Ever wondered if others see you the same way you see yourself? Now’s your chance to find out.

Inspired by the body positivity project, “Perceive Me,” by artist Kristine Schomaker, Perceive Me Redux offers you the chance to rediscover yourself through the eyes of an artist. Strip down and get the naked truth in a 25 minute nude portrait session with 6 artists, who will each sketch your likeness. Purchase your favorite sketch (or sketches!) for $25 each. Any unpurchased sketches will be exhibited and sold at the Fair.  Artists receive 100% of sales from their drawings.

*Portrait sessions are free, available on a first-come first-served basis, and will take place in an private studio setting with changing room onsite at the Fair. (Ages 18+ only.)

Aperire :: April
Curated by Susan Savory
Opening Reception: Thursday April 4 2024 6:00 to 9:30p.m.
Musical Performance: The Eyeball Cowboys
Exhibition: April 4 – 28, 2024
The Makery, 260 S. Los Angeles St, LA, 90012
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays
Hours 12 - 6 PM
The AAC invites you to experience an assembly of artists, ranging from emerging to well established.
Artists: Judith Amdur, Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin, Victoria Arriola, Diane Behrens, April Bermudez, Katy Bishop, Ed Burgess, Kelly Cayuela, Crescent Cheng, Fred Chuang, Trevor Coopersmith, Aleka Corwin, Judith Delgado, Arda Derian, Pascaline Doucin-Dahlke, Pam Douglas, Lore Eckelberry, Linda Estrada, Michael Feldman, Gwen Freeman, Charlene Mason Gallegos, Steve Graziani, Laura Haycraft, Peter Hess, Heather Hoggan, Shirley Huang, Deborah Jansen, Sharon Jeffers, Yvonne Jongeling, SaonKashem, Kaoru Kuribayashi, Shannon LaBaw, Kenji Liu, Edna Lopez, Monica Marks, Victoria Ester Orantes, Diane Pond, Robin Potash, Christine Prentice, Alan Pulner, Katherine Rohrbacher, Susan Savory, sewingwater, Gilly Shaeffer, Roderick Smith, Lisa Tomczeszyn, Anne Tryba, Suzanne Urquiza and Olesya Volk

Aperire :: April is made possible, through the generous support of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, LA County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan, the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program and the Immordino Charitable Foundation
Presented in partnership with the Los Angeles Makery.

"Whether walking in a garden, planting your own, receiving them from friends or lovers, viewing delicious Renaissance flower paintings or walking through the flower market in DTLA, flowers bring joy and happiness to our internal and external worlds. Flowers are symbols of strength, longevity, grace, balance and abundance. We need more flowers right now. I want to fill the Shoebox Projects space with flowers." Kristine Schomaker, Curator

Featured Artists: Shula Arbel, Nurit Avesar, Zadie Baker, Jane Bauman, Holly Boruck, Patricia Branstead, Anne M Bray, Rachel Bunteman, Corinne Cobabe, Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja, S. Emily de Araujo, Estefania Farias, Liz Flynn and Alyssa Arney, Dellis Frank, Carole Goldman, Damien Gossett, Tara Graviss White, Edwin Grundman, Karen Hochman Brown, Alison Hyman, Nicola Katsikis, Amanda Koger, Cristi Lyon, Monica R Marks, Katrina McElroy, Rena McInerney Olk, Martha Meade, Lauren Mendelsohn Bass, Masha Metamorph, Katie Middleton, Kris Moore, Heather Morrow, Marisa Murrow, Melanie Nolen, Caley O'Dwyer, Jennifer Ogden, Julie O'sullivan, Lark Larisa Pilinsky, Melissa Reischman, Katherine Rohrbacher, Terry Romero Paul, Annie Seaton, Shilla Shakoori, Karen Sikie, Phoebe Silva, Mahara Sinclaire, Elizabeth Souza, Nancy Spiller, Barbara Spiller, Carol Steinberg, Emily Sudd, Debbi Swanson Patrick, Kira Vollman, Robin Ward, Liberty Worth

Famed photographer, photojournalist, and filmmaker, Eric Minh Swenson (EMS), has assembled a group of contemporary artists and handed the list to YVArts curator, Michael McCall to present the artists as FRIENDS OF EMS.  This is a broad look at contemporary artworks created for the purpose of expression and exhibition.  EMS selected over 20 artists of various disciplines including  painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, performance, video, and street art.

Solo exhibition at PranaYoga Gallery in Fort Wayne, IN.

Contemporary artists will display new work using experimental materials and techniques in fabrics, fibers, textiles, weaving, works on paper and needlepoint. The exhibition will feature emerging and established regional, national and international contemporary artists.

Works will include textiles rooted in traditional and contemporary approaches to fiber art. Fiber art practices have a regional historical significance within our local craft history.

In today’s contemporary technologically fueled world, textile artists are finding new ways to work with traditional materials, creating a dialog with the past and reflecting the significance of contemporary cluture on our lives today. This work is the fine art that becomes part of families and individuals everyday lives, helping them to find a look that aligns with their taste, making that a part of their home and life.

This exhibition featured 200 Indiana artists whose work celebrates Indiana's people, places, and things. This exhibit honors the State of Indiana’s 200th birthday and is endorsed by the State of Indiana’s Bicentennial Committee.

Featuring the paintings of Katherine Rohrbacher and the ceramic art of Elizabeth Wamsley. Both artists were influenced by their midwest roots and their time spent in California, their work showing parallel themes of self discovery and regeneration in their respective mediums.

Los Angeles based artist Katherine Rohrbacher’s current body of self-portraiture balances dual elements of whimsy and foreboding. Drawing imagery from fairy tales such as “Alice in Wonderland” and animal folklore, Rohrbacher inserts herself as subject as well as artist of her own personal myth. Overlayed with glitter amidst flourishes of ornate damask and floral patterns reminiscent of vintage wallpapers, Rohrbacher’s portraits lead viewers on a tour of different facets of her identity. Color and pattern serve as vehicles of communication for vignettes of thoughts, memories, and experiences - a great source of which is Rohrbacher’s own daily experience with lupus, the commonly described “invisible disease.”

In works such as “Lupine Reflection,” Rohrbacher portrays herself in black and white, faded within a sea of colorful floral wallpaper while wearing the mask of a wolf. The wolf appears in several of her works - making reference to the original Latin roots for “lupus,” as the wolf's bite was once thought to be the harbinger of the disease. In other works, such as “Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum,” Rohrbacher addresses the split nature of self. Reminiscent of Frida Kahlo’s double self portrait, “Two Fridas,” both faces look outward from the reflection of two swinging mirrored doors, each facing the other as though in conversation.

MIRROR | MIRROR explores the power of perception, using motifs of fantasy and reality to illustrate the indistinct line between one’s self and one’s public persona. As Pablo Picasso was once quoted, “Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?” So too does Rohrbacher pose the question of what it means to create a truly accurate self-portrayal.

Human sexuality is the most essential biological urge of humankind, driving us to procreate in order to survive as a species. As we have evolved, sex has taken on new twists and turns, thrusting itself into all aspects of our lives. As sex evolved into recreation, the art of creation has to.

Sex sells, sex is craven. As the lowest common denominator of all decision-making, sex permeates the primal subconscious of our consumer needs. If it stimulates, it will sell. There's an appetite, and we want it gratified. We want it shiny. We want it sleek. We want it exciting. They call it the wet look, because it makes you wet. All advertising is driven by sex. And so is art.

Artists of all disciplines try to emulate godliness through creating, an exercise of procreation that arouses the primal instincts into producing work that ultimately sustains life. The life of an artist is to create work that is validated not just by the self, but through criticism and ultimately, the market place. The ultimate payoff is to win over both academia and commerce, with a legacy payoff to achieve an orgasmic destiny.

In death, all artists want glory. The glory of death is the riches of life, and by making it rich, the artist strives to become a God in his lifetime. By living a full life, artists make love to the world, and those notches on their belts are their legacy. The glory of life will be measured by how much and how well you made love with it. "Was it good?" will be the first thought upon your death.

Artists are primal, sex sells, and human form is expression of ourselves and of our gods. Driven by domination, enslavement, inspiration, and empowerment, my NUDE SURVEY curatorial series is a documentation of the human form under all disciplines. It is life exposed in its glorious form, naked and raw, polished and supple, wet and warm. Everyone wants to suck from the spring of life.

NUDE SURVEY is a continuing curatorial series that is a celebration of you and your soul. It’s about creation in its most purest-naked sense. It’s about your godliness, which I ultimately believe you and your work are worth celebrating.

EMS

Poet Ovid pronounces in book one of his mythological epic, “Metemorpheses” - “I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities.” Here, artist Katherine Rohrbacher provides a modern meditation on transformation, posing the question of what it means to change -- whether artificially or naturally. In an era where physical perfection is held paramount, the lengths to which individuals may go to edit both bodily imperfections and age, is a 21st century crusade. Rohrbacher’s large format paintings offer a confrontational view of surface beauty. Charcoal and oil self-portraits offer a glimpse of the psychological impact of surgery in a series titled “Nose Job,” as Rohrbacher presents her own likeness as the face of change. Motifs of decaying roses and ceramic butterflies encircle other works, addressing metamorphosis directly, while illustrating the fragile, brief circle of life. A gallery installation featuring live flowers in jars that trace the actual dimensions of a casket will accompany Rohrbacher’s paintings and ceramic works for the duration of the exhibition, mirroring the same delicate stages of life and death that she confronts in her work.

24 Moon paintings by Nina Glaser and Katherine Rohrbacher created with their bodies.