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By Coral Pereda Serras Among established and other art spaces in Melrose Hill, sits 1028 N. Western Ave., home to Western Avenue Collective artists studios. This 1922 building hosts 22 artist spaces among which is El Nido, an artist-run curatorial and research space by VC Projects. El Nido, borrowing from its Spanish name, is nested in this distinctly LA courtyard and through "Photography Into Sculpture: An Homage and An Update," emerges as a portal into the imagined memories

By Lorraine Heitzman Erik Otsea's show, Clever Animals & Static at Alto Beta is a menagerie of a different sort. His tabletop ceramic sculptures are quirky but solemn hand-built industrial shapes that suggest machine parts found in abandoned factories or as models for obscure patent applications. They conjure Soviet-style brutalist architecture and futuristic inventions, all simple geometric forms that hint at a bygone time when we believed that life could be improved through

By William Moreno The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. Susan Sontag, “On Photography” William Camargo’s current exhibit of twenty-four plus works, dated 2019 through 2025, reads as a mini survey, with photographic images and installations thematically placed throughout the modest gallery. It’s his largest showing of works to date. Early in his career, the Anaheim native considered fashion and product photography, photojournalism and conflict reportage, findin

By Nancy Spiller Alec Egan's painting "Dawn House," in his show "Groundskeeper" at Vielmetter Los Angeles, is tender, serene, and calm — a lavender and peach sky sheltering the triangular top of a house flanked by two palm trees and the tip of a cypress. In its companion painting, "Night House," the sky takes a sinister turn with layers of dark blue, sunset orange, and a roiling strip indicative of flames mixed with what might be smoke. It hints at something of what Egan, his

By Jorge Rodriguez-Jimenez Gustavo Rimada is showing his third solo show and largest to date at Thinkspace Projects. The show, titled “Rhythmic Sequence,” brings together his masterfully vivid acrylic paintings and his newly found love for ceramics. Offering mugs with faces that both haunt and delight, Rimada, who was born in Mexico and raised in California, is blending his Mexican heritage and his California lifestyle to create bold and culturally stunning works of art. Rima

By Katherine Kesey In the last few years, Los Angeles's Melrose Hill neighborhood has quickly become one of the city's most walkable arts districts. This past Saturday night, there were nearly ten coordinated openings, and I attended almost all of them. Taken individually, the shows were equally captivating. Together, they were a warm and exciting medley of passionate color, lighthearted mystery, and wry humor. Hannah Tishkoff, Beyond Love There is No Belief. 2026. Acrylic, o

By Kristine Schomaker The work hits immediately. Not one piece — all of it, simultaneously. Large sculptural assemblages covering the walls, a freestanding sculpture in the middle of the room, a piece suspended from the ceiling. The whole gallery feeling like its own solar system, each work a satellite orbiting something enormous and unspoken. Last night, four humans splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after flying around the Moon for the first time in more than fifty years. A

San Juan Capistrano Library #1 Amir Zaki No Dust to Settle Diane Rosenstein Gallery April 4 - May 9, 2026 by Jody Zellen The saying "waiting for the dust to settle" might refer to when things will calm down and return to normal. It could be said that "the dust never settles" and there is no state of definitive calmness because everything is in flux, both in life and in art. This might be taking the personal into account by reading too much into the title of Amir Zaki's curren

Studio Loan wants to connect LA artists with the space they need — for free By Kristine Schomaker 60% of artists in Los Angeles don't have a studio outside their home. Or one at all. I think about that number a lot. Because space — or the lack of it — shapes everything. What you can make. How you can show it. Whether you can even invite someone in to see the work. Studio visits matter. Not in some abstract networking way, but in the real, tangible way where someone comes to y

By Kristine Schomaker I keep seeing Liberal Jane's work pop up across different platforms - Instagram, obviously, but also sliding through Facebook, saved in Pinterest boards, shared in group chats. This immersion matters more than I think we acknowledge. These aren't gallery pieces waiting for the right audience to find them. They're already embedded in the actual digital infrastructure where people are trying to survive right now. Caitlin Blunnie has been making this work f

Suzanne Gibson is creating new pieces with new energy and focus. At 50+, their work is more self-dedicated—not about what others expect from them. Me painting in Utah, 2024, photo by event photographer, used by permission for personal use and promotion What's actually hard about being an artist at this point? Being available for themselves. Someone just turned 50 and wants to start making art—what do they tell them? Let's do this. Let's play!!! Do they try to keep up with wh

Laurie Freitag is working on finally creating The Lost Years book that she's self-publishing. At 50+, after many years of photographing childhood and memory through the children she cared for as a nanny, it feels like a natural gathering of everything she's been working toward. In the Garden at Chislehurst #7130, Photography, 10”x12”, 2020, self-portrait 50 Over 50: You Don't Need Permission - Laurie Freitag's Lost Years Laurie Freitag is working on finally creating The Lost

What Miguel Ripoll does is highly unusual. At 57, he's been developing for over 25 years a practice based on technology and traditional materials and techniques. He's working with AI-generated fragments from public domain archives, transforming them through hand-crafted digital collage, and then spending hours hand-drawing with ink and pencil on them. The friction between machine logic and human gesture never gets old. It's not about age for him, but about patience. In 1999,

By Kristine Schomaker Standing in front of Leonie Weber's cardboard relief at Wönzimer and my brain's trying to sort through everything it's reminding me of—Abstract Expressionism, Nevelson, Bontecou, constructivism, Malevich's Black Square. All these art history touchstones showing up in what's essentially crushed Amazon boxes painted black and mounted on a wall. From a distance it reads as pure gesture—black forms exploding across the surface. But get closer and you see the

By Marina Claire The Middle Becomes Eclectic II is an LA-made small works salon – a large-scale exhibition within an intimate space – of forty Los Angeles area artists. The show’s title is a play on the iconic KCRW alternative radio program that began in LA in 1977. The small works in this exhibit span a wide range of media and styles, all made during the past year, by diverse artists at all career levels, guest curated by Camilla Taylor. The show is on view at The Middle Roo

At 51, Maryam Rohani Vakili is exploring the symbolism of Iranian doors and knockers in increasingly abstract ways. They've been experimenting with layering, texture, and color, especially red and turquoise, to express the tension between memory, silence, and identity. The studio feels vibrant and alive with this dialogue between tradition and contemporary abstraction. They're also deeply engaged with a smaller ongoing project, Care & Share, where they create tiny traditional

At 72, Elaine Carr is painting with gratitude. They lean towards more positive themes now. Their paintings tend to be a composition of beautiful colors that most times seem animated. Known for their bold colors and sometimes playful themes, Elaine's paintings are colorful compositions of still life, landscapes, and portraiture. They're primarily self-taught, having painted since childhood, but now in their retirement years they paint with a goal of creating works that evoke g

Lately in the studio, Jalila Bell is fired up clearing space for new work and diving into their steampunk series—where imagination, invention, and rebellion collide. At 50, hitting that milestone has powered them up and made them bolder. They're being pushier with mixed-media materials, mashing together effigy and new worlds. With their new steampunk series, they're breaking rules about what "their art" looks like, bending reality, and letting their imagination lead the charg

At 54, Nancy Popp is visioning for their long-term project 'under°veloped'. They're thinking more deeply about long term histories, legacies and larger structural fundamentals. If their work didn't change it wouldn't be authentic to the changes in their self and life. They don't see much change after turning 50 to what they were doing in their late 40s, but there is a difference to what they were doing in their 30s physically. What's actually hard about being an artist at thi

At 55, Marni Myers is fired up about cyanotype multi-layering. They're investigating the expressive possibilities of alternative photographic processes through cyanotype, layered imagery, hand-applied toners, and embroidered details. Their approach resists precision in favor of painterly textures, imperfect edges, and tactile presence, revealing their hands-on approach within a process historically tied to replication and science. Since they reached 50, their dedication to th

At 52, Heather Powers is exploring mud and clay resist pattern texts on fabrics combined with natural dyes. They're working with indigo, captivated by the shades of blue it yields. There is a process of alchemy that transforms humble plants' leaves into royal shades of indigo. There's been a continuous thread—they're a weaver and fiber artist—throughout their creative career. For the early part, they were focused on developing technical skills and a personal language through

At 50, Nicole Gammie has the chance to experiment and play. They're combining textile art techniques—bobbin lace and passementerie—creating work at the intersection of tradition and innovation. Learning and experimenting with lace and stitching began at an early age with numerous informal opportunities at school and in the community through classes and attending craft groups. Living around much of south-eastern Australia provided chances to investigate a range of lace and emb

Minna Väisänen is making animations with Grok. At 56, they're exploring what happens when digital tools tear down old gatekeeping. You don't need to beg a production house for gear anymore—you just open a laptop and build your own world. The speed and access are wild. And yes, for women especially, that shift mattered. The old art structures were rigged—"genius" was a word reserved for men with handlers and mistresses. Digital tools let women skip the permission stage. You ca

Carmen Dominguez is working with gift tissue as transparencies. At 56, they're doing more woven paper art, experimenting with combining traditional home crafts with abstract imagery. They're exploring the themes of reconciling historical alienation with contemporary reality. They're influenced by absurdist humor—DADA, found art, art brut, home crafting, and graffiti. They must call themselves "entry-level" but they have 20 years of creating art at home. Self-taught. Southern

At 75, Cindy Zimmerman is developing a workshop on making artist books for Banned Books Week at San Diego Central Library. They're also working on Mobile Monument, rolling activist art for protests, parades, and exhibitions, amplifying words purged during the first weeks of the Trump administration. They're more clear now that they decide what to do based on the guidance of their inner voice. What's actually hard about being an artist at this point in their life? Too little

Up to a year ago, E.M. Miller's medium was food. Now it's raw canvas. At 50, he's a former actor turned musician turned chef turned artist standing at yet another fucking crossroads and deciding if he continues down this rabbit hole of art or not. How's his work different now than it was before 50? A weaker person or perhaps a lesser experienced person would say the unknown, but he's used to not asking those kinds of questions. What's actually hard about being an artist at t

foto credit Susanna Andreini Susanna Andreini works with the invisible realms—concrete with Elemental Beings. At 60, the stunning results of her recent paintings, the absolutely unexpected colors, motifs, and expression touched her in a very deep way and encouraged her to explore this way of artistic expression even deeper. She's exploring her connection to the Elemental Beings, offering them her canvas as their stage. They dance on it, try out different forms, sometimes as l

Penny Cagney photo by R.R. Jones 2024 At 69, Penny Cagney is working with a new device created by a group of scientists at Arizona State University, including Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek and Prof. Nathan Newman. The technology is called the HyLighter, and it uses 13 programmable monochromatic light beams to simulate how color is perceived across different species and visual systems. She's exploring the science of color and vision, creating oil paintings designed specifically