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    Moments of Riotous Unrest Converge in Elmer Guevara’s Dramatic Paintings

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    “Couple Hours after 3:15pm” (2025), oil and gel transfer on linen, 84 x 72 x 1.25 inches. All photos by Yubo Don, courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, shared with permission

    Moments of Riotous Unrest Converge in Elmer Guevara’s Dramatic Paintings

    October 27, 2025

    ArtSocial Issues

    Grace Ebert

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    How do we live when crises compound? Yesterday like today / Ayer cómo hoy is a poignant solo exhibition by Elmer Guevara that collapses time and space into dramatic paintings of unrest and upheaval. Layered with raging fires and warm California light, each work captures a tension between danger and mundanity, peering into the ways people cope amid chaos.

    Guevara was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, the neighborhood where his parents settled after fleeing civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s. When the police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted in 1992, people took to the streets, and riots spurred looting and arson. These tumultuous and violent events backdropped much of Guevara’s childhood, and in this body of work, they converge into scenes of destruction and quietude.

    “Ghetto Bird View” (2025), oil on linen, 32 x 60 x 1.25 inches

    “Couple Hours after 3:15pm” references the time the officers’ acquittal was announced and depicts a man seated in front of a vintage, white Volkswagen Beetle while a fire rips through the neighborhood. With a pointed finger and relaxed pose, the figure mimics the theatrical subject of Domenico Fetti’s “Portrait of a Man with a Sheet of Music” (1620), a vanitas piece that speaks to the vacuousness of material possessions. Guevara’s re-interpretation includes his signature newsprint, this issue featuring King’s harrowing experience front and center.

    As the artist reflects on the relationship between personal story and collective trauma, he incorporates many of his family members in the series. His mother, for example, appears at her kitchen table with a bottle of Coca-Cola and a newspaper spread out in front of her as she points to the main story of rioters taking over the city. Like others in his paintings, she is both deeply aware of the turmoil that surrounds her and calm in disposition, exemplifying the all-too-relatable need to soldier on amid anxiety and heartbreak.

    Yesterday like today / Ayer cómo hoy is on view through December 6 at Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles. Find more from Guevara on his website and Instagram.

    “Updates and Relief” (2025), oil and gel transfer on linen, 42 x 36 x 1.25 inches

    “Clapper 2” (2025), oil on linen, 10 x 8 x 1.5 inches

    Detail of “Couple Hours after 3:15pm” (2025), oil and gel transfer on linen, 84 x 72 x 1.25 inches

    “Playing With Fire” (2025), oil on linen, 72 x 60 x 1.25 inches

    “Clapper 3” (2025), oil on linen, 11 x 8 x 1.5 inches

    “Casualty” (2025), oil on linen, 24 x 19 x 1.25 inches

    “Clapper 1” (2025), oil on linen, 11 x 9 x 1.5 inches

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      A New Book Illuminates Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Prolific Time in Los Angeles

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      All photos © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, courtesy of Gagosian, shared with permission

      A New Book Illuminates Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Prolific Time in Los Angeles

      July 11, 2025

      ArtBooks

      Grace Ebert

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      Jean-Michel Basquiat (previously) is often associated with the New York art scene of the 1980s, but between November 1982 and May 1984, the artist was wildly prolific on the other side of the country.

      During his first stay in California, Basquiat posted up at Larry Gagosian’s Market Street home in Venice after the two art world titans worked together on the artist’s West Coast debut. He returned to New York before another trip back to Market Street in summer of 1983, when he established his own studio. He remained there until the following spring.

      Although brief, Basquiat’s time in Los Angeles was creatively fruitful. Throughout the year and a half period, he made approximately 100 paintings, as well as works on paper and six silkscreen editions in collaboration with publisher and curator Fred Hoffman.

      This period produced works like “Hollywood Africans,” an acrylic and oil stick composition on bright yellow evocative of the Southern California sunshine. The mixed-media piece features a self-portrait of the artist alongside Toxic and Rammellzee, two fellow graffiti icons seen as the “new Black celebrities,” according to a statement.

      This history is detailed in the forthcoming book Made on Market Street, published by Rizzoli and Gagosian this August. The book—which shares a title with a 2024 exhibition at the eponymous gallery—includes archival documents like reviews of the 1982 and 1983 exhibitions, press releases, invitations to opening receptions, and more. There are also photos of the artist in his studio published for the first time.

      Viewed as a potential companion to the 500-page monograph of Basquiat’s work, Made on Market Street illuminates a lesser-known period of his life and creative practice. The book features conversations with and writings by Hoffman, Larry Gagosian,  filmmaker Tamra Davis, and the artist’s sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, all of which offer unique insight into one of the most successful artists of his time. Pre-order your copy on Bookshop.

      Detail of “Hollywood Africans” (1983)

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    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Art

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

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      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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    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Art

      Paradise and Precarity Merge in Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Paintings of Los Angeles Life

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      “American Airlines Passenger Ticket 1 (after Warhol)” (2023), oil on canvas, 32 x 59 inches

      Paradise and Precarity Merge in Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Paintings of Los Angeles Life

      February 7, 2025

      ArtClimate

      Kate Mothes

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      For Jessica Taylor Bellamy, juxtapositions, transparency, and layers shape a way of working that evokes her family history and notions of home and landscape. Born to an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and an Afro-Cuban Jamaican father, Bellamy was raised in Whittier, just southeast of Los Angeles.

      In glowing oil paintings, she draws from personal mementos like photographs, sales receipts, and newspaper clippings to explore the relationships between utopia and dystopia, humans and nature, image and text, and fantasy and reality.

      “Did She Nail It?” (2025), oil on canvas, 26 x 20 inches

      Bellamy portrays sunsets, landscapes, trees, urban streets, flora, animals, and cloud formations in a kind of dreamy washiness, adding patterns like chainlink fences, gates, and lace curtains suggestive of boundaries. Horizontal landscapes overlaid with American Airlines tickets echo Andy Warhol’s 1960s silkscreen prints of SAS airline tickets merged with floral motifs.

      “Bellamy’s observations are rooted in her experiences of the sprawling urban landscape of Los Angeles—a meeting of nature and civilization at the edge of a precarious paradise, formed by fire, drought, flood, and wind,” says a statement from Anat Ebgi, which represents the artist and opens her new solo exhibition, Temperature Check.

      A few works shown here, like “Did She Nail It?,” appear in the show, which merges landscapes and atmospheric lighting effects with references to DIY culture, what’s gendered as “men’s work,” and car and motorcycle culture. The Home Depot receipt, which typically uses the slogan “Did we nail it?,” is combined with an image of a rear-view mirror depicted so close that it initially appears abstract.

      Bellamy examines the dualities and precarity of life in Southern California—a seeming paradise we’ve witnessed can be swiftly devastated by fire and drought. The title Temperature Change is also a double entendre, suggesting meteorological readings and a figurative expression used when measuring a group mood or opinion. Through surreal imagery and echoes of mass production and consumerism, the artist invokes a noir reverie.

      Temperature Check runs from February 8 to March 22 in Los Angeles. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “Box Fan (AM)” (2025), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 32 inches

      “American Airlines Passenger Ticket 2 (after Warhol)” (2023), oil on canvas, 32 x 60 inches

      “Playa Larga (Coquina Combination Pill Pack)” (2023), oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 42 1/2 inches

      “A Subspecies of Journalism” (2023), oil on canvas, 59 x 43 1/2 inches

      “A Splendid Paradox” (2022), oil on canvas, 70 x 52 inches

      “Curtain of Sky” (2024), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 48 inches

      “Horizontal Thrust I (Blue graffiti highway)” (2025), oil on canvas, 26 x 70 inches

      “Driveway Moment” (2025), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 47 inches

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      in Art

      Lauren Halsey’s ’emajendat’ Is an Energetic Celebration of South Central Los Angeles

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      Installation view of ’emajendat’ at Serpentine South. Installation photos by Hugo Glendinning, © Lauren Halsey, courtesy of Serpentine, shared with permission

      Lauren Halsey’s ’emajendat’ Is an Energetic Celebration of South Central Los Angeles

      January 14, 2025

      ArtSocial Issues

      Kate Mothes

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      Inspired by the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Lauren Halsey’s family has lived for generations, vibrant sculptures and site-specific installations vividly reflect the artist’s community.

      At Serpentine South, a large-scale, maximalist exhibition titled emajendat highlights Halsey’s self-described obsession with material culture, her interest in remixing messages and symbols, and the need to confront issues that affect people of color, the queer community, and the working class.

      Installation view

      Halsey gathers photographs, posters, flyers, commercial signs, and found objects that relate to her communities’ activism, highlighting “a sense of civic urgency and free-flowing imagination,” says David Kordansky Gallery, which co-represents the artist with Gagosian. “Inspired by Afrofuturism and funk, as well as the signs and symbols that populate her local environments, Halsey creates a visionary form of culture that is at once radical and collaborative.”

      Past, present, and future merge in the artists exploration of how idols, architecture, history, and communication fuel how we perceive identities and society. She draws on the imagery of ancient Egypt, the African diaspora, Black and queer icons, and the visionary design associated with funk to construct a kind of ever-evolving archive.

      In a monumental rooftop installation titled “the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I),” Halsey nods to palatial, ancient Egyptian architecture, placing the faces of notable Black figures on the columns’ capitals, such as activist Susan Burton and ethnomusicologist Dr. Rachel Eubanks.

      Halsey’s eclectic “funkmound” sculptures also encompass numerous found items, harboring miniature dioramas and objects that appear as though they are emerging from heaps of cotton candy. Throughout emajendat, seemingly endless collages, sculptures, reflections, prismatic color, patterns, messages, and textures welcome the viewer into an enthusiastically immersive experience.

      Installation view of ‘The Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey,’ “the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I)” (2022). Photo by Hyla Skopitz, © Lauren Halsey, courtesy of the artist; David Kordansky Gallery and The Metropolitan Museum of Art

      The social element of Halsey’s work is amplified by a community center she founded in 2019 called Summaeverythang, located adjacent to her studio in South Central. The nonprofit initiative is “dedicated to the empowerment and transcendence of Black and Brown folks socio-politically, economically, intellectually, and artistically.”

      emajendat continues through February 23 in Kensington Gardens, London. Plan your visit on the gallery’s website.

      Foreground: “keepers of the krown (susan burton)” (2024), glass fiber, reinforced concrete, and mixed media, 261 3/4 x 48 1/8 x 48 1/8 inches. Background: “keepers of the krown (dr. rachel eubanks)” (2024), glass fiber, reinforced concrete, and mixed media 261 3/4 x 48 1/8 x 48 1/8 inches. Photo by Andrea Avezzù, © Lauren Halsey, courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, and Gagosian

      Installation view

      Installation detail

      Installation view

      Installation detail

      Installation collage detail

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    • 50 Shares109 Views

      in Street Art

      WRDSMTH supporting WGA Strike

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      In the bustling entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has become a defining moment in the ongoing struggle for writers’ rights. A city that thrives on creativity and storytelling is facing a significant disruption as writers unite to demand fair treatment, fair wages, and better working conditions. The WGA represents thousands of writers across film, television, and digital media. In recent years, these writers have expressed growing concerns over issues like stagnant wages, long working hours, lack of healthcare benefits, and the ever-increasing demands from studios and production companies. Dissatisfaction reached a boiling point when negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed to yield meaningful results. In light of these unresolved concerns, the WGA leadership decided to call for a strike, viewing it as a necessary step to draw attention to the disparities in the industry and press for meaningful change. The writers’ demands encompassed fair compensation, reasonable working hours, and provisions for job security in an evolving entertainment landscape dominated by streaming platforms and digital media.Public opinion is a critical aspect of any strike, and the WGA has been actively trying to garner support from fans, fellow industry professionals, and the wider public. Social media has played a crucial role in amplifying the writers’ message, with hashtags like #WGAstrike trending on various platforms. Writers have been sharing their personal stories, shedding light on the harsh realities of their profession, and explaining why their demands are justified. WRDSMTH is supporting the @WGAWest / @SAGAftra strike placing some renegade work all around Los Angeles, including Hollywood, Universal City and Culver City. ”The pasteups were done on utility boxes because I noticed a plethora of  “blank” boxes across the street or in close proximity of the picket lines, which makes for A+ placement in support.”Take a look at more images below and check back with us soon for more updates. More

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      in Street Art

      “Kobe Bryant” by Odeith in Los Angeles

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      Portuguese artist Odeith is currently in Los Angeles where he teamed up with Branded Arts to create a new mural showing Kobe Bryant, Gigi Bryant and Black Mamba.This mural pays tribute to the power of inspiration, which Kobe used in the stories he told with his company Granity Studios.The completed project “GRANA” is located 2 blocks from the arena at 1147 S. Hope St. in Downtown LA!Take a look at more images below and check back with us soon for more updates. More