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Seth Armstrong Sets the Hills of Los Angeles Aglow in Vibrant Oil Paintings

by Aurelia Butler 20 June 2025, 17:00

Seth Armstrong Sets the Hills of Los Angeles Aglow in Vibrant Oil Paintings

June 20, 2025

Art

Kate Mothes

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Capturing the magical glow of the golden hour, the rich blue of early evening, and the butter-yellow of morning, Seth Armstrong transports us to Southern California in his ongoing series of oil paintings. Bright bungalows, electrical lines, palm trees, and shrubs dot the foothills that shape Los Angeles, with the San Gabriel Mountains often rising in the background.

Greenery plays a central role in Armstrong’s suburban portraits, revealing and concealing roads, homes, and infrastructure—evocative of the city’s reputation as a place where any dream seems possible. Yet its sprawling neighborhoods, immense wealth, and locus of the entertainment industry tend to obscure undercurrents brought to light by recent immigration protests or last year’s devastating wildfires.

Next month, Armstrong opens a solo exhibition titled Subrosa at Unit London, borrowing from the Latin phrase “under the rose,” signifying secrecy or discretion. The artist draws upon his own observations of his L.A. neighborhood during long, early-morning walks with his young son.

Viewed from a distance, the hillside neighborhoods appear idyllic, even paradisiacal, but he hints at out-of-frame elements in this city constantly in flux: simmering socio-political tensions, scorched mountains and fire-leveled homes, and palpable economic disparities. Sometimes people are present, half-hidden in windows and often only noticeable when viewed up-close. “There’s substance behind the forms,” Armstrong says. “Sometimes you get a peek inside. Sometimes you don’t.”

Subrosa runs from July 9 to August 17. See more on Armstrong’s website and Instagram.

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In Surreal Portraits, Rafael Silveira Tends to the Garden of Consciousness
by Aurelia Butler 29 May 2025, 14:15
“Magnetic” (2025), oil on canvas, 23.62 × 23.62 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and DCG Contemporary, shared with permission
In Surreal Portraits, Rafael Silveira Tends to the Garden of Consciousness
May 29, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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With scenic vistas for faces, blossoms for eyes, or nothing but coral above the shoulders, Rafael Silveira’s surreal portraits summon aspects of human consciousness that span the spectrum of the wonderful and the weird. The Brazilian artist describes his work as “a profound dive into the human mind,” merging flowers, landscapes, and uncanny hybrid features into visages that channel humor with a slightly sinister undertone.
Silveira’s forthcoming solo exhibition, Agricultura Cósmica at DCG Contemporary, traverses “the fertile terrain of the subconscious,” the gallery says. “With a nod to pop surrealism and the uncanny, his work imagines the mind as a garden where thoughts are seeds and images (are) the wildflowers that sprout.”
“PLEEESE” (2025), oil on canvas, 23.62 × 23.62 inches
Silveira works predominantly in oil, using panel or canvas as a surface and occasionally surrounding his works with ornate, hand-carved wooden frames. The sculptural details of the frames, like an anatomical heart in “Eyeconic Couple” or an all-seeing eye topping “A Crocância do Tempo” — “the crunchiness of time” in Portuguese — read like talismans.
Many of Silveira’s compositions begin with a traditional head-and-shoulders portrait composition as a starting point, but instead of skin we see a distant horizon, like in “Magnetic,” or a figure’s head supplanted by a stalk of coral or a column of fire. Other pieces omit the human outline altogether in amusing arrangements of vivid flowers, which suggest wide eyes and addled expressions. While human forms shed their emotional autonomy as they converge with their surroundings, the flora in works like “OMG” and “PLEEESE” are a profusion of awe and desire.
Agricultura Cósmica opens in London on June 12 and continues through July 10. The show runs concurrently alongside an exhibition titled Plural by embroidery artist Flavia Itiberê. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Eyeconic Couple” (2025), oil on panel and hand-carved frame, 15.75 × 35.43 inches
“Inside Out” (2025), oil on canvas, 35.4 x 31.5 inches
“A Crocância do Tempo” (2025), oil on panel and hand-carved frame, 35.4 x 31.5 inches
“The Artifice of Eternity” (2025), oil on canvas, 23.62 × 31.5 inches
“OMG” (2025), oil on canvas, 23.62 × 23.62 inches
“Paixão Ardente” (2025), oil on panel and hand-carved frame, 35.4 x 31.5 inches
“The Roots of Reality” (2025), oil on canvas, 35.4 x 31.5 inches
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Gregory Euclide Explores the Anthropocene in Verdant Mixed-Media Collages
by Aurelia Butler 12 May 2025, 13:34
“Torn Spin” (2025). All images courtesy of the artist and Hashimoto Contemporary, shared with permission
Gregory Euclide Explores the Anthropocene in Verdant Mixed-Media Collages
May 12, 2025
ArtNature
Kate Mothes
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Smeared, flattened, and rough around the edges, Gregory Euclide’s mixed-media collages explore nature through the lens of human experience. Organically meandering outlines suggest shallow reliefs; foraged prairie botanicals complement human-made materials; and abstracted landscapes emerge from drawings, photographs, ripped paper, paint, and more.
“The artist tears and layers these elements to build a new pictorial space which more accurately resembles the way he takes in the land,” says a gallery statement for Assembled Lands, Euclide’s solo exhibition opening later this week with Hashimoto Contemporary.
“Torn: Double Sun” (2025)
Breaking down his observations of nature into its fundamental parts, Euclide merges overviews of trees, shrubs, meadows, and the horizon with the intimate details of leaves or branches. One might approach his subject matter through the lens of the Anthropocene, which describes our present era of accelerating changes to the environment due to humans’ unrelenting impact.
Each collage (previously) merges recognizable forms and terrain with abstract shapes and compositional spirals or whorls. The effect toys with perception and our understanding of relationships between flatness and depth, land and sky, and nature and ourselves.
Assembled Lands runs from May 17 to June 14 in New York City. See more on the artist’s website.
“Washed Up On The Beach 2” (2025)
“Plat Map” (2025)
“Torn: Silhouette” (2025)
“Random Invader Memory” (2025)
“Torn Landscape Spun” (2025)
“Torn: Forest Silhouette” (2025)
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From Miniature to Massive, Boundless Landscapes Spill Out of Frame in Barry Hazard’s Paintings
by Aurelia Butler 28 April 2025, 16:27
“Whirlwind” (2023), 7 x 9 x 1.5 inches. Images © the artist, shared with permission
From Miniature to Massive, Boundless Landscapes Spill Out of Frame in Barry Hazard’s Paintings
April 28, 2025
Art
Jackie Andres
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Confined within tiny, ornate frames until inevitably spilling over the edge, Barry Hazard’s expansive landscapes are “spaces for reflecting, contemplation, and surrendering to something larger and more timeless than us,” he says.
Inspired by vast notions such as the relationship between humans and nature and ecological conflict, Hazard (previously) translates broad themes into miniature works. The Brooklyn-based artist employs tiny frames, wood panel, and acrylic to depict a multitude of scenes from mudslides and flower farms to glaciers and snowy roads. With so much contained in such small compositions, Hazard describes his process as “a simple way to rapidly engage in an artistic process, with an ultra-manageable scale.”
“Flower Farm” (2024), 6 x 5 x 7 inches
Last year for New York’s Upstate Art Weekend, the artist expanded upon his miniature work, delving into a project on the opposite end of the scale of proportions. “Walk-In Painting” culminates Hazard’s carpentry and muralist experience, uniquely activating his otherwise tiny paintings. Viewers are able to step into a rolling scenery teeming with vibrant blooms, tufts of bushes, and sweeping mountains in the distance, creating an experience that is “both fictional and non-fictional,” the artist explains.
Hazard has also ventured into the realm of batch production through the technique of resin casting. While the artist typically uses more traditional materials for his small works, he has been able to create a sizable amount of gifts for friends and family by creating numerous blank casted bases before painting each by hand.
Find more work on the artist’s website, and take a look into his process on Instagram.
“Mudslide” (2024), 9 x 7 x 2 inches
“Walk-In Painting” (2024), 8 x 10 x 7 feet
“Purple Plain” (2023), 1 x 1.5 inches
“Sunset Glacier” (2023), 9 x 8 x 2 inches
“Flood Zone” (2024), 8 x 7 x 3 inches
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In Hyperrealistic Oil Paintings, Chloe West Summons Magical Realism in the American West
by Aurelia Butler 10 April 2025, 15:14
“Gored Cowboy” (2024-25), oil on linen, 84 x 68 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and HARPER’S, New York, shared with permission
In Hyperrealistic Oil Paintings, Chloe West Summons Magical Realism in the American West
April 10, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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Set against mountains, desert plains, and the cobalt blue skies one finds at high elevations, Chloe West’s striking oil paintings merge Dutch Golden Age iconographies with both mythic and everyday motifs of the American West.
West was born and raised in Wyoming, the peaks and pastures of which continue to influence her hyperrealistic figurative works. In her current solo exhibition, Games of Chance at HARPER’S, the artist draws on European portraiture and still life traditions in a series of self-portraits and tableaux challenging stereotypes of the West as a frontier molded by machismo.
“Cowboy Philosopher” (2024-25), oil on linen, 84 x 68 inches
“Cowboy Philosopher,” for example, portrays the artist in direct confrontation with the viewer, seated beside a mountain lion skull at a table covered with a celestial tapestry. The painting evokes Salomon Koninck’s “A Philosopher” (1635) and works by other Flemish artists of the 17th and 18th centuries, who often depicted alchemists and scholars in their studies accompanied by skulls, devices, and documents.
West subverts our understanding of cowboy culture as predominantly masculine, juxtaposing her own body with bones, small weapons, and fabric backdrops that establish a tension between life and death, folklore and daily life, and the sacred and the profane. Animal bones, thorns, and knives nod to memento mori, a reminder of the impermanence of life, while also invoking the supernatural and a sense of cyclical time. Casting deep, dark shadows, the glaring sun reveals all.
Portraying herself in western wear, West bonds to the continuum of the landscape and its customs and narratives while considering the way European attitudes and actions like Manifest Destiny shaped our understanding of the region. The artist taps into legend, history, and magical realism to blur distinctions between the past and contemporary experience. “Ultimately, throughout Games of Chance, West confronts the idealization of frontier heroism, dismantling its pre-established boundaries and expanding upon the legacy it left behind,” the gallery says.
Games of Chance opens today and continues through May 10 in New York City. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Hand with Opossum Skull” (2024-25), oil on linen, 24 x 20 inches
Detail of “Gored Cowboy”
“Trapper’s Still Life” (2024-5), oil on linen, 48 x 38 inches
“Pearled Back” (2024-25), oil on linen, 58 x 46 inches
“Portrait with Capped Skull” (2024-25), oil on linen, 58 x 48 inches
“Pocketknife” (2024), oil on linen, 16 x 12 inches
“St. Veronica at the Geyser Basin” (2024-25, oil on linen, 48 x 38 inches
“Hand with Thorn” (2024-25), oil on linen, 24h x 20w in
Detail of “Cowboy Philosopher”
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Sebas Velasco’s Dreamy Oil Paintings Illuminate Cinematic Urban Landscapes
by Aurelia Butler 9 April 2025, 14:36
“Somewhere in Time,” oil on canvas, 195 x 195 centimeters. All images courtesy of Sebas Velasco and the History Museum of Bosnia and Heregovina, shared with permission
Sebas Velasco’s Dreamy Oil Paintings Illuminate Cinematic Urban Landscapes
April 9, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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Sebas Velasco (previously) has long been drawn to the landscapes and cultures of the Balkans and former Yugoslavian countries in southeastern Europe, where he has spent the past decade traveling and researching for his large-scale paintings and murals.
The Morning Will Change Everything at the History Museum of Bosnia and Heregovina marks the Spanish artist’s first institutional exhibition. Inspired by the title of a song by Sarajevo-based band Indexi, the show continues Velasco’s exploration of urban landscapes and themes of relationships and passing time.
“Wherever I May Roam,” oil on canvas, 195 x 195 centimeters
Rendered in oil on wood or canvas, Velasco’s paintings depict figures, architecture, and old cars illuminated by street lamps or headlights in a realistic yet dreamlike world. Taking cues from photography through the use of cinematic lighting effects and portraiture, he often juxtaposes contrasting elements like grassy meadows with brutalist high-rises or derelict cars with wildflowers.
Whether glowing under an orange street light or spotlit against a fuzzy smattering of brake lights and apartment windows, Velasco’s subjects are relaxed, poised, and unhurried. One can imagine the din of car horns, music, and other city noises in the background, yet Velasco emphasizes brief, self-assured interactions as if momentarily, time is at a standstill.
Nighttime plays a starring role in Velasco’s compositions, which tap into dualities of the known and unknown, revelations and secrets, individuality and anonymity, and the quotidian and the extraordinary. He conjures “gateways to complex socio-economic narratives,” the museum says, emphasizing the power of humanity amid ever-evolving identities and the tumult of globalization.
Find more on Velasco’s website and Instagram.
Detail of “Wherever I May Roam”
“Golf II,” oil on wood, 41 x 27 centimeters
“The Morning Will Change Everything,” oil on wood, 120 x 120 centimeters
“Agata,” oil on wood, 81 x 65 centimeters
Detail of “Agata”
“Yugo 45 III,” oil on wood, 24 x 35 centimeters
“Interior Night Sarajevo II,” oil on wood, 46 x 33 centimeters
Velasco working on a painting in his solo exhibition at the History Museum of Bosnia and Heregovina
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In Mythic Paintings, Anna Ortiz Conjures the Uncanny of the Borderlands
by Aurelia Butler 3 April 2025, 19:02
“Sayula” (2025), oil on canvas, 30 x 34 inches. All images courtesy of Anna Ortiz, shared with permission
In Mythic Paintings, Anna Ortiz Conjures the Uncanny of the Borderlands
April 3, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
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For Anna Ortiz, the borderlands are a rich source for the uncanny. The Mexican-American artist (previously) was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, but visited her family in Guadalajara often. There, she was immersed in her ancestral landscape and introduced to her family’s history as artists—her grandfather painted portraits, while her aunt was a professional sculptor.
These formative experiences offered a contrast to her life in the Northeast and the dichotomous relationship between the two continues to influence her thinking and practice today.
“Al Otro Lado de Texcoco” (2025), oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches
For her upcoming solo exhibition at Mindy Solomon Gallery, Ortiz conjures a surreal borderland that suspends time. Awash in saturated color palettes of pink, blue, and green, the paintings in Prophecy Here and Gone reference Aztec histories and how their influence continues to shape the landscape.
In the diptych “Al Otro Lado de Texcoco,” for example, a gleaming lake peeks through dense clusters of cacti. Nested at the base of the volcano La Malinche, the body of water greeted the Aztecs when they moved to what’s now known as Mexico City. When the Spanish arrived, they drained the lake in a failed attempt to farm the land.
Ortiz tells Colossal that she frequently paints pairs as a way to consider unfulfilled destinies and paths not chosen. Twin agaves appear in “Pareja,” while “Tula” depicts a couple of totemic sculptures that appear to be standing guard. Flat butterflies grace their chests, a reference to the statues found at the capital of the Aztecs’ ancestors, the Toltecs. The artist similarly incorporates doubling through reflections, as a majestic jaguar is mirrored in the aquatic foregrounds of several paintings.
World-building and offering an entry point into ancient prophecies is key to this body of work. Interested in the ways civilization and the landscape interact and shape one another, Ortiz shares that “loss is a central theme…I was once very close to my Mexican heritage, and I lost it. I grew up fluent in Spanish but because of family strife, I lost that fluency.”
“Tula” (2025), oil on canvas, 28 x 22 inches
Ortiz’s paintings both honor the ancient peoples and cultures that once occupied the land and present an alternative universe in which their myths and prophecies had different outcomes. Vibrant and uncanny, the works portray the “lives we were unable to live but (that) happened without us,” she adds.
Prophecy Here and Gone is on view from April 5 to May 10 in Miami. Find more from Ortiz on her website and Instagram.
“Agaves Bailando” (2024), oil on canvas, 38 x 32 inches
“Reflejada” (2025), oil on canvas, 40 x 48 inches
“Sacrificio” (2023), oil on canvas, 48 x 40 inches
“Pareja” (2025), oil on canvas, 30 x 34 inches
“Gemelos Amaranto” (2025), oil on canvas, 38 x 32 inches
“En Orbita” (2025), oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches
“Cihuacoatl” (2025), oil on canvas, 28 x 22 inches
“Nahual” (2025), oil on canvas, 38 x 32 inches
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Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke Demonstrate an Ecological Future in Peril
by Aurelia Butler 19 March 2025, 13:38
“Overlook” (2025). gouache, acrylic, ink, and 42 vintage postcards
on panel, 32 x 40 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, shared with permission
Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke Demonstrate an Ecological Future in Peril
March 19, 2025
ArtClimate
Kate Mothes
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The first known postcard printed as a souvenir can be traced to Vienna in 1871, followed by commemorative cards for famous events like the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889 and the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. It wasn’t long before a fashion for picture postcards took the U.S. by storm throughout the first half of the 20th century.
For David Opdyke, the iconic correspondences form the groundwork for an artistic practice examining capitalism, globalization, consumerism, and our fraught and increasingly disconnected relationship with the environment. Occasionally darkly humorous yet steeped in a sense of foreboding, his uncanny scenes suggest what kind of world we might live in we do nothing to stem the mounting climate crisis.
“Charismatic Megafauna” (2024), gouache and ink on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
Opdyke summons idyllic coastlines, national parks, government monuments, wildlife, and civic infrastructure to weave “fractured yet cohesive topographies,” says Cristin Tierney Gallery, which is presenting the artist’s current solo exhibition, Waiting for the Future.
For nearly a decade, Opdyke has invoked the nostalgia of landscape postcards to interrogate the climate emergency within the context of American politics and geographies. “Through these carefully altered compositions, Opdyke merges the past and the future, presenting both urgent and inevitable visions of environmental upheaval,” the gallery says.
The artist often uses antique cards that he purchases on eBay, painting scenes of environmental disasters or discordances between nature and architecture. Alternating between cartoons and life-like portrayals of trees, animals, fires, and structures, his compositions range from single cards to wall-spanning assemblages, his gouache-painted details spreading from frame to frame.
In “Overlook,” for example, giant tentacles destroy bridges, rising sea water threatens cities, and huge fires rage in institutional buildings. A dome encloses a metropolis, a rocket named Mars 2 heads for a new home in the solar system, and an airplane banner advertises “Technology Will Save Us” in a bleak yet not unimaginable reality fueled by techno-utopianism.
“Enough of Nature” (2025), gouache, acrylic, and ink on 500 vintage postcards, 104 x 168 inches
In his large-scale “Enough of Nature,” Opdyke transforms natural landscapes into encampment sites for those displaced from their homes, and portions of the overall composition appear to dislodge from the main grid as if floating away.
Caught tenuously between outmoded industrial practices, shifting societal value systems, and a rapidly evolving climate crisis, Opdyke’s pieces point to once-idealized symbols of American progress to stress the dangers of ignoring our own impact on the environment.
Waiting for the Future underscores the precariousness of complacency, a “cautionary tale,” the gallery says, laying bare the fragility of our constructed environment.
The show continues through April 26 in New York City. Find more on the artist’s website.
Detail of “Overlook”
“Main Stage” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 6 x 4 inches
“Unity, Industry, Victory” (2024), gouache and ink on vintage postcard, 6 x 4 inches
“Insurrection” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
“Fourth Wall” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
“If you can’t say something nice” (2024), gouache and ink on two vintage postcards, 4 x 12 1/2 inches
“Breaking In” (2015-2020), gouache on vintage postcard, 6 x 4 inches
Detail of “Enough of Nature”
“First Contact” (2023), gouache and ink on vintage postcard, 4 x 6 inches
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Watery Landscapes Set the Stage for Lachlan Turczan’s Ephemeral Light Installations
by Aurelia Butler 14 February 2025, 13:55
“Veil IV” (2024), water, light, silt, 15 x 15 x 3 feet. All images © Lachlan Turczan, shared with permission
Watery Landscapes Set the Stage for Lachlan Turczan’s Ephemeral Light Installations
February 14, 2025
ArtNaturePhotography
Kate Mothes
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In the dreamy installations of Lachlan Turczan, natural and perceptual phenomena combine in otherworldly installations merging technology with aquatic landscapes. Water is central to the Los Angeles-based artist’s work and helps shape an ongoing series of immersive projects incorporating light and sonic phenomena.
Turczan is influenced by the Light and Space movement, which originated in Southern California in the 1960s and is characterized by the work of John McLaughlin, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Lita Albuquerque, and more. The movement focused on perception, employing materials like glass, neon, resin, acrylic, and fluorescent lights to emphasize light, volume, and scale.
“Constellation Grid” (2024), water, light, and fog. A swamp in Upstate New York
Many Light and Space artists created installations and immersive spaces conditioned by naturally occurring elements like Turrell’s ever-changing glimpse of the sky through a ceiling aperture for “Space that Sees.” Not only does the view change as clouds roll by or the weather shifts, but the light continuously transforms the entire room.
“While my work shares this lineage,” Turczan tells Colossal, “it diverges in several key ways: rather than exploring the ‘nature of experience,’ I create experiences of nature that challenge our understanding of light, water, and space.” He describes his approach as “complicating” these elements, emphasizing the ever-changing fluidity of the environment.
In Turczan’s ongoing Veil series, light installations unfold organically in locations ranging from Death Valley’s Badwater Basin to a flooded park near the Rhine River. Lasers and beams of light are projected and submerged, capturing the movement of wind, mist, and the water’s surface.
Additional pieces also merge light and water, like “Aldwa Alsael,” which translates to “liquid light,” and was commissioned for the 2024 Noor Riyadh Light Art Festival.
“Veil I” (2024), light, water, and salt. Death Valley, California
“For the most part, these installations unfold organically,” Turczan says. “I may discover a location in nature that seems perfect for a new Veil sculpture, but when I return, the conditions have inevitably changed.” Evolving circumstances require the artist to proceed with an openness to chance encounters that strike a balance between preparation and intuition.
Find more on Turczan’s website, and follow updates on Instagram. (via This Isn’t Happiness)
“Death Valley Veil” (2024), water, light, and haze. Lake Manly, a temporary lake that formed in Death Valley’s Badwater Basin after Hurricane Hillary
“Veil II” (2024), light, water, and steam. Mojave Desert, California
“Aldwa Alsael” (2024), water, light, and steel tower, 25 x 25 x 50 feet
“Veil V” (2024), water and light, 15 x 15 x 3 feet
“Aldwa Alsael”
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landscapes

Latest story

Seth Armstrong Sets the Hills of Los Angeles Aglow in Vibrant Oil Paintings

More stories

In Surreal Portraits, Rafael Silveira Tends to the Garden of Consciousness

Gregory Euclide Explores the Anthropocene in Verdant Mixed-Media Collages

From Miniature to Massive, Boundless Landscapes Spill Out of Frame in Barry Hazard’s Paintings

In Hyperrealistic Oil Paintings, Chloe West Summons Magical Realism in the American West

Sebas Velasco’s Dreamy Oil Paintings Illuminate Cinematic Urban Landscapes

In Mythic Paintings, Anna Ortiz Conjures the Uncanny of the Borderlands

Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke Demonstrate an Ecological Future in Peril

Watery Landscapes Set the Stage for Lachlan Turczan’s Ephemeral Light Installations

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