SITE131 | Abstract Now

Framing the World

In 1974, musician Elvis Presley released a cover of Chuck Berry’s song Promised Land about a man who left his home in Virginia for a chance of reinvention. The narrative of this toe tapper shares the story of a male protagonist trekking across the country to reach the promised land of Los Angeles, California. When he arrives, he calls his family back home and says “this is the promised land callin’.”

All of the works in Abstract Now come from artists and galleries in sunny Los Angeles, California. Artists Channing Hansen and Sara Issakharian have bases in Los Angeles, while native Texan and Brooklyn-based b. chehayeb’s works join the show from an LA gallery. SITE131 co-founder|curator Joan Davidow’s idea for Abstract Now was formed during an art venture to Los Angeles in summer 2021. The connections in the exhibition run deeper than geography, as all three artists engage in the visual vocabulary of abstraction and vibrant chromatic hues.

b. chehayeb’s works feature oil paintings on board. Applied in thick layers of flat paint, her abstractions feature color and minimal representation. The artist’s current work developed from her early practice of using personal objects and text to creatively portray memories. Her work illustrates difficult personal recollections and nostalgia associated with her childhood in small Texas towns. Take notice of her descriptive titles that suggest entrée into reading the forms. For example, in Four Summers (2020) you can almost see a tree-trunk form with moss and a bird, or you could also just as easily see abstract fields of color. Humor resonates in the form of two boots in Don’t Take Me to San Antonio (2021).

Channing Hansen, who was born, raised, and still lives in Los Angeles, grew up in a creative family of avant-garde artists and performers. His early exposures to performance, experimentation, and process influence his abstract fiber works. Hansen sources, processes and dyes the wool used in his knitted creations. Experimentations with algorithms are often used to guide each painting’s palette and design. The artist claims his wonderment with science and technology manifests in his handmade works. The wooden stretchers and frames also feature prominently through the painterly layer of knitted wool. Dyschromatopsia:Green (2021) presents a seemingly organic green ground with subtle inflections of brown diagonals, red dots, and bands with two azure, fruit-like forms. While we can easily read the surface and texture of the work as knitted yarn, this is undeniably meant to be read as a painting.

Sara Issakharian’s multi-media works are inspired by a blend of the artist’s experiences living in Iran, mythology, and diverse art historical references such as Persian miniatures, Francisco Goya, Arshile Gorky and Peter Paul Rubens. In her 15-foot-long painting, One-Trick Pony (2021), some type of battle is underway in densely-packed, Bosch-like swirl of abstraction, color, and deeply disturbing looks of pain on the faces of animal and humanoid forms. The canvas is balanced with sweeping gestural swirls of paint and soft pentimenti further revealing the artist’s hand. Take a moment to experience this monumental work from afar; and then delight in all of the rich details up close as they reveal themselves.

Abstract Now presents three exemplary artists pushing painting in new directions. Their works use abstraction and color to recount memories, generate algorithmic painting languages, and take us to fantastical visions of the world. To be sure, this exhibition celebrates an innovative generation of painters who are breaking new ground. We’re offered carefully orchestrated site lines of color and forms filled with life, mystery, and possibility. In closing, we may not all be looking for ways to escape our own daily realities, but spending time with these paintings coming out of LA offers moments to be present, and in the now.

Laurie Ann Farrell, Dallas-based art historian, curator & writer

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Sara Issakharian, <i>One-Trick Pony</i>, 2021, acrylic, ink, color pencil, soft pastel on paper

Sara Issakharian, One-Trick Pony, 2021, acrylic, ink, color pencil, soft pastel on paper

Sara Issakharian, <i>Veiled Innuendos</i>, 2021, acrylic, ink, color pencil, soft pastel on paper

Sara Issakharian, Veiled Innuendos, 2021, acrylic, ink, color pencil, soft pastel on paper

Sara Issakharian, <i>A Sigh in Twilight</i>, 2021, acrylic, ink, color pencil, soft pastel on paper

Sara Issakharian, A Sigh in Twilight, 2021, acrylic, ink, color pencil, soft pastel on paper

Sara Issakharian , <i>Storied Cloud</i>, 2021, acrylic, oil, pastel on linen

Sara Issakharian , Storied Cloud, 2021, acrylic, oil, pastel on linen

Channing Hansen, <i>Possible Physics</i>, 2021, California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Sriracha), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), Romeldale (January), Romedale (Saffron), and Romeldale (Qassiopeia) fibers; Mulberry silk, Tussah silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers; Sequoioideae Redwood

Channing Hansen, Possible Physics, 2021, California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Sriracha), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), Romeldale (January), Romedale (Saffron), and Romeldale (Qassiopeia) fibers; Mulberry silk, Tussah silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers; Sequoioideae Redwood

Channing Hansen, <i>Dyschromatopsia_Green</i>, 2021, California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), and Romeldale (January), Romedale (Saffron), fibers; Mulberry silk, Tussah silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers

Channing Hansen, Dyschromatopsia_Green, 2021, California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), and Romeldale (January), Romedale (Saffron), fibers; Mulberry silk, Tussah silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers 

Channing Hansen, <i>Binary Two Step</i>, 2021, California Variegated Mutant (Qassiopeia), California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Sriracha), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), Romeldale (January), and Romedale (Quenby); Mulberry silk, Tussah silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers

Channing Hansen, Binary Two Step, 2021, California Variegated Mutant (Qassiopeia), California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Sriracha), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), Romeldale (January), and Romedale (Quenby); Mulberry silk, Tussah silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers 

b chehayeb, <i>all my problems with flowers</i>, 2021, oil on panel

b chehayeb, all my problems with flowers, 2021, oil on panel

b chehayeb, <i>coyote</i>, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, coyote, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, <i>DON’T TAKE ME TO SAN ANTONIO</i>, 2021, oil on panel

b chehayeb, DON’T TAKE ME TO SAN ANTONIO, 2021, oil on panel

b chehayeb, <i>four summers</i>, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, four summers, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, <i>ghost of your dad above the corn fields in nazareth</i>, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, ghost of your dad above the corn fields in nazareth, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, <i>not from ny not from la</i>, 2020, oil on panel

b chehayeb, not from ny not from la, 2020, oil on panel