Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Kristen Huizar: Fragments from the Floating World
September 14 – September 29, 2024
Third Street Gallery, Pomona, CA
Artist Kristen Huizar’s visual diary spills open in the form of five works mounted in a storefront-turned-gallery in Downtown Pomona. All wax pastel on gessoed, clear vinyl, each drawing is fiercely intimate in its portrayal of her quotidian life—her elongated body stretching atop crumpled bedding, a selfie with plant tendrils, a kitchen drying rack full of clean dishes. Huizar’s autobiographical meditations often play on perspective, creating a shared sense of self between artist and viewer. We are, all at once, Huizar, her iPhone, and ourselves, too.
Back in the gallery, the narrow space beckons the viewer to take a closer look. The tactility and softness of chalk pastels further nurture this feeling of shared selfhood. Each mark contributes to an atmospheric haze that blurs the lines of reality to create a sort of embodied sense of space where we as viewers are physically present within her seemingly mundane yet totally surreal world.
Of the five works on view, only one places the viewer in a worm’s eye perspective. This Is No Halo (2024) depicts Huizar in a black bra and underwear and one white, mid-calf sock. She stares down at the viewer with an expression that is a little hard to read. Here, the viewer is aware of themselves as an individual observer. We’re not her, but we are in her space. Ultimately, this is Huizar’s world and we’re just living in it.
Reflection: What does your diary look like?
Fulcrum Arts and Chapman University present: Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific
September 15, 2024 – January 19, 2025
Guggenheim Gallery & Packing Plant at Chapman University, Orange, CA
One of about seventy PST-related exhibitions in Southern California, Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific takes vibrations and their subsequent waves as the point of departure for an eclectic group of international artists geographically connected by the swirling waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Through video, sound, fibers, machines, objects, structures, and works on paper, the viewer is transported to various stretches of the Pacific: the Tottori Dunes of Japan, the Andean mountains of Northern Chile and Northwest Argentina, and L.A.’s own iconic river. This notion of vibrations, be it sonic, tectonic, or gravitational, mine the ever-growing interconnectedness between energy sources.
In more ways than one, I found myself in David Haines and Joyce Hinterding’s anechoic chamber in the Packing Plant at Chapman University. Dubbed Telepathy (2018), this geometric, sensory deprivation-like prism is internally clad in foam cones that block sound and electromagnetic radiation while absorbing the heat and energy radiating off of our bodies. The result is eerie. I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt connected to the sounds and sensations of my body in that way—the ringing in my ears, my bellowing pulse, my feet hot and heavy like bricks. I wondered if a person stayed long enough, would they be able to hear the blood coursing through their veins? If you find out, please let me know.
Reflection: What are the invisible forces that shape your life?