Loft at Liz’s Aglow with Luminosity
Luminosity 2.0 at Loft at Liz’s
By Genie Davis
Featuring the work of nine mixed media artists, Luminosity 2.0, which just closed at the Loft at Liz’s, was a glowing and transformative look at light and space. Exhibiting artists included Jeff Frost, Darren Sarkin, Kelly Brumfield Woods, Laddie John Dill, Jerico Woggon, Barbara Kolo, Seda Saar, Caroline Geys, Vasa Mihich, and Eric Zammit.
The title of the show means a measure of brightness or a state of enlightenment, and viewers certainly experienced just that in a show that took on vibrant color and a fresh exploration of light and space. Many of the works were literally dazzling, and each was a unique perspective on palette, light, and what draws us to them: a sense, perhaps, of the transcendent.
Woggon’s work filled the project space at the Loft, a black light experience titled “Tears in the Rain/Los Angeles.” Slim black panels rested against the walls of the room; translucent, blue plastic discs were scattered like bits of ice across the floor. The black light and the colors painted on the backs of each panel created an immersive glow; it was not just an art exhibit, but a sensory experience. Seeing the discs on the floor pick up, absorb, and transform into a rich and surreal purple, and the taking in the striking color shifts from purple to lime green reflected on the walls, was both a disorienting and wonderful experience. Woggon, known for works created for Burning Man, brought that trippy aesthetic to life in the gallery space.
On the main floor and in the staircase exhibit spaces, the work was also dazzling. Seda Saar continues to fascinate with her colored plexiglass works such as “Pyramid II,” coalescing a decidedly futuristic style with a serene 60s-era modern vibe. Saar pulls viewers into a 3D visual experience that appears to go on forever, layering light and color constructions made of plexiglass and mirrors, in magical works that seem to pull viewers into a universe of light fractals and fascinating geometry.
Barbara Kolo’s bright, pop-art-like illusions in her piece “Overlapping Diamonds” resembles rain drops on a window reflecting neon – triple luminosity in a sense. The vivid color palette hovers between bright pastels and primary for an effect that is very much like a painted equivalent of neon. Kolo’s work has a richly meditative quality; soothing, even as the colors themselves are bold.
A single thread of color is all lit up in actual neon in Laddie John Dill’s glowing exclamation point of a work, “Light Sentence,” with a rich royal blue and glowing gold anchoring the piece in its niche on the gallery’s upper staircase.
Caroline Geys uses sinuous lines in rainbow shades, seemingly caught in a web of constant motion. Looking into her work, such as her “Spring Sway,” is to shift into an alternate universe of color.
Glitter is the key for Kelly Brumfield Woods, whose geometric paintings are thick with the jubilantly shiny stuff, and because of it, offer a range of perspectives and color shifts when her material is struck by light or viewed from different angles.
From laminated cast acrylic columns that resemble abstract stained glass to the mutable use of color and light throughout the exhibition, Luminosity 2.0 was aglow. Seen by night, the exhibition had the quality of a place of worship fused with disco dance hall; by day, a more subtle sun prism effect was in play. Either way, this was a gorgeous exhibition that took viewers over – and into – the rainbow.
The Loft at Liz’s
453 S. La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
