An online journal about West Coast art
Read the Letter from the Editor to learn more about what you can expect from this space.
Reviews
Critical analyses of contemporary art
Emily Yong Beck: Spoonful of Sugar at New Image Art, Los Angeles
In Spoonful of Sugar, Emily Yong Beck asks: What is beneath the veil of beauty that we buy into?
The Casual Intimacy of Women Caring for Women: Anne Buckwalter at Friends Indeed and Rebecca Camacho Presents
In the two-venue exhibition, Buckwalter’s domestic scenes have a revolutionary proposition: what would a world of care and support for the needs of all women look like?
The Power of Discrete Things: Ricki Dwyer at Anglim/Trimble in San Francisco
Ricki Dwyer’s vast textiles and small sculptures examine the gravity of human relationships.
Flirting With the Uncontrollable: Peter Gronquist at Winston Wächter Fine Art in Seattle
Felted wool, steel, river rocks, and sound combine to illustrate the vulnerability of all life.
We Vessels of Existence: Jesse Mockrin at Night Gallery
Religious images question the multifaceted nature of human lives.
Who Do I Think I Am? Lynn Hershman Leeson at Altman Siegel
A multi-media artist on the West Coast gets up close and personal with their viewers, unsettling the notion of a fixed identity.
Sponsored Connections
Paid interviews with outstanding organizations in the West Coast art world
Sponsored Connection | Christine Miller: Syrup on Watermelon at Portland Art Museum Reviewed
Portland artist Christine Miller turns historical racist imagery into tools for Black liberation and love.
Sponsored Connection | Diedrick Brackens & D’Angelo Lovell Williams: The Quick at lumber room Reviewed
Two artists collaborate to explore kinship, multigenerational learning, and community.
Sponsored Connection: Maya Vivas / Ori Gallery
Ori Gallery (Portland, OR) offers artists the space they need to be creative.
Sponsored Connection: devynn emory
devynn emory invites people to engage with grief, death, and community.
Sponsored Connection: Nat Turner Project
Nat Turner Project (Portland, OR) is a fugitive, migratory space working to end the precarity of Black life.
Sponsored Connection: Converge 45
Converge 45 (Portland, OR) is building an organization where curators and artists can work together.
Interviews
Intimate conversations with artists about their life, work, and interests
Surreal Society: Marika Thunder Interviewed
Class, tradition, gender roles, race, and celebrity take center stage in Marika Thunder’s exhibition at de boer gallery in Los Angeles
Theaters for Frankensteins: Yuyang Zhang Interviewed
Yuyang Zhang’s paintings and digital collages offer cultural commentary through memes, Chinese-American culture, and dark humor.
Art of Glass: Emily Endo Interviewed
Through scientific discovery and mysticism, Emily Endo explores the possibility of glass.
A Condemned Building Gets a Last Breath of Life Through Sacramento Artists: Faith J. McKinnie, Liv Moe, Molly Stroud, and Genesis “The Mayor” Torres Interviewed
Four curators and thirty-five artists transform a soon-to-be demolished building in Sacramento’s rapidly gentrifying Ice Blocks district.
How Technology Feels: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Interviewed
In a bilingual conversation, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Sofía Córdova question the human relationship with technology.
Finding Meaning in Forgotten Objects: Pamela Ramos Interviewed
Found objects give intimate clues to the lives of strangers, and are given new lives as artworks.
Love Letters
Micro essays on artists we can’t stop thinking about
Love Letter to Ben Cuevas
Fiber sculptures explore gendered constructs, feminist ideologies, and the restraints of the body.
Love Letter to Julie Green
An Oregon-based educator and artist inspires her students to find beauty in everything.
Love Letter to Kenjiro Nomura
A Seattle-based painter captures 1930s Seattle, Japanese Internment, grief, loss, and recovery—all with his brush.
Love Letter to Essie Somma
A painter challenges the traditional approach to classical painting through vice, intimacy, and the quotidian.
Love Letter to Jeannene Przyblyski
A Bay Area-based educator inspired students to look harder, ask deeper questions, and to take a stand.
Love Letter to Carlson Hatton
A Los Angeles-based painter’s ripples in time on canvas immerse his viewers in another world.
Pairings
Art that makes us think of food and food that makes us think of art
Immersive Frida Kahlo & Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino
What do blockbuster immersive art exhibits and junk food have in common?
Raúl Guerrero & Mexican food in the United States
Raúl Guerrero’s paintings of food celebrate the Mexican-American experience.
Nasim Hantezadeh and summer stone fruit
An LA-based artist’s biomorphic works on paper evoke the vocabulary of food.
Jim Shaw and The Apple Pan’s egg salad sandwich
The globby Americana of Jim Shaw paintings and an overstuffed egg salad sandwich.
Wayne Thiebaud & Ghia’s Le Spritz
Wayne Tiebaud’s distinctly Californian sense of lighting and the perfect non-alcoholic aperitif.
The Why
Stories about what inspires West Coast creatives
John Baldessari and Bad Photography
Seattle-based photographer Natalie Krick on making her own rules about good photography.
An Endless Pursuit to Describe the World in Watercolor
Artist Alexa Grambush uses painting to understand the world and its complexities.
Aaron Shurin’s Poetic Punctuation
A writer discusses how an unlikely combination of punctuation changed his writing forever.
Tom Friedman’s 1000 Hours of Staring
How a blank piece of paper inspired Variable West’s founder to be an art critic and writer.
Write for us
We cover art in California, Oregon, and Washington, but encourage pitches from anywhere.
Check our Call for Pitches page to learn about all our formats.