, and many others who have attempted to capture in paint the connection between nature and spiritual consciousness. Recently, Lane has been posting images of such work, mostly by unknown artists rather than established masters, on her Instagram page. Although the artist has stated that she is interested in ambiguities of how we perceive and interpret what we see, paintings such as “Burning Sky” (2025) and “Firefall” (2026) are downright apocalyptic. The flame that hovers in the sky above the quiet landscape in the former, while never making contact with the terrain, infuses the clouds with pinkish tones that will remind Angelenos of the atmospheric discolorations we witnessed firsthand during the devastating fires of 2025. A similarly terse palette fills almost the entire composition of “Firefall,” where a solar eclipse appears to be triggering a fiery rift in the landscape below. The central imagery here also bears a striking resemblance to the moon reflecting light on water in Edvard Munch’s well known “Moonlight” (1895). Angela Lane, “Hyperspectral Vision,” 2025, oil on birch plywood, 10 x 7”. The majority of Lane’s paintings feel anticipatory and hopeful, with most of the celestial orbs appearing as sources of seemingly magical energy. “Hyperspectral Vision” (2026), for example, depicts a fusion of a landscape with a sundog, an optical illusion that occurs when the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere results in the appearance of a halo. Rather than taking place in the sky, where it naturally occurs, Lane has transformed the phenomenological event into a spectacular close encounter of the third kind, one that feels miraculous and ecstatic. The radiant sunlight bursting through the clouds in “Cloud Chamber” (2026) yields a similar effect, that of being poised at the dawn of something extraordinary. Painting the works on birch panels the size of postcards is particularly effective, because this entices us to experience the imagery intimately, at close range, which puts us face to face with the bursts of energy. With this kind of art, we can enjoy transformative moments. Angela Lane, “Diamond Light,” 2026, oil on birch plywood, 14 x 11”. The most exhilarating works are those where we are less cognizant of the source of the energy but instead are really focused on the energy itself. The two orbs in “Transference” (2025) are barely discernible, as they are overpowered by faint concentric rings that seem to pulsate before our eyes. The quiet landscape in “Diamond Light” (2026) is supercharged by the luminous vibrations of a soft triangular form and a halo that simulates a rainbow. If there really is a light at the end of the tunnel as our lives come to an end, Lane seems to have envisioned some joyous notions of what it actually might look like. David S. Rubin is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous exhibition catalogs, and his curatorial archives are housed in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. For more information: www.davidsrubin.com

by Matthew Kangas Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Gallery, Reed College, Portland Continuing through August 15, 2026 (left) Jack Snell-Ryan, “Embassy Tower,” 2023-2026, egg carton, felt, poplar, cast urethane, acrylic paint, 25 x 21 x 9”. (right) Jack Snell-Ryan, “Framed Void (with flagpoles),” 2026, milled poplar, felt, construction remnant, acrylic paint, 28 x 36 x 25”. All photos: Mario Gallucci. All images courtesy of The Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery. Conceptual sculpture is the musty afterbirth of Conceptual Art. Jack Snell-Ryan’s “Ohm Loop” moves beyond the meager austerities of a form that first emerged during the 1970s — no color, no object, ideas-only allowed — into an area that blends available materials like cast concrete and pencils with a range of brainy intentions the artist has stated explicitly elsewhere. It’s all reinforced by curator Ido Radon’s lengthy explication: sound theory; vernacular objects such as transistor radios and tape cassettes; the possibility of writing; and how egg cartons can symbolize architecture. These thoughts are the form’s inextricable legacy. One cannot fully appreciate his sculpture without the interpolation of the textual accompaniment of the artist’s and curator’s intentions. The question is, do they add up to a satisfying aesthetic experience or remain ambiguous and hermetic? Jack Snell-Ryan, “Shelf Speaker Tower,” 2025, felt, pencil, Italian mounting board, plaster, egg carton, cast Roman concrete, 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 15”. By the time Conceptual Art reached its apex in the late 1970s, words alone were left to create aesthetic meaning, as in the work of Jenny Holzer, Lawrence Wiener and Barbara Kruger. The problem was that Holzer’s slogans and “truisms” or Wiener’s phrasemaking plastered on museum walls were clichés and often simply examples of bad writing, trite and obvious. Younger artists such as Snell-Ryan relegate the conceptual baggage to intentional statements and leave the heavy lifting of interpretation to curators like Radon. Viewers are left out in the cold, subject to spelled out lecturing on obtuse topics such as sound theory and the inherent inescapability of repetitive audio environments in popular culture. Better yet, they were left on their own to decipher the artist’s unusual conglomerations of egg cartons, shelf speakers and metal grids. Jack Snell-Ryan, “Armature Collage,” 2024, found objects, felt, egg carton, plaster, cast Roman concrete, welded steel, 17 x 10 1/2 x 14”. For those who might be unable to see the exhibit, displayed in two narrow glass cases in the reading room adjacent to the gallery, or who do not have access to the garbled explanatory verbiage (nowhere in sight), scrutiny of the encased objects might help unravel what meaning, let alone visual pleasure, they emit. This will rescue the viewer from Radon’s invoking Bertolt Brecht’s weighty term verfremdungseffekt (alienated distancing), which leaves us nowhere. Looking closely is always the best approach. Contemplate “Embassy Tower” (2023-2026), stacked egg cartons over felt and covered in plastic. Minimally like Minimal Art, its modest scale of 28 by 36 inches spoofs modernist architecture and its deadening appearance in official buildings. (It might be about the American embassy in Havana, Cuba that was bombarded with high-pitched sounds.) It’s hard to imagine the piece required three years of construction but maybe that involved 35 months of thinking and one month of stacking and gluing. A bit bigger at 29 by 50 inches, “Framed Void (with Flagpoles)” (2026) again mimics the internal structures of architecture instead of outer covering, sort of like the inside-out look of the Pompidou Center in Paris, but without the visible plumbing and electrical pipes. The flagpoles of the title are nowhere to be seen either. Jack Snell-Ryan, “Shelf Speaker/Pencils,” 2023, cast Roman concrete, felt, Italian mounting board, pencils, 12 x 4 x 7”. “Shelf Speaker Tower” (2025) dredges up the dated look of an old music system, casting the speaker (about 20 inches high) in “Roman” concrete as if it were an excavated archaeological object. We recognize the shelf speaker’s origin and note that, enshrouded in concrete, it has become a fossilized forerunner of digital sound and its projection of music through ear buds. Above these on a clear glass shelf is “Transistor Void” (2024), a relic of the earliest personal sound systems. It’s the only thing here with any kind of surface decoration at all: an oval rock with striations all over resembling a fish. Beneath it is a stacked wood block with visible graining perched atop narrow rectangles of concrete and corrugated cardboard. So stark is the sculpture’s presence in relation to the austerity of the adjacent artworks that “Doorstop” takes on the character of a Brâncuşi masterpiece: off-center, artisanally carved, and ambiguously beautiful. Its title typifies the deadpan modesty of Snell-Ryan’s entire undertaking. Jack Snell-Ryan, “Untitled Shelf Object,” 2024, cast Roman concrete, felt, Italian mounting boards, eraser, 4 x 6 x 3 1/2”. By this time we are so hungry for visual texture or hands-on intervention that three final works take on comparable stature. “Conch Loop” (2021-2026) (five years in the making!), with two seashells held up by a steel armature, uses the beach detritus as mock speakers (as when put to one’s ear to “hear the ocean”). “Shelf Speaker/Pencils” (2023) freezes an old speaker in concrete and adds another rock and pencils, all in a plywood box to compress listening, writing and making. Finally, in the back office, “X Double Aught” (2026) is a screen-printed monotype with scrawled green oil stick. Patterned and scribbled on, its materiality and human touch undercut the hands-off approach of the other objects. They are all conceptual sculptures that project rueful nostalgia on the embodiments of historically distant auditory experiences. Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas

by David S. Rubin Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles Continuing through July 11, 2026 Terran Last Gun, “Gathering of Distinguished Knowledge Holders,” 2025, ink and colored pencil on antique “The Tisch-Hine Co., Grand Gapids, Mich.” Accounting ledger sheet (dated 1924); Watermark: Waverly Ledger, 1922, 16 5/8 x 13 3/4”. All images courtesy of Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles. As an enrolled citizen of the Piikani Nation, Santa Fe-based Indigenous artist Terran Last Gun has developed a unique meditative drawing practice for exploring his spirituality, paying tribute to his heritage, and pursuing his interest in abstract art of the 1960s. Specifically, Last Gun builds upon the legacy of Native American ledger art, a process of drawing over old financial records that emerged among the Plains tribes in the mid-19th century, and which continues to this day. His father, Terrance Guardipee, is himself a well-known ledger artist who perpetuates the practice of drawing representational narratives on pages from record books once kept by traders, missionaries, soldiers, and other non-Indigenous peoples. Terran Last Gun, “Another Human Being Experience: Magnificent Cosmic Source of Life,” 2025, ink and colored pencil on antique “The Tisch-Hine Co., Grand Gapids, Mich.” Accounting ledger sheet (dated 1924); Watermark: Waverly Ledger, 1922, four sections, 16 5/8 x 13 3/4” each. While honoring his father through his own work as a ledger artist, Last Gun essentially reinvents the format by replacing figuration with abstraction. Recognizing stylistic parallels between the geometric symbols that represent landscape and celestial forms on Piikani painted lodges (also known as tipis) and the circular and triangular forms that appear in artworks by some of his favorite geometric abstract painters, Last Gun has evolved a hybrid visual language that fuses both traditions. Terran Last Gun, “Entering a Powerful Lodge,” 2026, ink and colored pencil on antique “cash” ledger sheets, dated 1913, 33 1/4 x 22 1/2”. “Celestial Observations” turns to a format that was favored among systemic artists such as Sol LeWitt or Josef Albers: organizing geometric configurations into modular grids. Whereas LeWitt would vary shape and Albers would shift colors from one unit to the next, Last Gun repeats the same image and color scheme in most of his compositions in recognition of its potential symbolism, which he considers somewhat open-ended. In “Gathering of Distinguished Knowledge Holders” (2025) he positions sixteen identical symbols into four evenly spaced rows, with each unit made up of a square divided into four squares, and which is itself set within another square. The number four has significance within the framework of Indigenous history because it can refer to the four directions, seasons, stages of life, or ceremonial cycles. Combined with the reference to Piikani traditions that is inherent to the ledger paper itself, the geometric pattern — which also brings to mind a blanket or a quilt — affirms the artist’s ties to his lineage, but with a contemporary sensibility rooted in modernist abstraction. The remaining works are presented as diptychs, triptychs, or four-module polyptychs, all of which have precedent in traditional religious art. A particularly outstanding example is “Another Human Being Experience: Magnificent Cosmic Source of Life” (2025), the only work where Last Gun alternates between two color schemes. It proves to be a tactic that yields a dynamic optical energy signifying the life source referenced in the title. Here he has appropriated two of the most familiar geometric formats from the paintings of Kenneth Noland, the chevron at the top and the target at the bottom of each section. The truncation of these configurations at the drawings’ edges suggests that they could be part of a larger, inferentially expansive universe. Additionally, the artist equates the semi-circles in the lower sections with the shape of lodge covers when they are laid flat. Terran Last Gun, “Discovering New Realms of Imagination,” 2026, ink and colored pencil on antique “cash” ledger sheets, dated 1905, 27 1/4 x 15 1/8”. In another series, where variations of circles interact with stripes our squares, Last Gun pays tribute to Leon Polk Smith, a kindred spirit in that Smith was of Cherokee ancestry. Polk Smith’s “Constellation Paintings” (1967-73), multi-panel arrangements of ovoid-shaped canvases, have recently been reinterpreted in terms of Indigenous culture. In Piikani traditions, the circle is considered a sacred form, as it is the basis for social and ceremonial activities. Last Gun’s circular drawings convey their sense of spiritual power through an intensity of color, as seen in “Entering a Powerful Lodge” (2026), where a red-and-blue four-square motif is set within a deep yellow circle, and “Discovering New Realms of Imagination” (2026), where the deep yellow contrasts strikingly with a vibrant magenta. The latter work is also animated by the diagonal positioning of its three components together with the rightward rotation of the ledger paper, so the handwritten text becomes an abstract compositional element. Philosophically, Last Gun is most closely aligned with the prewar Transcendental Painting Group, which he embraces as a major influence, as well as with artists like the Beat Generation master Bruce Conner. All of these plains and mountains experimentalists demonstrated that artmaking can be a fulfilling means to connect spiritually with the cosmos. Last Gun thus sustains a deep-rooted proto-American spirit. David S. Rubin is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous exhibition catalogs, and his curatorial archives are housed in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. For more information: www.davidsrubin.com.

by Jody Zellen Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica Continuing through July 4, 2026 Ayin Es, “Disorderly Conduct,” 2022, oil on gesso board, 16 x 20”. All images courtesy of Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. The paintings in Ayin Es’ “Relative Strangers” exhibition highlight infrequently seen components of their work. Perhaps this signals a new aesthetic direction, but they shake things up, at least, in terms of style and media. Using vintage family photographs as a point of departure, they look beneath the surface to challenge the depicted narratives. Es is open about their transition, disability and feelings about gender politics. Through this series of works, they delve deeper into their own family-associated traumas. The images are unsettling studies of estrangement within a social dynamic. In a previous exhibition “On the Mend” (Compound Gallery, Yucca Valley), Es explored their gender-affirming surgery and struggles with mental illness through paintings and cartoon-like self-portraits with dog ears and a jagged red line across their chest, as well as hand-sewn illustrations of pill jars. They also created an 'ironic' sculpture made with smiling stuffed animals. Es's work, though generally serious and to the point, is not without humor. Ayin Es, “Young Exemplaries,” 2025, watercolor and ink on Arches paper, 16 x 20”. For Es, art and life are interconnected, that is central to the artist’s aesthetic foundation. In paintings, drawings and installations, they integrate and expound on aspects of their personal life. In the late 1990s, Es shifted from a career in music to that of full-time artist. Since making the change, they have shown their work regularly in galleries and museums in Southern California and beyond. Both their artwork and their gender identity are matters of public record. “Relative Strangers” consists of loosely rendered, realistic but not realist paintings on paper, panel and canvas. After their parents’ death, Es came upon a tattered suitcase at the back of a closet full of old family photographs. These served as source material. Es imagines what life might have been like if their 'trans' identity were represented in these decades old analog snapshots, and how a different family dynamic might have resulted. What would those images look like? To provide context, Es includes an album of the snapshots in the show. Ayin Es, “West Valley Fiction,” 2025, oil on birchwood, 24 x 24”. The painting “Disorderly Conduct” (2022) is based on a 1975 photograph depicting Ayin with their mother and grandmother. In the photograph, the young "Ayin" is depicted holding up a garment of bright red taffeta fabric, smiling as she poses for the camera. Their mother and grandmother recline on a large bed in the background, paying little attention to the antics of the little girl. Changes from the photograph include bulging eyes and clown-like smiles on the mother and grandmother, who direct their gaze at the girl. Their mother's hand is transformed into a large cartoony white glove that points at the young girl's chest to reveal a long horizontal red scar. In the watercolor “Young Exemplaries” (2025), Es uses a photograph from 1969 as a point of departure. The original depicts a family of four on a sidewalk standing in front of a large tree with a 1960’s-era car and the hint of an apartment building in the background. It is an image of a so-called 'traditional' family. Es is cradled in their mother's arms, while their father rests his hands on the older brother's shoulders. In the snapshot, the boy appears to be happy and laughing, whereas in the painted image his expression more closely resembles fear or horror. The baby Es looks out at us, rather than gazing into their mother's eyes as in the original photo. Es's painting challenges the complacency of the moment. Ayin Es, “Check the Pulse,” 2023, oil on gesso board, 16 x 16”. Many of the other paintings provide similarly emphatic alternatives to the photographs they are based upon. Es reinterprets these snapshots as they would 'like' to remember them. In works such as “Sucker” (2025), “A Dangerous Frisbee Cake” (2026) and “Check the Pulse” (2023), a younger Es has blackened eyes and a distorted mouth. “Check the Pulse” (2023) features a teenaged Es and an older woman who could be their grandmother, seated on a bed looking at official looking printed documents. Above the grandmother, who wears an expression of shock, is a cloud pouring down rain. In contrast, a rainbow emerges out of Es' head. Es is depicted post 'top' surgery, with their chest covered by a long red scar. One eye is a blur of black and their mouth is a distorted red line. “A Dangerous Frisbee Cake” (2026) is another disconcerting image. Here, thick goopy black tears cascade down from the young girl's eyes as she rests her head on her mother's shoulder. The two are seated on yellow chairs at a table in front of flowered wallpaper. Placed matter-of-factly on the table is a handgun alongside an uncut cake. Ayin Es, “A Dangerous Frisbee Cake,” 2026, oil on birchwood, 16 x 20”. Es portrays their childhood as anguished and unsettling. The innocence and joy associated with family photographs has been extracted from the images and replaced with darker scenarios that allude to Es's childhood unhappiness and discomfort. The comfort of middle-class Southern California is subverted and the figures are distorted, given multiple eyes and bleeding mouths. In the images of the young Es, they call attention to her future surgery. What injustices may have occurred are never explicitly detailed; however, Es repeatedly alludes to the fact that the moments captured within the family photos are not happy memories. Through their painting, Es extracts a history more aligned with contemporary reality. Jody Zellen is a LA based writer and artist who creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1989. For more information please visit www.jodyzellen.com.

by Lynn Trimble Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Continuing through June 28, 2026 Cara Romero, “The Last Indian Market,” sublimated fabric print, 94 × 321”. All images courtesy of the artist. Thirteen Indigenous artists and intellectuals sit together at a long table, as depicted in a large-scale photograph mounted high on a wall overlooking a central space at the Phoenix Art Museum. Their elevated presence counters demeaning stereotypes of Indigenous peoples promulgated through art histories, colonial narratives, and mainstream culture. Titled “The Last Indian Market” (2014), the photograph is an iconic work by Cara Romero, an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. Originally curated by Jami C. Powell (Osage) for the Hood Museum in New Hampshire, Romero’s exhibition includes over fifty of Romero’s works spanning 2013 to 2025 — plus Chemehuevi basketry and ephemera of her creative practice. Cara Romero, “Spirits of Siwavaats, 2019, archival pigment print, 36 x 55 7/8”. “The Last Indian Market” calls to mind Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (c. 1495-1498), which is visible across a chasm when standing at the exhibition’s entrance. It signals the ways Romero centers collaboration, Indigenous diversity, and contemporary Native cultures while critiquing Eurocentrism and colonialist narratives. For “The Last Indian Market” Romero gathered Indigenous creatives working in and around Santa Fe, including Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), whose “Buffalo Man” figure sits at the table’s center. Friends and family, described by the artist as collaborators, frequently appear in Romero’s work. Some appear in natural settings such as bodies of water or desert landscapes. Others are placed in theatrical stagings devised by the artist. Romero infuses narrative fine art photography with her own lived experience and personal identity. The women and girls she photographs convey agency, which is just one way Romero counters the reductive gaze that is so prevalent throughout the history of photography and that has perpetuated the denigration of non-European peoples. Cara Romero, “Sand and Stone,” 2020, sublimated fabric print, 96 x 64”. The show is organized around five themes, each exploring a foundational element of Romero’s practice. Such an organization proves effective in guiding us through the artist’s biography as well as through the depth and breadth of her body of work. Each section — “California Desert and Mythos,” “Repatriation: Empowering Indigenous Women,” “Environmental Racism,” “Ancestral Futures,” and “Reimagined Americana” — includes primarily photographs. But the exhibition also includes site-specific installations, which bring another dimension to Romero’s world-building. Text panels for individual artworks discuss specific collaborators and settings while also drawing on the artist’s own words to provide context and intention. Two photographs near the gallery entrance set the tone for what’s to come. “Sand and Stone” (2020) is a portrait of a woman surrounded by sand and stone that affirms deep connections between body and land. So too does the image of four Chemehuevi youth in pre-colonial dress running away from nearby towering power turbines in “Evolvers” (2019). The youths appear in several photographs, where the artist positions them as time travelers who embody the intersections of future and past. The “California Desert and Mythos” section includes a tabletop display case filled with sketches, photographic negatives, and props used in images seen elsewhere in the show. Chemehuevi baskets sit in the center of a gallery space where they anchor the “Repatriation: Empowering Indigenous Women” section. Here, portraits of women conceived as both living people and ancestral spirits counter the stereotyped objectification and exploitation of Indigenous women. What we see here instead affirms the continuity of Indigenous cultures. Cara Romero, “The Zenith, 2022, sublimated fabric print, 118 x 132 3/4”. Romero also foregrounds the harm done to Indigenous ecosystems in the “Environmental Racism” section. This is where she addresses the impacts of climate change, resource extraction, and modern development in ancestral homelands. In “Ancestral Futures,” vivid colors bring a dramatic feel to Romero’s visual interplays of ancient knowledge with contemporary technologies. “The Zenith” (2022) features an astronaut floating in space amid indigenous white corn. The image covers an entire temporary wall, where it’s accompanied by dozens of corn cobs suspended from the ceiling. Pop culture references abound in the “Reimagining Americana” section, a “what if” exercise in which the artist inserts Indigenous peoples into mainstream popular culture. One photograph, for instance, references The Beatles’ iconic “Abbey Road” album cover. Several works from Romero’s “First American Girl” series depict models standing inside life-size boxes surrounded by objects rooted in their own cultural heritage. These playfully highlight the vast diversity of Indigenous cultures and identities. Cara Romero, “Coyote Tales No. 1 Props: Hat with Ears,” hat with ears attached. At the center of this section, Romero’s site-specific installation returns us to the collaborative aspect of her art practice. In a circular configuration of vintage television sets, screens show scenes of making several of the works seen elsewhere in the show. “Panûpünüwügai (Living Light)” comes to a quiet yet dramatic close with “Coyote Appears at Muhaḍagĭ Doʼag (Greasy Mountain)” (2026), a large-scale triptych created at South Mountain Park and Preserve in Phoenix especially for the exhibition. In it, Romero’s treatment of artist Dre Nolin (San Carlos Apache, Salt River Pima-Maricopa) embodies “the human connection to Coyote and all animals.” By presenting her documented creative process and introducing us to her ever-expanding circle of collaborators, Romero fiercely challenges preconceived notions about Indigenous peoples past and present. Moreover, she invites us to join her around that long table where the dialogue is just getting started. It’s a welcoming that we want to join. Lynn Trimble is a Phoenix-based art writer whose work ranges from arts reporting to arts criticism. During a freelance writing career spanning more than two decades, over 1,000 of her articles exploring arts and culture have been published in magazine, newspaper and online formats. Follow her work on Instagram, @artmusingsaz.