Goings on at the LA FRIEZE Art Fair

This year the event took place in the Beverly Hilton Hotel’s gardens, everyone bustling with excitement. The people themselves as beautifully and artfully dressed as the paintings.

Large scale paintings, sculptures and instillations throughout the fair. A standout work among the scene was Chris Burden’s Dreamers Folly, a sculptural installation made of cast-iron structure that looks like a dreamy gazebo one may encounter in a dream, with lace curtains and life size so visitors could walk through and perch. There was a lot of buzz in the air and people were excited to interact with the art. There was a mysterious purchase of this art instillation made on opening day, and will be going to Europe to be on display in a prominent institution which is yet to be discovered.

I was drawn to the figurative art work, like Kay Donachie, a working artist in London UK. She is known for her portraits of women, who denote a sense of timelessness, and ethereal while bold quality. They are portraits of women who are mostly inspired by real people from the early 20th Century, of avant-garde women in history who contributed to culture and to the arts. Often the portraits represent women who look into the frame, towards the viewer, like they are doing so in this painting.

Her work can be seen here:

https://www.maureenpaley.com/artists/kaye-donachie

Kay Donachie, *There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to*, 2005, oil on paper

Another beautiful portrait by Kehinde Wiley, “Portrait of Aissatou Dialo Gueye” was very striking. Wiley is an artist from LA now based in NY. His work blurs the line between contemporary and traditional, painting larger than life portraits, often a commentary on socio economic structures, he started his career by finding photos of young men found on the streets of Harlem, represented in far-reaching stylised Western Ideals….representing the “juxtaposition of the old world, inherited by the new. “ (http://kehindewiley.com).

His contemporary representation of the subjects are emphasised with flowery backgrounds and colourful bold colours, the gaze of the subject often toward the viewer and direct, exuding power and boldness. I think of how Georgia O’Keefe painted large scale flowers so that people would have to stop to notice them, and each one’s particular beauty.

His website:

http://kehindewiley.com

Kehinde Wiley “Portrait of Aissatou Dialo Gueye” (2020)

“Empire of Glass” by Maria Berrio was another work I really enjoyed.

“Based in Brooklyn, María Berrío grew up in Colombia. Her large-scale works, which are meticulously crafted from layers of Japanese paper, reflect on cross-cultural connections and global migration seen through the prism of her own history.” (https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/226-maria-berrio/) Often portraying women, her work represents a place which symbolises safety or refuge, in a kind of dreamy Utopia with colours and kaleidoscope images, almost as if she is searching for a space where all can be in harmony. The portraits she creates of women are often idealised, dreamy and ethereal versions focusing on the feminine rather than the actual flesh or materialised version of the feminine. Her work seems to offer respite, a creative and dreamy ethos filled with a feeling of hope and refuge, including nature and our surroundings and an embodiment of the feminine figurative work, rituals and how to face unsettling contexts and difficulties. .

Her website:

https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/226-maria-berrio/

Maria Berrio “Empire of Glass II” (2022)

Maria Berrio “Under Thatch and Autumn Star” (2022)

Danielle McKinney is another beautiful artist. She focuses on the solitary nature of her female protagonists, often portraying her subjects in moments of private reflection, when they are in leisurely narrative moments of their intimate life. Dreamlike spaces and ethereal reflections of self and Spirit, these moments are often placed in the domestic sphere of life. The work has a cinematic effect and uses the gaze to express these nuances symbiotically.

Her website:

https://daniellejmckinney.com/bio