Past Exhibitions
The Wild
2024
Walnut, stainless steel, felt, wool, cotton, pigmented porcelain, dyed nylon
72 x 20 x 5 inches
It was still a good way to live a life
Ariel Herwitz
Opening Sunday, October 13, 2024
Reception from 3-5pm
It was still a good way to live a life
Remarking on a walk
Where reflection and question
Flow so easily
Through the various steps of a life,
While hopscotching a particularly uneven pass.
Could I have done it differently,
Given the cards I was dealt?
Could I have made more of it
Than the couple of nice meals per month?
It is slippery here,
And as I push and strain to gain
Elevation, it occurs to me:
Were I not so inherently
Lazy, I could have accomplished much more.
I make note of the guy passing me,
His thoughtless, easy whistle,
Apple Watch ticking away against his
Caloric count.
I really should have done more today.
I slept in till 7 (really it was nearly 8),
Dallied away the hours till lunch,
Mostly just thinking of what I
Should have completed by now.
Aaah, but the…
Wait, what about the…
Stop.
I’ve got it.
Ah shit, nope, I lost the thread.
It probably would’ve been better
Had I taken up running, or pilates, or
something adventurous like rock climbing.
Surely that would have jumpstarted
everything else great I should have
accomplished.
Certainly, this fatness hanging off all the sides
of me would be gone and with it,
huzzah, accomplishment!
Admiration! The joy of this life bursting
through me! Yes!
[Or perhaps better still had I
Created an organization to help the needy, or
fed the hungry,
Or saved the war-torn.
If I invented the cure for some deadly,
Proliferating disease.
If I bore from the land a cruelty-free,
earth-replenishing crop to save us all.
Yes, that would be better still.]
I thought I laughed with the best of them,
That I learned and taught, that I ate and
shared the bounty.
But I am most certainly wrong.
Don’t you agree?
I could have done it better.
Ariel Herwitz (born 1983, Atlanta, GA.) earned a B.A. in Visual Art from Bennington College, and an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She lives between Pomona, CA. and the Pioneer Mountains of central Idaho. Her most recent solo exhibition was at Brittany, in Vallejo, CA. She has shown extensively throughout Los Angeles at Guest House LA, The Landing, Ochi, BBQLA, Marine Projects, Loudhailer Gallery, Greene Exhibitions, Ambach and Rice, Elevator Mondays, Four Six One Nine, and Left Field Gallery (San Luis Obispo, CA.).
OUT & ABOUT
Tim Power
September 8 - October 6, 2024
Reception: Sunday, September 8, 3-5 PM
Out & About, the debut solo painting show of Tim Power opens Sunday, September 8th at Alto Beta with a reception from 3-5PM. Tim’s work is enigmatic, erudite, sly, and fun. Painting has served as an oblique practice to his activity as a writer and it is such a pleasure to put these lean and thoughtful pictures on display.
Tim Power was born in San Francisco, CA in 1960. He received a BFA (1986) and an MFA (1988) in Art from the California Institute of the Arts. He paints and writes in Los Angeles. This is his first show.
Artist Statement
My visual work is influenced by the pictogrammatic aspect of signage. I seek to establish a syntax of imagery, a discourse between shapes and colors that sit together well, but with a little friction. I approach my painting as a stubborn kind of puzzle solver. I feel my work aligns with the California hard-edge movement, the art of Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, June Harwood, and Susan Kiefer, with a figurative bias. I choose titles that are oddly resonant and encourage imaginative associations, but there aren’t any intentional narratives at play except for what speaks to the process of artmaking.
(left)
RE Proust, 2020
Acrylic on paper, mounted on board
18 x 24 inches
FLOTSAM
Lorraine Heitzman
June 23 - July 21, 2024
Reception Sunday, June 23, 3-5 PM
FLOTSAM was born out of my habit of collecting. Seaweed and driftwood litter the beaches in Northern California and consequently, after visits to the coast, many curiosities come home with me. This body of work juxtaposes natural objects with wood scraps and thrift store finds that are minimally altered and presented in new contexts. The joy for me is in the arranging, and the endgame is transformation. These sculptures have their own logic apart from their origins. They are necessarily simple so that the focus stays on the beauty and specific attributes of the materials. The interactions between objects are meant to emphasize their inherent qualities, and to make sculptures that generate new meanings for the viewer. The supporting armatures, frames, and pedestals were either handmade by myself or designed and fabricated by others, but a high level of craftmanship is not important to me. In these works there are conversations with Brancusi, Saul Steinberg, a host of modernist painters, designers, architects and the art of Ikebana, in short an amalgamation of many voices like the flotsam that washes up on the shore.
Born in New York, Lorraine briefly attended Goddard College and the Art Students League before transferring to Philadelphia College of Art where she earned her BFA in sculpture. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1980, studying with many of the Chicago Imagists, including Karl Wirsum and Ray Yoshida. Upon graduating she was recognized with a Traveling Fellowship for her sculpture and was awarded an Illinois Completion Grant. In Chicago she exhibited and was represented by the Nancy Lurie Gallery, and was included in shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Chicago Cultural Center, and Navy Pier. She also curated Interiors for Randolph Street Gallery and later returned to the Midwest for an artist residency at Oxbow. More recently, in Los Angeles she has had solo shows with Shoebox Projects, Pierce College Art Gallery, Winslow Garage and Curve, Line, Space. In 2019 she curated Ineffable at Keystone Gallery, and Re-Iterate at Launch Gallery in 2023. She has shown in group shows at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum, 643 Project Space, in Ventura and Tryst. Lorraine has lived in Eagle Rock, CA since 2011 and divides her time between her studio, exhibiting, and writing for art publications. She also takes on curatorial projects that bridge these two practices.
Robert Gunderman
13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
May 11 - June 9, 2024
13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is an exhibition of 13 contemporary artists working with abstraction in painting, sculpture, and ceramics. The title is taken from a poem by Wallace Stevens which is comprised of 13 taut, evocative stanzas, each with an image of a blackbird within. And just to get it out of the way, there are actually 15 artists in the show. 🤷♂️
Steven’s classic, modernist poem has been evoked because it demonstrates with skill and economy how varied the mind and senses can experience even a single, simple image. In a word- subjectivity. Contemporary art practice and abstraction itself are neither singular nor simple. Even with the variety of mediums and approaches represented in the show, only a sliver of a healthy forest is represented here. Like Stevens, some of the artists in the show simplify or alter nature to poetic ends. Others, abstract cultural sources. Some find an abstract result by focusing on the characteristics of their materials and process.
In addition to the theme of abstraction, the work in this show has been selected because of its quality. The quality of an art objective is often what makes it stand out. Consensus sometime occurs, but this estimation of aesthetic value remains beautifully mysterious and subjective. Artwork of high quality, regardless of medium or subject… just seems to float or hover a bit.
Artists:
Arlette Apelian, Heather Brown, Tomory Dodge, Jay Erker, Treasure Frey, Sean Gin, Robert Gunderman, Andrés Janacua, Regina Herod, Jotham Hung, Jason Meadows, John Mills, Antonio Puleo, Nadine Schelbert, Pilar Wiley
GRACE EUNCHONG LEE
Nature Abounds
April 7 - May 5, 2024
Grace actualizes organic and geological processes through her meditative drawing practice - each work is a beautiful discovery and no two are the same.
Grace Eunchong Lee was born in Incheon, South Korea in 1988. She received a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2014. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and this is her second solo show with Alto Beta.
Join us for the opening reception Sunday, April 7, 3-5pm, with a musical performance by Brian Randolph from 3-3:30.
GRACE EUNCHONG LEE
Working on multiple drawings at once, the formal aspects are tangentially connected yet each is completely individual. The accumulation of many ordinary moments layered on top and next to each other eventually produces the final image.
Largely unplanned and always a complete surprise in the end, the drawings are an exercise in phenomenology and solitary contemplation. As much as the mind determines the process, the process gives back a visual report of the internal state, in an unending harmonious cycle.
Errors are seen as gateways to new potentialities. There are no specific ties to any external references. I find Pollock’s quote, “I do not paint nature. I am nature.” especially resonant for my process and this body of work.