I Have My Own Plan
group show

Shoebox Projects
660 South Avenue 21 #3
LA CA 90031
https://shoeboxprojects.com/

May 13 – June 8
On view by appointment

In Person Reception May 19 3-5pm PST

Featuring: Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja, Andrea Abler, Bachrun Lomele, Barrie Goshko, Christine Lee Smith, Faina Kumpan, Gina M, Janet A Gervers, Judit Csotsits, Katie Stubblefield, Liberty Worth, Lynette K. Henderson, Mandy Kaiser, Masha Metamorph, Monica Marks, Patricia Branstead, Ruby Vartan, Samantha Catron

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Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja
Azure Threads 1
6×18 inches
Acrylic, ink, collage, aquarelle
$399

I am a Southern California artist with a multidisciplinary approach to my work. I create non-objective and figurative abstractions using a mix of acrylic, printmaking, digital collages, and other media on various substrates.
Color is a key element in creating an atmospheric feel in my paintings. I use layers of warm, cool colors to establish a visual language that changes as the light and angles shift. Visual imagery of people, animals, and nature emerges through shadow, silhouettes, and intersecting lines.
I infuse positive manifestation words and phrases on the blank substrates, which become encapsulated energy and build up layers intuitively to find a balance between the conscious and unconscious. In my art, dots are a recurrent motif that I employ to investigate the connection between mankind in an abstract way.
My paintings evoke femininity, spirituality, and nature, exploring the relationship between nature and humanity through abstract art influenced by my Yoruba culture.

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Andrea M Abler
Squonk
16×20 inches
acrylic on canvas in black floating frame
$1920

I am a Los Angeles-based painter working primarily in acrylics. Ever inspired by T.H. White’s quote, “learn why the world wags and what wags it,” I spent over two decades immersed in physical and social sciences, including physics, history, computer programming, and policy research. I use my artwork as a way to explore and communicate depths of these subjects that cannot be reached through objective study.

I am currently working on a series of acrylic paintings inspired by fairytale, folklore, and the supernatural. In this series I purposely do not over-define subject and setting to allow each viewer to bring their own story to the piece. Much like folktales themselves, the paintings evoke conflicting emotions, leave many questions unanswered, and offer no clear distinction between human and monster. They leave us with feelings we can’t quite put a finger on, but we know we want more. In this series I celebrate intuition, spontaneity, and letting go of strict definition. I embrace the foggy edges around reality as a liminal space where we can discover hidden things about both our baser and higher natures.

I am a member of the Arroyo Arts Collective, the Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA), the California Art League, and the American Folklore Society.

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Bachrun Lomele
Snow Tire
31×14 inches
acrylic on paper, mounted on gatorboard
$350

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Barrie Goshko
Link • Generate • Synchronize
10 x 13 inches each
ink drawing
$800 each or $2400 for 3

Drawing is observation. Mine illuminates both external stimuli and inner conversation. I layer pixels and ink and thread, mixing carefully-observed nature with imagination and geometry. My drawings envision the universe as an intricately woven affair, which doesn’t necessarily follow expected paths, but which possesses an underlying structure we do not fully comprehend. They speak to something just beyond our consciousness, the shadow seen out of the corner of your eye, or the images that race from memory on waking. My practice of repetitive mark-making reassures me in a world that feels precarious. Revisiting imagery builds an intimacy with my subjects similar to the manner in which one knows a landscape as a child. It is both explored and created. Secrets are revealed but they change depending on how, when, and by whom they are discovered. As quantum physics tells us, the simple fact that something is observed can alter its reality. For me, it is a spiritual practice as well as a practical one.

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Christine Lee Smith
Liz, Gabby, Sherri, Julie: Womxn without Children
12×18 inches each
Photography
$750 each

In 2024 we are re-learning that not everyone’s status as a “subject” is assumed in twenty-first century America. Womxn, people of color, and queer individuals are routinely treated as objects, even today. In the portrait project Womxn without Children the photographer explores the subject-ness of womxn who do not have children — whether by choice or circumstance.

For womxn in America, the reality of birthing and raising children is fraught whether one desires to embark on that journey, or not. Womxn without Children explores these complex realities around bodily autonomy, desire, and shame related to reproduction for womxn in America today. It considers these realities for womxn who’ve declined motherhood, and those who’ve desired it but have encountered various barriers to becoming mothers.

These subjects reveal that motherhood, and the desire for it, exists on a spectrum. Some project participants deeply desire to raise humans; others have known from early ages that the task of mothering was not for them. And yet, diving into the nuance of these stories revealed even more complexity: some who desired motherhood discovered their desire was rooted in societal presumption rather than autonomous desire; others were aware that their explicit desire to not mother children was connected to early life traumatic experiences. However, these reasons become deeply secondary when the question of personhood is increasingly in question in public discourse.

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Faina Kumpan
The Space Warrior
24×18 inches
Acrylic, Acrylic Ink, Watercolor, Ink, Marker on Paper
$1800

I always infuse my work with vivid color, creating art that is at once surreal and abstract, whimsical and vibrant. Whether creating painted works or sculptures, my subjects are mystical creatures From another world, fantastic figures stepping from the pages of a futuristic fairy tale. My use of color is in part a reaction to and antidote for growing up with black and white TV and a childhood in which I was always dreaming about other worlds. My favorite reading was science fiction. When I arrived in the U.S. , it was as if I had landed on another planet, something that’s still reflected in my art.

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Gina M
GunBall Machine
60x14x14 inches
Repurposed vintage vending machine,
2″ clear balls, 3D printed glowing guns and ribbons,
glass globe, mirror, vinyl decals
$20,000

Fashioned from a working vintage gumball machine, this chrome, white and gray angelic sculpture offers a satirical commentary on America’s misplaced priorities when grappling with gun violence. The artwork questions the effectiveness of the current approach, frequently centered on the promotion of thoughts, prayers, and more guns.

Atop the vintage gumball machine, a cone-shaped party hat rests on a glass globe filled with a glow-in-the-dark toy gun and a giant thoughts and prayers plastic ribbon. For the price of a token, viewers can purchase a clear capsule containing a small plastic gun and one white ribbon inscribed with a Thought or Prayer. One can collect the whole set.

Warning labels, like fancy advertising decals, cover the machine’s base, cautioning the potential choking hazards of these deadly small parts— highlighting the hypocrisy of the prevailing attitude toward guns in America, especially as it pertains to children.

Sculpture includes a book of tokens and capsules filled with thoughts and guns and prayers.

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Janet A Gervers
Gold Dance
24×24 inches
Acrylic on canvas
$500

Janet is currently focused on her Gold Series. Gold has a duplicity of meanings. The focus of this series is on the outer and inner light that gold brings, along with warmth and positive energy that uplifts the spirit in dark times. The rich metallic gold is reflective and changes with the surrounding lighting.

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Judit Csotsits
Johnie
watercolor on paper
22×30 inches
$1500

Using figurative painting, narrative Illustration, and ceramic sculpture, I am exploring an organic hybrid form which exists at the intersection between science, spirituality and art. Referencing scientific and ornate illustrators such as Ernst Haeckel, I would like the work to reimagine a narrative which does not create a hierarchical relationship to nature. Evoking fluidity and fractals, and mythical beings reminiscent of characters from Eastern European fairy tale illustrations, I am constructing my own world full of characters with complex emotional relationships.

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Katie Elizabeth Stubblefield
Auger
36X36 inches
Acrylic on Panel
$1300

One of my ongoing fascinations is with wind. Growing up in Tennessee, I was fascinated with the way I could track a gust of wind through the tree-canopies overhead, just by listening. I could see those trees swaying 10 feet or more in one direction or another…but I could also hear the wood. Trees that big creak and moan when they bend.

Though my artworks have taken many turns, stylistically and in media, the wild weather I experienced under those tree canopies has always informed my work. I think more broadly now, considering my adopted Southern Californian landscape and climate while looking at the larger global climate-influenced landscapes I see virtually.

In the last year I started looking at dust devils and up-drafts. They are a real-time indicator of global warming. They occur when the ground is hotter than the air around it. It can cause a real-time funnel, pulling air up, rather than dropping down from the clouds like a tornado. The hotter the planet gets, the bigger the dust devils and updrafts.

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Lynette K. Henderson
WOLF II
Ink and Acrylic on Paper
27×35 inches – framed
$1500

Motivated by a fascination with the natural world, my artworks feature a variety of subject matter. Some are depicting animals integrated into their natural habitats, seeking to provide insight into various species through detail and compelling compositions and relationships, others include various habitats. I often select animals as painting challenges, delving into the intricate details of individual animals – examining anatomy, colors, textures, and patterns. Conceptually, I have noticed that humans tend to project themselves and their desired or imagined characteristics and emotions onto animals. Preserved in zoos, common to both rural and urban environments, the animals are considered by visitors to be either extraordinary, as pests or even despised rather than admirable, based on human perceptions and imaginings of the value of different species. I am seeking to challenge these and other romantic notions about nature within myself as well as other viewers.

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Liberty Worth
Mighty
30×28 inches
Made of textile waste headed to landfill
$675

I believe textiles have the remarkable ability to hold memories and story. My work uses them to process reaching through memory and grief for a place of harmony and healing.

Collecting textiles, both treasured and discarded, I piece fabrics, paper and scraps together using unconventional, improvisational quilting techniques to create swirling shapes that emerge from the trees, mountains, and coastal inspirations of my sketchbook and collage practices into mounted textile wall paintings.

For my work, color is a tool to be played with, grounded in memories of exploration and adventure. My work gravitates towards bright, harmonious color schemes – taking cues from nature and exploding into bright color directions that recall memories and expand from visual moments – places like the inside of an anemone, patterns on a shell or the neverending shades of green in a forest I have visited.

Living in coastal California, I know first-hand the way nature can heal the rough and broken places we carry in our hearts. I have experienced the healing that comes when we hold our grief out and let the wind and sunshine swirl around it. The earth shows us how brokenness can still be present, but also be beautiful – and my art is a practice of gathering, and mending broken pieces into new, fragmented-yet-whole stories – a hope for what healing is possible with time.

My work is about reaching – pushing forward into new territories of hope and healing – even as it holds the memories of what was behind.

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Mandy Kaiser
A Single Match
watercolor on panel
12X12 inches
$750

My body of work intertwines the realms of memory, storytelling, and the reconstruction of familial narratives. Guided by vintage family photographs, I embark on a journey to reimagine the intricate layers of stories, weaving threads of remembered moments with the enigmatic faces of both known and unknown ancestors.

I use oils and watercolors to create paintings that evoke a sense of nostalgia and mystery. Influenced by literature and my own personal history, my work draws inspiration from the dreamlike atmospheres found in the landscapes of the American Midwest and the California desert as well as half-remembered interior spaces, imprinted in the collective memory of myself and my family.

My art invites viewers to engage with ambiguous narratives, embracing the complexities of rebuilding the past and finding beauty in the mysterious and the unresolved.

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“Finding Myself, Again” is a mixed media embroidery art piece made by the artist during a time of sincere reflection after a life-changing decision: to end a marriage that was full of love but that was not the right fit.

Surrounding the embroidered words “find yourself” are threads embroidered in a line art style that the artist had been doodling since she was in middle school: over a decade before she realized she is an artist. The artist has since evolved this line style into more intricate and exploratory line art for other art pieces and doodling. By using the original line style and reflecting on finding herself during this current life stage, she links her past to her present to move towards her future.

The painted impasto frame that surrounds the embroidery evokes a more recent development of the artist’s style. She started painting in this abstract marbled impasto style when she needed art that was more relaxing to make. This style brings relaxation both during its creation and in the result: the thick acrylic paint feels good to the touch and the added tactile dimension means more immersion, creating a much-needed pause.

The use of embroidery is also meaningful, as fabric arts are part of her family history. Part of finding herself is deciding which aspects of her upbringing serve her in her next stages vs. which decisions are unique to her. By displaying the art in the embroidery hoop, she includes a hint at the creative process and shows respect for the tradition of embroidery. When flipped over, the somewhat messy backside of threads is visible, an untidy shadow of the final result. This represents that the behind-the-scenes of life changes and decisions are often hidden and reminds us that there’s no way to get to the tidy finished draft without the complex, chaotic behind-the-scenes.

ARTIST STATEMENT for “Embrace and Release”

“Embrace and Release” invites the viewer to interact with the art both with their eyes and with their touch. The viewer observes how abstract marbled impasto paint feels in their hands and enjoys the sensory contrast of the artificial flowers. The sights and textures of the surfaces, hills, and valleys pull the viewer into the art and into the moment, even for those who struggle with being present due to distractions and busy minds.

By laying hands on art, the viewer is pulled out of the typical look-don’t-touch experience, a distinction that may bring their distracted attention to the present. Their gut instinct reminds them they are not supposed to touch art. But this is a different kind of moment, as they are given permission to set aside their to-do lists and their worries and their projects: right now, there is nothing to do besides consider the feel of the art in their hands and in their eyes and in their mind.

This art also reflects on the value and risks of holding onto items for possible use in art. The vase is made from an empty plastic pill bottle from the artist’s daily medicine. The Calla lilies are reclaimed from packing up a too-full home, and the space that all of these items took up before being used in the art serves both as a reminder that holding onto too much can interfere with our lives, while also being evidence that repurposing trash can result in beautiful new creations. Therefore, this art reflects a challenge of being a mixed media artist: wanting to hold onto the potentially useful, while not allowing our homes to be buried in what many people would accurately describe as trash.

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Monica Marks
No Thank You, I Have My Own Plan
16x16x2 inches
Collage and Interference Paint on Cradled Wood Panel
$404

I am a Los Angeles-based, found object painter and sculptor using a variety of recycled materials in mixed media applications. In my assemblage work, I find beauty and value in the discarded and am drawn to items with a sense of history. Much of my work focuses on invisible disabilities and identity; I choose to shine a light on the things we keep hidden, so that when others view my art, they feel seen.

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Patricia Branstead
Tall Buildings
monotypes, lamp assemblies
26×6 and 18×5 inches
$340

I am an abstract artist working with the flow and intuition of my creativity . My inspiration is both nature and the human made infrastructure we have imposed on our world. I use pattern, color, and rhythm; balance vs conflict, in action and reaction, with our universe, in awe of my presence in it.

Using the process of monotype, each piece is a one of a kind painting. I work on a plexiglas surface, laying the thin Asian paper on top of the painting, rubbing it from the back and transferring the paint to the paper and revealing the image. Through this method I can express my emotions and spontaneity. I paint many papers to find the ones that carry my vision. Then I either hang them as paintings or create them as lamps, all part of one family.

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Ruby Vartan
B O D Y I
32×38 inches
Oil, sanguine on canvas
$1800

My art represents an exploration of liberation based on the feminine form. I use my body to imprint my inner self in my works. I contour the lines of my body on canvas and become one with it. My senses and feelings turn into lines and paint marks. I explore my emotions and sensuality in my physical form and translate them into artworks. I use my traumatic experiences of my past of pain and loss to find layers of light and self-renewal. I Create a multi-layered and poetic works that are interpreted as the process through which I feel most free, where no boundaries exist to arrive at my destination of self expression. My process also includes performance, I print my own body on canvas to convey my presence and existence of my soul in it, creating movement through ongoing & intertwined lines and color. Canvas slashes reveal another dimension and depth, resonating to mending the broken with light and hope.

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Samantha Catron
Is It a Crime?
24×30 inches
Acrylic and Gouache
$4000

Through a restructuring of time and space my work centers around subconscious themes and human perception beyond the physical realm. Concepts I focus on include polarity and contradiction-emphasizing extremes and a need for balance. I am greatly inspired by spiritual philosophy, quantum mechanics, and Jungian archetypes. These philosophical notions are conveyed from a surrealist perspective along with symbolism and the subtlety of emotional expression.

Through my art, I present the opportunity to question the nature of reality, the passage of time, and the journey of the soul. By challenging conventional timelines and blurring the boundaries between the physical and metaphysical, I invite viewers to embark on a journey of introspection and contemplation, transcending the limitations of the material world.

A linear perspective is eluded through the representation of dreams, deja vú, and timelessness. This cross-reference between realms questions the placement of time while challenging conventional timelines altogether. It is in these transcendent moments that we find meaning, purpose, and a sense of unity with the universe.