California Desert – longlistshort

Weekend Watch- Robert Altman’s “3 Women”

Aug 122024

After hearing the sad news of Shelley Duvall’s passing, I decided to watch a few films from her filmography and started with 3 Women, released in 1977. Based on a dream writer/director Robert Altman had, the film follows Duvall and Sissy Spacek as their lives and identities intertwine in the California desert. Later a third woman played by Janice Rule, becomes more important in the pair’s world.

Using reflections, water, mirrors, mirrored actions, and twins, Altman creates a mysterious space for these women to inhabit. Adding to the unsettling energy of the film are a series of murals created by artist Bodhi Wind (Charles Kuklis).

It’s definitely worth a watch, with an ambiguous ending that has been subject to many interpretations.

NYC Art Shows- Aaron Zulpo at 1969 Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters

Jun 132024

Aaron Zulpo has captured the beauty and quiet of the desert in his enchanting paintings for California Deserts at 1969 Gallery.

From the gallery-

Following his relocation to California, Zulpo’s interest in landscape painting has expanded and become a pivotal aspect of his studio practice. This change has inspired a new series of sensitively observed landscape paintings of the American West. He begins his work in plein air during exploratory hikes through rugged desert terrain. Zulpo’s connection to the land imbues his paintings with a sense of reverence.

In California Deserts, the artist presents a series of recent paintings whose subjects range from the canyons of the Santa Ana Mountains, to the peaks of Mount San Jacinto, to the boulders and century-old Yuccas of Joshua Tree National Park. Zulpo captures the changing atmospheric and lighting conditions of the desert sky, as exemplified in works such as Quail Mountain Dust Storm and Joshua Tree with a Red Sky, bathed in golden, peach, and auburn tones that evoke the allure of the desert at sunset. Other paintings, such as Looking at Maze Loop from Quail Springs, highlight the uniquely expressive quality of cloudforms, which appear, at times, to mirror the craggy rocks below.

Drawing inspiration from early twentieth-century landscape painters, such as Rockwell Kent and the Canadian Group of Seven, Zulpo presents a serious and sustained engagement with the natural world. At the same time, he brings a twenty-first century environmental consciousness to the landscape tradition, calling attention to the inherent virtue and beauty of wild spaces and the need to preserve them.

In 2017, Aaron Zulpo and Johnny DeFeo co-founded The Guild of Adventure Painters. This non-profit organization aims to keep nature at the forefront of the arts by offering residency programs, community building initiatives, exhibitions and public events. Since its inception, The Guild of Adventure Painters has been dedicated to inspiring artists to immerse themselves in the outdoors, cultivating a deeper connection with nature and playing a vital role in its preservation.

This exhibition closes 6/15/24.

NYC Art Shows- Jean Francois Bouchard at Arsenal Contemporary

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Mar 092023

It’s the last few days to see Jean-François Bouchard’s Exile from Babylon at Arsenal Contemporary in NYC. The film in the back room of the gallery gives you a chance to see the people who are missing from the photos. Alone or in groups, they drift between the three screens among the vast open space of the desert.

From the press release-

For this new body of work, the Canadian artist documented a squatters’ camp in California. Driven by homelessness, drug addiction or libertarianism, some Americans choose to reject modern society – Babylon as they call it – to form unlikely communities of squatters and wanderers seeking collective refuge. On a decommissioned military base in the desert, the community photographed by Bouchard lives without any form of local government and without any basic services such as running water, electricity, or garbage removal. On inhospitable grounds, they established themselves in shanties, makeshift tents, shipping containers, crumbling recreational vehicles, and even dens dug into the ground.

For Exile from Babylon, Bouchard has elected to represent the community’s grueling reality metaphorically through a series of still life photographs of trees. Each is adorned with garbage and debris that were either thrown at them or carried through the harsh desert winds. Collectively, these surreal postapocalyptic scenes testify to vast disparities that exist in our modern societies and the quest of fascinating characters for a sense of fulfillment derived through absolute freedom and how it is acquired at a great personal sacrifice.

This exhibition closes 3/11/23