Sanctuary of the Aftermath - Angels Gate Cultural Center
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Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Curated by Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović
Featuring works by Nica Aquino, Joseph Carrillo,
Jeff Frost, Anita Getzler, David Hollen, Jason Jenn,
Ibuki Kuramochi, Rosalyn Myles, Vojislav Radovanović,
Alison Ragguette, and Kayla Tange.
View the virtual exhibition, videos, and additional photos at angelsgateart.org
Images courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Sanctuary of the Aftermath is an exhibition of Angels Gate Cultural Center, with
generous support from WE RISE, made possible by the Los Angeles County
Department of Mental Health.
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Curatorial Statement
Art and spirituality have been intertwined since their origins. Only in recent centuries have
secular motivations displaced Art’s primary function of expressing and connecting with
the transcendent. Sanctuary of the Aftermath affirms the sacred role of art, and redefines
the gallery as a place to experience solace during troubled times. The exhibition presents
artworks demonstrating a strong spiritual component in their creation while addressing
some of the challenges of contemporary existence. Site-specific installation art, video
art, and auditory art are highlighted within an immersive atmosphere, which invites safe
engagement to explore the issues and make personal discoveries.
The current pandemic has resulted in estrangement from both the social and the natural
world. After our prolonged period of physical separation and quarantine, the exhibition
investigates how art can create new channels for connection. The exhibition provides a
space that is simultaneously removed from and deeply connected to our shared reality.
The works form a dialogue with perspectives on the cycles of life, entropy, destruction,
death, memorial, and rebirth. Beauty is used as a tool, encouraging visitors to view the
world anew. Sanctuary of the Aftermath offers an opportunity to reflect upon the artificial
divisions as well as the innate relationships between humanity and nature.
Hailing from diverse backgrounds, the artists of the exhibition take inspiration from
various timeless practices and historical approaches. However, rather than adhering to a
particular institutionalized religious form, the artists utilize their own unique interpretations
of traditional methodologies. They employ meditative, introspective, interactive, and
sometimes visionary approaches in pursuit of the numinous. The journey of making works
of art is an organic experience, which evolves over time. It is sometimes premeditated,
sometimes serendipitous, but always driven by an intuitive impulse. The personal path
uncovers the universal. For many of the artists herein, it is a therapeutic process, inviting
the viewer to share in the result.
Departing from the usual materialistic goals of society, the exhibition embraces a communal
need for more ritual-like experiences. Many of the pieces on view were designed for this
specific opportunity, inspired by this particularly unusual era. During a time of intense
socio-political injustice, environmental disaster, rapid technological changes, prolonged
physical isolation, and anxiety - art can be a remedy.
- Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Nica Aquino
A 2020 Reflection Veil of Forgetfulness
Altar installation: 2 single channel Beaded curtain, 2021
videos, ocean audio, LED candles,
digital self-portrait on printer paper, Mama Mary, Pray for Us
beaded curtain on bamboo, real and digital self-portrait on printer paper,
fake flowers, plants, personal items, 2020
2021
Danum (Water) #1
Video, 2018
5:37 minutes
Isolation 2020
Video, 2020
3:35 minutes
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Nica Aquino
It's 2050. Half of my friends and family were wiped out due to a deadly virus that spread
around the world. We needed a fresh start, so we packed our family up & moved to a
Spanish coastal town. With the little savings, we built running a makeshift convenience
store out of my ancestral home.
Water levels keep rising due to global warming. We were able to rent a cheap house by
an ocean that gradually submerges adjacent homes. Here we are, the best we could do.
We'll enjoy the ocean view & breeze before we lose our home to the water one day.
I just got home from work. It's 13:00; time to relax. I turn on the TV & they are playing a
nature documentary from 2020. Perfect for watching and unwinding before my siesta.
As I sit here, relaxing & watching this documentary, I remember 2020. My family & I pray
to Mama Mary every day that our earth and people will heal one day.
-Vera Icona
20/05/2050
Isolation 2020:
I filmed this footage for an online class I taught last year and decided to repurpose it. A
friend posted a silly video game meme that inspired me to make this video. Really, I just
wanted an excuse to listen to this relaxing song from one of my favourite games growing
up. Fun fact: I was raised on video games. My parents were strict and didn’t let me go
out. My mother was busy working 7 days a week, back-to-back jobs, going to her part-
time job on the weekends and weeknights after her full-time day job. My dad was already
well into his fifties when I was born, so he was much too old and tired to raise a little kid.
I’m the youngest of 7, but grew up an only child. My older brother handed me down his
old video games to keep me occupied. Playing video games together, or watching him
play, is one of my favourite childhood memories with my brother, the little time we did
get to spend together.
Fast forward to more recently: After my accident and multiple surgeries, I was in agonizing
pain and was disoriented, dizzy and sick from my meds. I tried everything to keep my mind
off the pain. Watching my favourite shows, reading, drawing, etc. Nothing distracted me
enough. My best friend lent me her Nintendo DS and that was the first time I had played
video games in a really long time. It kept my mind so occupied, the pain was hardly on
my mind. Now during isolation, I’ve been playing a lot and honestly, it makes me happy.
Building my dream world, the escapism, connecting with friends in ways we can’t right
now, being someone else. I don’t know. People think my affinity for video games is
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Nica Aquino
silly. But what people don’t realize is, the stories, the art, the music and gameplay have
gotten me through some hard times. I hope this song and footage from my neighbourhood
relax you all during these tense times. (I sampled the audio from Nobuo Uematsu from
the FFVIII game.)
Veil of Forgetfulness:
Before one's soul descends onto planet earth to carry out its mortal life, one must bear
the Veil of Forgetfulness to forget their premortal life. It defines the binary between
mortality and a world without end. Once bearing the Veil of Forgetfulness, you no longer
remember your life in the spirit world and are born into a human vehicle. Living a human
existence through the veil, one must then go through the motions of learning all of
a mortal's life lessons and undergo a mission of rediscovery. Oftentimes this includes
experiencing suffering and darkness in order to find ourselves again. Like the rest of us,
we must limp through this life of suffering to recover these memories and find the light
again.
Danum (Water) #1:
Originally part of my installation “Memory Room,” Danum (Water) #1 is a reflection of my
ancestral heritage as a diasporic Ilokana. All footage was shot in my ancestral homeland
of so-called La Union, in the Northern Philippines. By lending visual queues to the work
through water, it expresses our identity as Ilokanos and our proximity to many bodies of
water and the healing properties of water in my works. (I sampled the audio from Nobuo
Uematsu from the FFVIII game.)
Biography
Nica Aquino (b. 1990, Los Angeles) is a practicing visual artist and curator. She received
her BFA in Photo from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and her MA in
Contemporary Visual Culture from the School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University
(United Kingdom). Her work has been shown locally, nationally and internationally.
In her artwork, she primarily experiments with 35mm analogue photography, just
documenting life as she sees it. No fancy bells and whistles, no manipulations, just a
cheap point and shoot camera (the exact same model from her childhood), cheap film
and what’s in front of her at the time. She believes art making should be accessible, and
that you don’t always need the newest fanciest toys to create something meaningful.
She also experiments with textiles, video and sound to create interactive, intimate and
very personal installations that often reference memory, nostalgia, and different tiers
of loss ranging from death, historical amnesia to post-colonial melancholia. This work is
often rooted in her experience as a diasporic Ilokana (“Filipina”).
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Nica Aquino
Aside from spending her early adolescence moving between states & continents, Nica
grew up within immigrant, working class inner-city neighborhoods on the cusps of
Koreatown, Pico-Union & Mid-City, Los Angeles. She is now residing in the Northeast
LA community, where she works as a full-time curator and freelance arts administrator.
In her curatorial practice, Nica aims to provide a platform for artists of color and others
navigating feelings of unbelonging. As an individual that has had the opportunity to get
educated and access many resources, she knows it is her responsibility as an artist and
curator to use her privilege to uplift others also existing within the margins, and lend
visibility to the communities and stories experiencing erasure.
_
Alternative gallery project: mataartgallery.org
Learn more and view additional works at: nicaaquino.com, instagram.com/nica_aquino,
nicaaquino.tumblr.com
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Joseph Carrillo
Five Sanctuary Songs
1. Song for the Lost
2. Song for the Missing
3. Song for the Wandering
4. Song for the Forgotten
5. Song for the Found
Music Composition, 2021
Composed and produced by Joseph Carrillo
Bansuri performed by Dr. Sarah May Robinson
English horn performed by Phil Popham
Cello performed by David Mergen
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Joseph Carrillo
My father passed away last October. His cause of death was not COVID-related. He was
remarkably resilient his entire life, so, even at his age, an impressive 95 years old, hearing
the news was a surprise.
An example of the intense rollercoaster of 2020: the day before my father died, my niece
got married and had a modest yet joy-filled celebration. I have never gone from being so
happy to so sad and lonely in 24 hours.
My mother passed in 2014 from lung cancer. Coincidentally, in 2013, I composed music
for what would be her last art show. She was an oil painter. Her collective, For Women
Art, in northeastern Nevada, had an exhibition called Five Elements. I was not an official
part of that show, but the music played in the gallery in the background.
For this show, I am exploring the five stages of grief as part of my grieving process for
my dad. I am well aware that I am not the only one experiencing grief at this time, given
all that has happened this last year. Also, bearing in mind that grief is triggered by more
than just the death of a person. It can be triggered by a dramatic loss or a change in a
situation or relationship. It feels as though grief has become part of our daily life in big
and small ways, and many are experiencing it for the first time.
In an ordinary time, I would be looking forward to a pilgrimage to Burning Man, a
highlight of which is meditating at the Temple there to explore healing and loss with close
friends and strangers from around the world, who often gather for a common purpose.
So presented with the opportunity to contribute to this show, I composed the following
pieces, my contribution to an atmosphere of welcoming, healing, and meditation.
Song for the Lost is about denial. To deny reality is to be lost. To be unable to accept the
journey forward is to risk losing oneself self amid distractions. This piece doesn’t have a
steady tempo, so the musicians are playing freely out of time, the melodic gestures at
odds with the more pensive drones in the background.
Song for the Missing is about anger. The cello notes refuse to resolve in a standard
way, often holding on longer than they should. The pulse and layered cello techniques
create an undercurrent of tension, despite the predictable chord progression adding an
element of inevitability.
Song for the Wandering explores bargaining. The cello continues to offer nuanced
elaborate phrases, but the music moves steadily downward until it lands back where it
began, and there is no choice but to alter the step-wise motion in order to stop the cycle.
At the end of the piece, it settles in the lower register, resigned.
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Joseph Carrillo
Song for the Forgotten is about depression. The cello primarily plays in the lower register,
with long, sustained notes that barely move, progress, or resolve—at the end, holding
the lowest note possible on the cello, the open C string, unable to resolve to the Bb.
Song for the Found has the most modern approach, and in a way, is the most traditional
song-like. Even though it is optimistic, there are still several minor chords. For me,
acceptance is not necessarily moving beyond grief but finding a way to move forward
with it. I don’t want to forget about the things that make me sad or the complicated
nuances of my relationship with my parents. Because within that rocky slope are beautiful
gem fragments of everything, all the treasured, messy pieces of our history that shaped
our relationship and made us who we are to each other.
The full duration of this experience is approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. There are
nature sounds and some sparse musical elements, chimes, bells, or drones in between
each piece.
The music is a series of cello solos against ethereal background accompaniment. Two
guiding voices supplement the cello: Bansuri, an Indian flute, and English horn (Cor
Anglais)—performed by Dr. Sarah May Robinson and Phil Popham, two incredible L.A.
musicians and founders of Helix Collective (HelixCollective.net). Half Moon Song and
Crescent Moon Song are unaccompanied pieces, featuring each player, respectively. The
cello solos are performed by David Mergen, one of the most sought-after cellists in the
L.A. area.
Biography
Joseph Carrillo is a composer who focuses his talents in the film music industry in Los
Angeles. His work can be heard in numerous features, commercials, web series, and
short films.
Joseph has also prepared scores and parts, served as orchestrator and arranger for other
industry colleagues, including Emile Mosseri (2020 Sundance Winner Minari, Homecoming
Season 2), Miriam Cutler (Dilemma of Desire, RBG) and Penka Kouneva (Life Link, Blue).
Additionally he has performed oboe parts, whistling, vocals, and voice-over narration.
The early years of his career spent working for Universal’s sound department inspired him
to expand his work to include sound design, editorial, and re-recording mixer for multiple
projects. He has also composed music for the concert stage, enjoys writing poetry, and
painting unusual landscapes.
_
Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of Jeff Frost, still from Circle of Abstract Ritual
Jeff Frost
Circle of Abstract Ritual
Video (300,000 still photos), 2013
12:32 minutesSanctuary of the Aftermath
Jeff Frost
My work exists on a spectrum of duality between creation and destruction. Recurring
themes center around agents of entropy, dismantling civilization as humanity constructs it.
Our Universe seems unaware of Einstein’s insistence on his ‘elegant theory of everything’
and instead appears to function as a fractured megastructure rife with paradox. This is
wildly exciting! It’s also brutally confusing. I can’t seem to resist poking around the edges
of unreachable knowledge.
Simultaneously, I live in the awe. Woven into the background fabric of my work is the
mysterious wonder I feel on a moonless winter night in the desert.
I find that disrupting real time human chronology induces the Overview Effect. From space,
the boundaries between humans, countries, and ideologies, aren’t visible and thus lose
importance. Many astronauts aboard the International Space Station continue to report
a profound cognitive shift that results in acute awareness of the interconnectedness of
humanity to itself and the planet. The Overview Effect naturally induces a wider view,
much like my films. For example, a wildfire is a fast-moving situation where the slow
process of time lapse photography is inherently incongruous. Recording an event in this
manner permits the viewer to see a wider reality via chronological disruption.
Unearthing and manipulating time and sound allow me to peer into hidden worlds. They
are my primary mediums and manifest in a number of sub-mediums such as painting,
photography, video, and installation. I combine these, along with other subjects that
fascinate me – decaying animals, abandoned structures, optional illusion paintings, riots,
large-scale scientific facilities, stars, and wildfires – into films created with hundreds of
thousands of photographs.
My projects have many configurations: I pluck moments like an individual photograph
from a 12-hour time lapse, and create a standalone piece of art. For the aural experience,
it works in reverse. I cut moments from larger pieces of sound art and create soundtracks.
I’m fascinated by noise and recording quotidian acoustics. The flashing lights of a fire
engine emit rhythmic bursts independent of its sirens. Listening to and capturing its
electromagnetic pulses (with specialized equipment) facilitates my creation of auditory
compositions and textures. An unlikely pursuit pioneered by the great Christina Kubisch
and Kim Cascone, sound completes the visual component of my work. It is paramount.
Informed by movements and artists, from street art to the subversion of utopian pursuits
of minimalist painters such as John McLaughlin and Piet Mondrian, I often gravitate
towards optical illusion minimalism as both a window into another world and – when
viewed out of perspective – a way to generate thought defying abstractions across
architectural forms.Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Jeff Frost
Abandoned buildings hold a special place in my imagination. I perceive them as doorways
to the past, modern ruins that function as future canvases.
When I find a room in one, my brain ignites. Pacing around the space, I sketch paintings
in my mind and consider the nature of the elements and my own films. This part of
my practice draws primarily from the exploration of Native American ruins with my
grandfather while growing up in the southeastern corner of Utah.
I am a huge believer in DIY. Everything is self-funded through art collectors and
commercial production jobs. Currently, I’ve opted out of representation by a gallery,
despite exhibiting in numerous museums. It may be unconventional to disclose this piece
of information within an artist statement, but it feels important to state, primarily for the
benefit of other artists. What could be more essential to an artist statement than a few
words about forging your own path in the world?
Biography
Jeff Frost grew up in a remote corner of Utah hiking with his grandfather and has lived
in southern California for the last 22 years. Time and sound are his two primary
mediums, often expressed through a number of sub-mediums including painting,
photography, video, and installation. Nearly all of the above are combined into short
films exploring themes on the spectrum of creation and destruction.
Frost’s work has been shown at the California Museum of Photography (UCArts), Museum
of Art & History Lancaster (MOAH), Museum of Sonoma County, Palm Springs Art
Museum, the Center for European Nuclear Research (CERN), Los Angeles International
Airport (LAX), and many others. In 2020 his video art projects, California on Fire and
GO HOME won numerous awards at international film festivals including the Clermont
Ferrand Intl Film Festival and ÉCU The European Independent Film Festival. He was
selected for the Nordic LA residency at the ACE Hotel & the FBAiR Los Angeles residency
programs in 2019. He performed a soundart set at the Desert Daze music festival in 2019.
He was both a producer and subject of the 2017 Netflix docuseries, Fire Chasers. That
same year he contributed to the National Geographic series, One Strange Rock. He has
been featured in numerous online publications and TV interviews such as PBS Newshour,
TIME Magazine, Artnet, and American Photo. He has spoken at the Seattle Art Fair,
University of Southern California, Palm Springs Art Museum, Orlando Museum of Art,
Snap! Orlando, and photoLA.
_Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Anita Getzler
EVOCATION 1 EVOCATION (not pictured)
Wood, rose petals, glass, cork, 2021 Video, 2021
Printer’s drawer: 19½” x 32¼” x 1½” 8 minutes
Featuring Mourner’s Kaddish
EVOCATION 2 composed by David Marenberg
Wood, rose petals, glass, cork, 2021 performed by the L.A. Choral Lab
Printer’s drawer: 19½” x 32¼” x 1½” Michael Alfera, Artistic Director
EVOCATION 3
Rose petals, thread, brocade fabric,
2021
53” x 45” x 3”Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Anita Getzler
EVOCATION: the act of bringing or recalling a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious
mind.
A remembrance of Love for those who were lost in this pandemic.
The impulse for this installation materialized over several decades. It began with the first
roses I saved –a red bouquet my parents gave me at the opening of my first photography
exhibit. More bouquets of love were saved over many years – letting them dry in their
vases and saving them in a basket. Eventually, I had to get a really big basket.
Over 20 years ago, I saved some small vials – just because they were wonderful. Several
years later I was in a thrift store and bought the printer’s drawers. They reminded me of
my uncle who had been a printer in Europe before WWII. My mother told me that my
uncle’s wife and children were murdered in a concentration camp, but his life was spared
because he was a printer and could be put to work. I kept the drawers.
Over the years, I’d open the box of vials, I’d see the printer’s drawers, and I knew something
would come of them. Ideas and images whispered in my mind - about placing the vials
in the drawers, then about creating a piece in remembrance of my family murdered in
the Holocaust during WWII. But what goes into those vials? I had no answer. And I wasn’t
ready to dive into that difficult topic – too much pain in that past as well as in my own life.
In 2013 I moved back into my parents’ house in Los Angeles and took care of my father.
My mother and sister had passed, so I was his touchstone for many years. My father had
just undergone a traumatic experience that altered him completely. It was a painful time.
What brought me solace, joy, and reminded me of the power of Love, were the eleven
rose bushes in my mother’s garden. I tended them and they were stunning. Each had
a unique, strong and beautiful scent. The roses reminded me of my mother, whom I
cherished. I could see the bushes outside my windows as I painted. But I wanted them
inside--to smell and touch them as I walked through the house. It’s what made the days
bearable, what sustained me during this tragic time. With so many roses blooming at
once, I could fill vases of different colors: red, yellow, white, peach, and lavender. Once
dried, I put them in grocery bags and stored them. I was infatuated.
My father passed on in August 2014. I stayed in the house until March 2018 and continued
to save the rose petals. Sometime during those years, my answer arrived: the dried petals
from my mother’s garden would go into the vials.Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Anita Getzler
I began working on this installation in the summer of 2020. Contemplating the meaning
of this piece, I recognized that even as EVOCATION memorializes my family and all those
lives cut short by the Holocaust, I had to address these present times: our world’s current
global catastrophe. And in my country, the United States of America, we will lose close to
600,000 precious souls to COVID-19 by the time this exhibition opens in April, 2021 – a
tragedy of epic proportion.
I affirmed the power of Love as I filled each vial with crushed rose petals and strung each
petal on its thread, in dedication and remembrance of those lives lost to this pandemic
of 2020-2021.
Biography
Anita Getzler lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Raised in Brooklyn, she was
influenced by her many encounters with great art in the museums of New York City. As a
teenager, her family moved to Los Angeles where she started high school. After earning
her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and MA from California State University,
Los Angeles, Anita pursued careers as a museum educator, a high school art instructor,
all the while working as a fine art photographer and raising her two sons.
It was while directing education programs in contemporary public galleries in Los Angeles
and Las Vegas that Anita broadened her vision and sharpened her photographic eye.
She later designed and directed the Education Program for the Guggenheim/Hermitage
Museum in Las Vegas.
She has participated in numerous group art exhibitions, including several solo photography
shows. Anita’s imagery continues to evolve into new approaches to abstraction and
metaphor, as well as expanding into digital fabric printing.
_
Learn more and view additional works at: anitagetzlerstudio.comSanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
David Hollen
Indra’s Net
Wood, glass, epoxy, copper, 2015
52” x 44” x 24”Sanctuary of the Aftermath
David Hollen
I like to play with forces hidden in plain sight. I have great interest in structural forces that
form the world around us. Whether it’s biological, chemical or even astronomical, there
exists underlying patterns that emerge from the interaction of simple physical forces.
The underlying framework of my sculpture rests upon an intuitive understanding of the
geometry residing in such things as hexagonal prism structure of beehive, the tetraradial
structure of a simple sea-sponge, the gravitational superstructure of galaxy clusters, and
even the geometric elegance of soap bubble foam. All of these organizing structures are
a result of interaction of the fundamental materials and the physical forces they exert.
Even though I reject supernaturalism, I find the idea of spirituality to be a rich vein to
mine with my manipulations of these ubiquitous geometries. The experiences that we all
bring to these encounters create new ways to understand how the “spiritual” infuses our
lives.
Biography
David Hollen is a sculptor living and working in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles
for over 13 years. David works in various materials, including stainless steel cable, rope,
and cast porcelain.
_
Learn more and view additional works at: www.hollenart.comSanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Jason Jenn
Angels Gate Leaf Mandalas
Dried leaves, gold and copper leaf, pins, 2021
variable dimensionsSanctuary of the Aftermath
Jason Jenn
Leaf Mandalas are site-specific installation works created from a process of gathering
leaves from the local environment close to the exhibition site. They are dried and painted
with gold leaf in different patterns, then arranged into custom mandala shapes based on
site-specific conditions.
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas’ geometric configurations help focus both the
creator and viewer and establish a sense of sacred space. Their circular design represents
wholeness and as symbolic maps of the cosmos; the microcosm becomes the macro.
In this day and age, there are so many ways we are disconnected from the natural
environment. By creating these mandalas and using leaves from the surrounding region,
I aim to help re-establish a connection between the natural world and gallery space.
Despite its meager size, the complex structure of a leaf is a thing of beauty in and
of itself. It inspires many meanings and possibilities. Even in death, the dried form is
intimately connected with life. As part of nature’s sublime cycle, it will return to the earth
via decomposition to feed other forms of life. The addition of artificial gold and copper
leaf on the leaves (a knowing pun) while pretty, serves to both remind the viewer of
nature’s divinity and humanity’s folly. It echoes the use of precious metals in holy items
throughout cultures.
I encourage and invite viewers to develop a unique relationship with the mandalas,
whatever form that may take. Whether one slows down to admire the details or has a
quick moment to take a selfie, each possesses its own particular merits in this context as
both are reinserting themselves into a symbolic reconnection with and appreciation of
nature.
Biography
Jason Jenn is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist. His works vary in roles as performer,
writer, visual artist, director, producer, designer, curator, and video editor. He creates for
exhibition on stage, on screen, on the page, in galleries, and at site-specific locations.
When he’s not busy being lazy, the work is about making adjustments to obtain balance
in an era of extremes. The aim is to engage the mind conceptually and perhaps tickle the
heart, often mixing humor with tragedy and beauty with pain.
Works frequently contain sociopolitical and queer empowered themes. There is keen
interest in reexamining familiar archetypes and universally appealing topics, infusing
them with a fresh, revelatory perspective. Visuals often take on a dream-like quality,
evoking fantastical events and suggesting strange narratives, pulling viewers in for an
unexpected journey.
_
Learn more and view additional works at: JasonJenn.comSanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Ibuki Kuramochi
The Memory of Physicality
Canvas, monitor, video, human hair, chain, acrylic, 2021
wall installation: 70” x 96”
floor installation: 92.5” x 23”Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Ibuki Kuramochi
“The seat of the soul is where the inner and outer worlds meet Where the inner and outer
worlds permeate, every part that permeates becomes the seat of the soul.” - Novalis.
In 2020, when we were cut off from direct and physical relationships with others, our
awareness of physicality and physical sensations changed. Every shield blocks our direct
physicality. My work is a memory of my physicality sealed by self-confidence, in which the
captured spirit exists. Hair is a dead cell, however it grows every day, so there is a view
of life and death there. Also human skin is said to be the third human brain. My body
trapped inside has spirituality and heat, breathes and continues to exist.
Physicality is the key point of my art’s theme.
Every human being owns their body, but it is different for each person. As anatomist
Takeshi Yoro says, “There is nothing more personal than your own body.” Each body is
born to and owned by each individual and is completely original.
My work exists in various media such as video works, performances, and painting. It is
produced with the consciousness of improvisation of the body-performance. It can be
said that both video works and painting works are extensions of performance works. I am
very attracted to the improvisation of the body that is created through my performance.
It is also interesting to see how the physicality of each type of performance is cut out in
every different time axis. The performance is very ephemeral, as the time that is flowing
now passes by in an instant. I feel that it is valuable to engrave a special and living art
moment in my body. Because my body will eventually decline and die.
My father is a devoted Shintoist, and I grew up listening to stories of Shinto mysteries. In
the world of Shinto, it is said that spirits dwell in everything in this world. For example:
in an eyeglass case, in stuffed animals, or in anything that has been used for many years,
there is a Kami (spirit) named (Tsukumogami). Spirits are always present in my life and
are reflected in my own body. I have long hair, and it feels like countless spirits are living
in each strand. Hair is a dead cell, but it grows every day, so there is a simultaneous view
of life and death. I like to create artwork where spirituality (invisible) and the body (visible)
intersect and change positions.Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Biography
Born in Japan, multi-media artist, Ibuki Kuramochi specializes in artworks for exhibition
(paintings and media arts) and live performances that combine her live painting with
Japanese Butoh dance. From 2012, Ibuki started exhibiting works in major cities in Japan,
U.S.A., Taiwan, France, Italy, and Australia. She studied Butoh dance at the world-renown
Kazuo Ohno Butoh Dance Studio in Yokohama in 2016. Her work pursues the physicality
of Butoh’s poetic choreography and the human body in anatomy. She visualizes her
performance and body movements as two-dimensional works and video works. Ibuki
explores concepts of the body, thought and physical resonance, metamorphosis, and
fetishism. In 2019, Ibuki received a USA O-1 artist visa. She currently resides in Los
Angeles.
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Learn more and view additional works at: www.ibuki-kuramochi.comSanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Rosalyn Myles
Pieces of Us
Installation, flowers, lace, black eye peas, basket, 2021
variable dimensionsSanctuary of the Aftermath
Rosalyn Myles
As we are all learning how to conduct our lives while experiencing a worldwide epidemic,
making artwork and maintaining an art practice has been challenging. It has also been
a unique opportunity to really focus on what really important, what are our true needs,
our real obstacles. In quarantine we’ve been given the time to sit and be quiet with our
thoughts. We are rethinking the way we make art in this, our New Normal.
As long as I can remember, I have been interested in working with rich textures and bits
of pieces of history. Found traces of life, recycled trinkets, film, fabric, wood and text are
used in mixed media artworks and installations to create three dimensional scenarios.
These stories can be subtle, they are often autobiographical and hopefully exploring
stories that are at their core, universal. I use various mediums to explore both social
personal issues that are often erupting from the discourse of Modern American Culture
and its problems of race and gender. Constructed assemblage boxes, recycled windows,
doors, chairs are combined with paint and text, light and shadow to become alternate
universes that engage the viewer.
No matter the medium, I am investigating the treatment of women and what it means
to be a person of color living in the United States of America. I explore concerns that
continue to plague underrepresented communities and disenfranchised people despite
the cries for social justice. I am interested in exploring the very painful conversations
going on in this country today and how we as a people can move forward together to
navigate a better future.
Biography
Born and raised in a neighborhood just off the 110 freeway between Gardena and
Compton, Rosalyn Myles has spent most of her life in the City of Los Angeles. She grew
up traversing the entire city, playing games with her friends in Watts, swimming with her
brothers in South LA, riding the bus to attend art classes at Barnsdall Park in Hollywood
and eating Japanese food with her classmates from Narbonne High School in Torrance.
She attended Mills College in Oakland on a scholarship, spent a few years at CSDHU
then completed her Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the California College of Arts. For a
few years she resided in Napa California, then in San Fransico where she worked at the
Yuerba Buena Center for the Arts. Rosalyn has exhibited her work all over the US. She
recently had the opportunity to create a Satellite Installation project for PR4 art event in
New Orleans. Rosalyn currently resides in the West Adams district in the center of LA.
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Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Vojislav Radovanović
Descent of the Holy Spirit
Wood, glass, paper, acrylic, rope, 2021
10’ x 4’ x 4’Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Vojislav Radovanović
The installation, Descent of the Holy Spirit, consists of a ladder leaning on the gallery wall
adorned by glass jars filled with recycled drawings of fire and a vintage cobbler’s shoe
mold stepping onto the ground.
Ladder imagery has been used throughout history to symbolize the connection between
heaven and earth and higher knowledge ascension. The vertically oriented Ladder
represents the journey and our need for growth in our mental, spiritual, and social
consciousness to face our era’s issues. The glass jars are filled with drawings of fire - a
direct reference to the devastating wildfires the planet has recently experienced and the
tongues of fire that often accompany the arrival of the holy spirit. The shoe mold is a
symbol of the new quest that everyone must join in step.
My work often pulls from and quotes different religions as one uses a familiar language to
tell stories that concern all of life. In this piece, I reference classical Christian concepts with
the title and thematic elements, not for the common religious meaning, but to explore
the need for an urgent reaction toward the ecological and environmental crises we face
today. In personally addressing that goal, all elements of this installation are created from
reused and recycled objects.
Biography
Vojislav Radovanović (1982. Valjevo, former Yugoslavia) is a Serbian visual artist and
director based in Los Angeles, California. Witness in his youth to turbulent political unrest
and war in the Balkan region, his work advocates for beauty, environmentalism, mental
health, and societal transmutation.
His work often utilizes a conceptual concentration on various plants, specifically weeds.
The resilient, boundary-defying plants can be viewed as a metaphor for nature’s powerful
ingenuity as well as applied to varied aspects of humanity’s endurance, the immigrant
experience, and/or colonization.
Since his first solo exhibition in the National Museum of Valjevo at age fifteen, he has
gone on to participate in over 200 group exhibitions. Important cultural institutions
where he presented his works are UNESCO Headquarters and The Institut Suédois in
Paris (France); Mall Galleries in London, (Great Britain); Museum of Art and History in
Lancaster and Brea Art Gallery (California, USA); Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun,
(Poland); The Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid (CBA), Madrid, (Spain); Belgrade City
Museum, Museum of Yugoslavia, Art Pavilion Cvijeta Zuzorić and The White Palace in
Belgrade, (Serbia).Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Vojislav Radovanović
His career in television as a journalist and presenter for Serbian and European TV stations
led him to found the media company Art Documents which serves to preserve, promote,
and curate the contemporary art scene primarily working in Los Angeles.
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Learn more and view additional works at: www.vojislavradovanovic.comSanctuary of the Aftermath
Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Alison Ragguette
Cross Section Ellipse
Silicone rubber, porcelain, silk, 2011
26’ x 5’ x 4’
Cross Section Tryptic (not pictured)
Silicone rubber, porcelain, silk, 2008
5’ x 4’ x 4’Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Alison Ragguette
Cross Section Ellipse is a sculptural wall work created in thrown porcelain, medical grade
silicone rubber, and silk thread. Inspired by biological cross sections revealed under a
microscope, Cross Section Ellipse expands to a superimposed scale of twenty-six feet
wide. This piece is activated by light, as the silicone rubber is translucent and diffuses
color, light, and shadow. The combination of thrown porcelain with this highly engineered
material intended to manufacture medical tubes and human prosthetics makes this
sculpture enveloping and mysterious, yet playful. Cross Section Ellipse’s extraordinary
scale and synthesis of materials proposes a duality between the organic and technological,
as informed by biomechanics, the technology of life, and the mechanical world of nature.
Biography
Working for over fifteen years, Alison Petty Ragguette has developed an expansive
approach to making sculptural objects in porcelain, glass, and rubber. She has studied at
Goldsmiths’ College, University of London (England), received her BFA from Concordia
University (Montreal), and MFA from the California College of the Arts (San Francisco).
She is currently a Professor of Art at California State University, San Bernardino.
Alison’s work has been included in national and international exhibitions, including
her most recent solo exhibitions at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona),
the International Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago), Robert and Frances Fullerton
Museum of Art (San Bernardino) and Launch LA (Los Angeles). She has exhibited at
venues including Durden and Ray (Los Angeles), the Architecture and Design Museum
(Los Angeles), The Contemporary (Austin), and international venues including the Galleria
De Los Oficios (Santiago de Cuba), Shanghai University Art Gallery (China), and Harbor
Front Center (Toronto). She has also been commissioned for multiple public artworks.
Alison has been a resident artist at the Taller Cultural in Santiago de Cuba, Jingdehzen
Pottery Workshop in China, and the Purosil Rubber Company in Corona, California. Her
work has been highlighted in several art publications and textbooks, including Ceramics
Monthly, LA Art Week and Artillery Magazine. Alison has been supported by grants
from the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Durfee
Foundation in Los Angeles. Alison maintains an active studio where she lives with her
family in Claremont, California.
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Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents
Kayla Tange
The Rise and Fall of Decadence (We Both Enjoy the Same Fruit series)
Sculpture installation, 2021
variable, 12” – 36”
Adapted Intentions
Intentions original 2019, updated 2021
Interactive installation with light box
72” x 37.5” x 5.5”Sanctuary of the Aftermath
Kayla Tange
Intentions is a multi-sensory installation which becomes activated by each viewer. In
utilizing web technologies, creating a tactile, visual and aural experience, we are interested
in exploring the way human memory is constructive and destructive. Intentions is inspired
by the meditative elements of the Japanese Zen garden, incorporating the freedom and
imagination on a childhood playground and the beauty and impermanence of clearing
each intention by the Tibetan sand mandala. In providing a familiar communal space
such as a sandbox, participants can illustrate old memories or create new ones. The
sand, when written in or moved makes the light shine through, giving dynamism to the
words in the dark room. Using light-colored sand allows the patterns to emerge from the
light below.
The Rise and Fall of Decadence The Hachiya persimmon, a fruit highly regarded and
enjoyed in both Korea and Japan, yet can hardly escape the history of these two
countries. These sculptures were a physical exploration of the dichotomy between
mutual enjoyment/freewill and complete destruction/possession inspired by/recalling
the horrific histories of the comfort women of Korea, look into the history of the
kisaeng, and the fascination with the rise and fall of the empires. There are different
and similar ways the Japanese and Koreans hang the persimmons to dry. Hoshigaki is a
Japanese process where they are hung and massaged daily. This is a question I wonder
about...how a country who shares the love of a fruit with another country could commit
such crimes? The gisaeng were the legal entertainers of the government, originally
emerging in Goryeo. Despite the enforced duties to perform, they possessed an ability
to move somewhat effortlessly in society, due to their exclusive position as respected
performers. Although considered a nominal social class, the gisaeng were appreciated
as intelligent artists and writers, while retaining a particular part in ancient Korea’s
society.
Biography
Kayla Tange was born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted at age six months, by a
Japanese American family residing in Lemoore, California. She moved to Los Angeles
in 2000, and among other endeavors at the intersection of art-making, self-discovery,
and survival, began performing as an exotic and burlesque dancer, where she served
not only as a sexual projection, but as a private confessor. These experiences inspired
the performances Confession Box and A Bare Witness in which public space became an
interactive confessional. In 2016, Tange created Confession Room, where these stories
collected over a two year period were presented in an interactive multimedia installation
at Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown. Under the name Coco Ono, she dances with the
Bootleg Bombshells at Townhouse in Venice as wells as venues around Los Angeles and
New York. She uses confession, sexuality and dark comedy in her performance work to
explore love and longing, cultural stereotyping and societal taboos, catharsis and fetish.
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Learn more and view additional works at: kaylatange.comYou can also read
