Susie McKay Krieser and Yrneh Gabon

One Mask, One Love, One Heart

2021

Throughout a year of suffering and isolation caused by the pandemic, One Mask, One Love, One Heart focuses on the idea of “oneness.” Despite the separation of humans, these portraits bring light to the unity and togetherness of people no matter the distance. Specifically documenting the community of artists of 18th Street Arts Center, this photomontage reflects on how artwork and human compassion can be a strong force towards social change.

Special thanks to the participants: Luciana Abait, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Michael Ano, Jeff Beall, M Susan Broussard, Henriette Brouwers, Yrneh Gabon Brown, Frida Cano, Gregg Chadwick, Sara Daleiden, Alexandra Dillon, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Susie McKay Krieser, Dan Kwong, John Malpede, Ameeta Nanji, Lionel Popkin, Elham Sagharchi, Sultan Sharrief, Susan Suntree, Dan S. Wang, Ni’Ja Whitson, Joan Wulf, and Sue Bell Yank.

Recovery Justice: Being Well is generously supported by Art of Recovery, an initiative of the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, with additional support from Los Angeles County’s WE RISE LA program. Sara Daleiden’s residency and facilitation work on these projects is generously supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Bailiwik is also a supporting partner on this exhibition.

Luciana Abait

Mattress from Displacement Series

2020

Mattress displays a very simple scene in which a flight map used by is labeled “restricted,’ indicating the areas where pilots are not authorized to fly. This word symbolizes the inhumane immigration policies that governments have been using against citizens from other nations who are searching for a new and safe life. The mattress, without a bed, may evoke refugees sleeping next to a restricted border; those suffering through the global pandemic without access to healthcare; or those affected by the housing crisis in the city of Los Angeles who go without a safe place to sleep at night.

Lola del Fresno

The innocents (save a million lives)

2021

The piece The innocents (save a million lives) reflects all of us coming together across the globe, lining up to receive vaccines and protect ourselves against COVID-19, this terrible disease that has disrupted life at all levels. The figures in this piece remind us of past “crusades” against disease when our communities have come together in the name of public health, such as the fight to eradicate polio in prior generations. Also depicted are the symbols of our vulnerability and isolation during this time; the home, masks, the urge to protect our children and families, and revelations about the inequity of our systems.

Recovery Justice: Being Well is generously supported by Art of Recovery, an initiative of the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, santamonica.gov/arts/artofrecovery.

Additional support comes from Los Angeles County’s WE RISE LA program. Sara Daleiden’s residency and facilitation work on these projects is generously supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Bailiwik is also a supporting partner on this exhibition.

Lionel Popkin

Room to Look Up? George Floyd 8:46

2021

Index cards, hooks, fishing line, wood, fabric and black light

Courtesy of the artist

Raised in Indiana to an Indian mother and a Jewish father, Popkin’s identity has inspired his work as it has placed him in a position to question racial and social issues and the injustices that have occurred in American history. In the installation Room to Look Up? George Floyd 8:46 the viewer must first bow their head, as if an act of contrition, in order to enter the space. Once inside, a release of conformed tension is achieved by raising one’s head up in order to read the note cards overhead.

Recovery Justice: Being Well

"Being Well" is what we seek together as neighbors, and recalls one of the central guiding principles of the City of Santa Monica, the notion of "wellbeing" as key to civic health. Recovery Justice: Being Well aims to highlight the recent circumstances that have evolved during the pandemic (racial justice demonstrations and destruction, as well as social discontent and general disconnection) into a series of self-organized artist projects that merge the exterior and interior public spaces.

Particpating artists include: Sara Daleiden, Nicola Goode, Susie McKay Krieser, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, M Susan Broussard, Lionel Popkin, Yrneh Gabon, Lola del Fresno, Debra Disman, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Gregg Chadwick, Luciana Abait, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Rebecca Youssef, and Dan S. Wang.

The artists' projects as part of Recovery Justice: Being Well is generously supported by the City of Santa Monica's Art of Recovery program, with additional support from Los Angeles County's WE RISE 2021 program. Sara Daleiden's residency and facilitation work on these projects is generously supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Bailiwik is also a supporting partner of this exhibition.

Melinda Smith Altshuler

Ascension, Suspension to Cultural Blindness/Correcting Vision

2021

Color photos on vinyl

Courtesy of the artist

Ascension, Suspension to Cultural Blindness/Correcting Vision highlights how words and intentions can be altered despite those who may be dependent upon them. These small-scale photographs depict the tents of shelters in Los Angeles, while juxtaposing larger images of bathrooms, a human necessity. Suspended and tied together, chairs symbolize the unstable condition of being unhoused.

Debra Disman

I Smile At You With My Eyes

2020

Corrugated cardboard, magazine pages, adhesive

Courtesy of the artist

Created from hundreds of three-dimensional colored circles on corrugated cardboard, I Smile At You With My Eyes transforms into a painted relief. Reflecting on the notion that during the current state of the pandemic, faces are covered by masks and one can still smile with one’s eyes allowing for smiles to be present and seen.

Debra Disman

Womb

2020

Plastic, canvas, jute cord, archival adhesive

Courtesy of the artist

This experimental installation is designed to produce support and protection for those who choose to step inside, by creating a space in which the viewer can become a participant as well as a momentary inhabitant. Womb is assembled with jute cord, a material that envelopes those who wish to enter. In doing so, a shift in mindset is evoked as well as a feeling of greater freedom upon emerging.

Gregg Chadwick

H.E.R. (The Idea of America)

2021

Oil on linen

Courtesy of the artist

The singer, songwriter, and actress, originally born Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, now known by the acronym H.E.R., serves as the subject of this portrait by Chadwick. Through her creative persona H.E.R., she abdicates her original identity in exchange for one that is intended to be a voice for all women. This portrait offers a glimpse of the energetic moment she performed “America, the Beautiful” at Super Bowl LV.

Yrneh Gabon

Out of Many One

2019

Mixed Media

Courtesy of the artist

The title, Out of Many One is based on the Jamaican motto “out of many one people,” which speaks to the different ethnic groups that live in Jamaica as one community. Simultaneously, the United States’ traditional motto of “E Pluribus Unum” is an exact translation of this phrase in Latin. And so, Gabon’s Out of Many One, while making reference to the artist’s nation of origin, turns the lens on the United States’ call to build a wall at the Mexico/US border. Children’s shoes symbolize the children currently at the border of the U.S. and placed into camps separated from their parents, demanding attention for a much needed global concern and conversation involving immigration.

Luciana Abait

The maps that failed us

2018, 2021

Maps of the world and cardboard boxes

Courtesy of the artist

The maps that failed us depicts a map of the world, enlarged and reconfigured. The adaptation allows one to view the imagery of geography and nature from a new perspective. It is intended to encourage conversation surrounding the complex relationship between humans and the natural environment by emphasizing countries that are affected by climate change and natural disasters.

M Susan Broussard

Stars and Stripes

2020

Oil on canvas triptych and mixed media

Courtesy of the artist

Stars and Stripes reflects the historical monument Mount Rushmore, while examining the controversy of this national monument in a new light. With the political, racial, and social changes of 2020, this triptych questions the meaning and influence of landmarks such as this. To learn more about the project visit www.ushistoryforgotten.com

Lola del Fresno

RUN JONNY RUN

2021

Mixed media installation, acrylic on paper, and video projection

Courtesy of the artist

Lola del Fresno’s work, Run Jonny Run, tells a thousand tales–about a person, about a community, and about a country. One in which the simple act of running at night, can become a death sentence for an African American.

While the visuals–a red house suggesting danger lined by a fence of perpetual prejudice–allude to the killings of Treyvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbrey, the audio component of Run Jonny Run is focused on breath, making a direct correlation to the stolen life of George Floyd.

Gregg Chadwick

Nikole Hannah-Jones (The Idea of America)

2021

Oil on linen

Courtesy of the artist

Chadwick’s portrait of Nikole Hannah-Jones offers a striking image of an investigative journalist of United States civil rights. Hannah-Jones is a staff writer for The New York Times and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2017. Her creation of the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project won her a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.

Lionel Popkin

Six Positions on Uncertainty

2020

Video. 6’ 23”

Courtesy of the artist

The video symbolizes a developed ritual to aid in both grounding oneself as well as working through the idea of social isolation due to the pandemic. This practice includes physical gestures and positions that assist in a process of mindfulness, to seek stability amidst uncertainty. The work focuses on the relationship between body and space.

Rebecca Youssef

The Sowing Imperative

2021

Photographs, mixed media on recycled grocery bags

Courtesy of the artist

The concept of growing and protecting nature amidst the recent decline of wildlife protection is the subject of The Sowing Imperative, a collection of works that contrasts devastating environmental changes, such as climate change, wildfires, and disease, to the growing process of acorns and trees. Despite the environmental destruction that is present in today’s society, Youssef focuses on the nurturing of wildlife, and a hope for natural development and new beginnings that will bring forth a positive change.

Melinda Smith Altshuler

Ascension, Suspension to Cultural Blindness/Correcting Vision

2020 - 2021

Framed color inkjet prints, bound wood chairs, black twine, electric cords, antique hook

Courtesy of the artist

Susie McKay Krieser and Yrneh Gabon

Twenty-four Seven

2021

Video. 1’ 38”

Courtesy of the artists

A cacophony of ticking clocks alludes to parallel times both before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The video Twenty-four Seven makes both figurative and literal allusions to the fast-paced lives led and the immediate shut down the world had to face in March 2020.

Amid all of this ticking, there are only a few things in life of which one can be sure--the constancy of change. While reminding us of the changes over the last year, this video offers a message of hope. Our lives will change, and happiness will replace fear and death.

Debra Disman and Luciana Abait

drift

2020

Unique artists’ book

9.73 x 68” when completely stretched open.

Archival pigment prints, cotton rag paper, acid-free watercolor paper, pencil, acrylic, linen thread, and pH neutral PVA adhesive based off images that are photo-based collages worked over with pencils and pastels to nearly erase the original image, then made into prints which were enhanced with drawing, stitched, and adhered to archival watercolor paper touched in with acrylics.

Courtesy of the artists

The accordion fold embodied by drift symbolizes the iceberg in nature, an object that is heavily affected by the destruction humans inflict on the natural world. The environmental deterioration brought about by the human control of ecological systems is specifically emphasized in this landscape of ice. While the work compares object and landscape, it highlights the relationship between humans and nature, asking one to focus on the permanent effects of climate change and its influence on one’s personal experience.

Susie McKay Krieser and Yrneh Gabon

One Mask, One Love, One Heart

2021

Archival pigment ink on archival rag paper giclee

Courtesy of the artists

Nicola Goode with Sara Daleiden

Board-Ups 2020

2021

Salvaged street art plywood, photographic prints and posters

Site specific installation

Thank you to City of Santa Monica and Downtown Santa Monica for salvaged boards

Salvaged, painted plywood boards, originally installed along of the storefronts of Santa Monica’s business district during the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings are collaged here along with photo documentation by Goode to create an archive of a local movement of civil protest. With Board-Ups, Goode with Daleiden shed light on what became a global response to the murder of George Floyd and chronicle the historic expression of street art that is so often fleeting.

Deborah Lynn Irmas

Hymns to the Silence

2020 - 2021

Collage, digital print, poster paper, acrylic, twine, yarn

Courtesy of the artist

A collage with repeating geometric shapes and colors, Hymns to the Silence reflects the current state of the world in terms of the vast amount of daily information that is received in today’s society. It can be a complex process to analyze the information that is dispersed during the state of the pandemic; art can be a way for one to be conscious of mindfulness.

Dan S. Wang

Everyday Savings

2005, 2021

Cardboard, acrylic, and frame

Courtesy of the artist

This sculpture reflects on the idea of buying and selling everyday necessities, and how this relates to the recent rioting and looting of upscale retail stores in May 2020. Created from the surplus material of Aldi stores’ cardboard boxes, Everyday Savings symbolizes the change to the consumer market, and the connection between the looting as an exchange of goods.