Dani Dodge
solo show

“My Ugly/Beautiful Friends”

Shoebox Projects
660 S. Ave. 21 #3
Los Angeles, CA 90031

Opening reception: 3-6 p.m. Sunday, March 31, 2019
Open by appointment and during Brewery Artwalk April 6 and 7
Closes: April 14, 2019

In “My ugly/beautiful friends,” Los Angeles artist Dani Dodge uses sculpture, video and mixed media works to create an installation exploring adaptation and survival.

Her muse is the Joshua Tree.

The early American explorer, John C Fremont, who first mapped the Oregon Trail, described Joshua trees as “the most repulsive tree in the Vegetable Kingdom.” But Dodge fell in love with these otherworldly plants as she began a residency in 2018 in the Mojave National Preserve. She was inspired by their strangeness, their symbiotic relationships, and their sensitivity.

“I spent every day of two weeks visiting the Joshua trees and getting to know them on an individual and personal level,” Dodge said. “I was fascinated by the bold, frightening shapes they created against the desert sunrise, and captivated by the warm, beautiful stories they told beneath their spikey exterior.”

And, I was deeply inspired their ability to survive within a very small area of Earth, while feeling devastated by the knowledge that the species could be decimated within my lifetime.”

Climate models have shown that this iconic plant, which exists only in the Mojave Desert region of the US between 1,300 and 5,900 feet elevation, will lose 90 percent of its range in eastern California by 2100.

Basically, the Joshua trees, which grow to more than 40 feet tall, reproduce and disperse too slowly to keep up with climate change. They have survived this long because they developed a shallow network of roots, that spreads about 18 feet around each plant to suck up the infrequent rainwater.

Without nectar to attract pollinators, Joshua Trees rely solely on the tiny yucca moth for pollination, a creature that at first appears unassuming but on closer inspection sports unique bizarre, tentacle-like fronds from its mouth. And the yucca moth depends on the Joshua Tree for its survival.

Over Dodge’s time in the Mojave National Preserve, and also during a 2019 residency in the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve in Lancaster, Calif., Dodge continues to get to know these plants, who she now considers her friends.

“Like many of my human friends, they have a tough exterior, but a sweetness within,” Dodge explained. “They need us now and with this exhibit I hope to bring more awareness of their plight.”

In the exhibit, she deconstructs the Joshua Tree spikes into separate stories of survival, love, and loneliness. She deconstructs photos of the plants into a scribbled S.O.S. on their behalf. And she constructs a powerful installation that shows ugliness and beauty are as symbiotic as the Joshua Tree and the yucca moth.
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About Dani Dodge
Dodge creates immersive, surrealist environments and installations. This is her second solo show at Shoebox Projects. Dodge shows her work in Los Angeles and internationally, including in Mexico City, Budapest, and Stockholm so far in 2019. She is a member of the Durden and Ray collective in Los Angeles. For more information about Dodge, please visit http://www.danidodge.com/

About Shoebox Projects
Shoebox Projects is an experimental art space in DTLA, where emerging and midcareer artists are given an opportunity to freely experiment with new ideas and directions for their practice. Founded by Kristine Schomaker, multimedia artist and director of Shoebox PR, Shoebox Projects intends to give artists a chance to recharge and renew their relationship with their work. http://www.shoeboxprojects.com

Sheli Silverio
Solo Exhibition

“Be A Lady”

Opening January 6th 3-6pm
Artist Talk/closing January 20th 2-4pm

http://www.shelisilverio.com/
https://shoeboxprojects.com/

Shoebox Project
660 South Aveue 21 #3
LA Ca 90031

“Sheli, be a lady” is a phrase I heard a lot growing up. I never felt like I knew what that meant exactly, but I did feel like I was often doing it wrong. As a girl, dolls became an influential learning tool in deciphering what appropriate femininity entailed. They were coded with messages about motherhood, domesticity, fashion and physical beauty. In “Be A Lady” I use the paper doll as a means to explore the complex process of understanding personal identity within the confines of society’s idea of womanhood. The pieces of my paper doll are symbols of sexuality, vulnerability, confidence, intelligence, physicality and the process of resolving all the facets of one’s self.

Sheli Silverio is a fine artist and illustrator living and working in Los Angeles. She has studied studio arts and humanities at Pasadena City College, California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and California State University Northridge.

​An integral part of the LA Art World, Sheli is a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, The Shed Collective ​and is currently working for Shoebox PR, offering valuable resources to emerging artists. She recently became a board member on the arts non-profit January Arts.

Miss Art World

“Alterations”

Opening January 6th 3-6pm
Artist Talk/Closing January 20th 2-4pm

The Closet in Shoebox Projects
660 South Avenue 21 #3
LA Ca 90031

https://shoeboxprojects.com/
https://www.missartworld.com/

A brand-new art performance titled “Alterations” by artist Miss Art World will be held January 6th starting at 3:30 p.m. During and after the performance will be the exhibit’s reception which will run until 6 p.m. at Shoebox Projects. The performance will be documented and on display at the gallery by appointment only until January 20th.
Shoebox Projects is located at The Brewery, 660 South Avenue 21 #3, Los Angeles, CA. An Artist Talk will be held January 13th from 2 to 4 p.m. These events are free and open to the public.

The performance “Alterations” will be performed in the Shoebox Project’s closet space. The performed uses the setting of the closet space to inform the performance’s concept of unseen world love dolls. Love dolls are normally hidden away, not to be talked about but used to resemble and replace women.

Miss Art World says “The use of love dolls is objectification of women, but what I think is interesting is the view from a woman’s perspective trying to deal with or work through the concept of men using love dolls. This performance resembles this struggle and attempts to alter the doll into something society understands.”

Miss Art World is an artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She is an emerging performance artist and has exhibited throughout the country and was honored to perform at Art Basel Miami in 2017. Miss Art World was diagnosed with an incurable eye disease at the age of ten and has struggled seeing ever since. The rejection and prejudices that arose from the academic environment led her to seek out other means of fulfillment; this came in the form of beauty pageants.

Over the years, she participated in pageants winning several titles including Miss New York World. Success in pageantry proved to be both her salvation as well as a burden.

Using her experiences to inform her art practice, Miss Art World critiques the unrealistic display of the “perfected” physical form and the pressures to attain it. She crowned herself Miss Art World and uses the title to question the dominating ideologies of beauty fused society’s disturbing and obsession with it.
Don’t miss this thought provoking and bizarre performance and exhibit. Visit shoeboxprojects.com for more information.

Please join The Make-a-Wish Foundation and Shoebox Projects as we present a one night pop-up solo show of work by San Antonio artist Jaylah Martinez

Jaylah Martinez
Solo Exhibition

Thursday December 27th 7-9pm

A budding San Antonio teen artist has been covering the city’s public spaces with art, as she fights a rare form of kidney cancer. This talented young woman, 16-year-old Jaylah Martinez, has contributed to various arts projects for the City of San Antonio, serves as a teen ambassador for the city, and has logged 160 hours for the nonprofit South Texas Blood & Tissue, and still manages to maintain her membership in the national honor society while battling cancer.

Jaylah’s paintings involve bold hues in acrylic and oil. As a Make-A-Wish kid, her wish has been to have her paintings displayed at a gallery in Los Angeles.

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Jaylah Martinez is a Junior in High School with a love for God, people, and art. Jaylah was very active in her community. During the summer of her Junior year, she volunteered with South Texas Blood & Tissue. She was a valuable asset to various departments. She is currently in the National Honor Society and a Teen Ambassador for San Antonio. As a Teen Ambassador, Jaylah attends events to inspire the youth to reach their goals.

In addition, she is part of Blue Star Contemporary’s MOSAIC Student Artist Program. While attending Mosaic after school program, she is able to help design and create public art projects for her city and volunteer at community events for the youth. With regards to art, her main focus is painting. She expresses her voice from the abstract linear movement in hands. Her most prominent medium used is acrylic and oil.

Unfortunately, after being officially diagnosed on August 27, 2018, with stage IV Renal Medullary Carcinoma (RMC), she had to slow down on all extracurricular activities. Her goal is to attend college and major in BioChemistry and find a cure to cancer. After graduation, she wants to work for MD Anderson as a Research Scientist.

Elizabeth Tinglof
Artist in Residence, Shoebox Projects

Reception Sunday December 16th 3-6pm
A.I.R. November 5th to December 16th

Shoebox Projects
660 South Avenue 21 #3
LA Ca 90031

https://shoeboxprojects.com/
https://www.elizabethtinglof.com/

“Won’t Pray” is an exhibition by artist Elizabeth Tinglof conceived during her residency at Shoebox Projects. Beginning with an inverted abstract tree rooted in the ceiling by a system of twisted wires and reflected in fragments of mirror below, Tinglof creates relationships between a series of objects in various mediums . Through historic, symbolic and metaphoric references, she builds a construct of tension between belief and illusion, Tinglof’s work delves into the process of reevaluation and blindly accepted truths.

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Elizabeth Tinglof is a Los Angeles based artist, curator and adjunct professor interested in the exploration of materiality and process. Tinglof creates an alchemist fusion of painting and sculpture resulting in richly layered abstract objects that function first as a deconstructive conversation and evolve to one of reconstruction, experimentation and reinvention.

She is the co-founder of Rough Play Collective, an artists curatorial group based in Los Angeles with their recent exhibition, Hold for Far Bazaar 2017 and Without Design or Sketch: The Story of the Room at the Launch LA Gallery and Go Big or Go Home at The Brand Library Gallery. Tinglof organized the exhibition Shelf Perfection for Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, (2013) and curated Triangulation, (2011) an exhibition held at California State University Northridge featuring artists such as Michael C. McMillian, Jeffery Vallance and Lynn Aldrich. Her work has been exhibited throughout Southern CA including exhibitions with The Robert Berman Gallery and Berman/Turner Projects, Bergmont Station, Santa Monica, CA and California State University, Northridge Gallery, The Brand Library Gallery, Launch LA Gallery and Cerritos College Gallery

In 2010 volunteering as a photo journalist, and video documentarian Tinglof documented the after effects of the Gulf oil spill and the 2010 Haiti earthquake for the UCLA-HGD Project, a non-profit organization providing medical care and education to Petit Goave, Haiti.

Recently, Tinglof founded Rough Play Projects, Joshua Tree, designated for site-specific Installations. The inaugural project, Available to All, opens April 7, 2018

Tinglof received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design, her MFA from California State University Northridge and in 2016 attended Sotheby’s Art Institute London for a curatorial program. She is a recipient of the the EJ Leiber Fund Award (2012), CSUN Arts Council Award (2011), The Hans Burkhardt Memorial Scholarship (2010) and The Graduate Association Thesis Research Award (2010).

Route, Rut, Lane: A Karkhana Collaboration

Opening reception Friday October 12th 7-9pm
Open during the Brewery Artwalk October 13th and 14th 11-6pm

https://karkhanaproject.weebly.com/
https://shoeboxprojects.com/

Route, Rut, Lane: A Karkhana Collaboration is a contemporary conceptual mixed – media project that was inspired by the historical Mughal workshop that produced elaborate miniatures. A select group of 8 artists (S. Portico Bowman, Carlyn M. Clark, Johnny Fox, Margaret Lazzari, Luke Reichle, Chris Russell, Caryl St Ama, Nancy Kay Turner), diverse in age, geography and artistic practice, worked solo on each piece before sending it on to fellow collaborators.

While the content was not planned, the works developed as commentaries on personal, social and religious conditions of today. The group developed a surprisingly consistent mixed- media aesthetic since the project originated in January 2018.

The project culminates with this show at The Shoebox Projects, which will be on view during the upcoming Brwery Artwalk and Open Studios on October 13 and 14.