Fantastical Landscapes from Frieze Los Angeles and Felix Art Fair
Scenes that envision a world as only an artist can
With renewed exuberance, Frieze Los Angeles and Felix Art Fair opened their doors last week; the former within sprawling tents across from The Beverly Hilton hotel, the latter in the corridors of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. Frieze, an acclaimed contemporary art fair that also passes through London, New York City and (for the first time this year) Seoul, presented an astounding array of work. Felix, an LA-only institution that taps into the unexpected, displayed thought-provoking pieces in curious places. Despite their differences, themes unified both, with fantastical landscapes one of the most imaginative. The following paintings, which were seen across both fairs, bring new worlds to life.
Shara Hughes at Frieze
Presented by London-based contemporary art gallery Pilar Corrias, Shara Hughes‘ lush painting “The Last Glance Back” (2021) immersed viewers at Frieze. The otherworldly image, a large-scale oil and acrylic on canvas work, carries Brooklyn-based Hughes’ signature splendors.
Eliot Greenwald (left) and Robert Zehnder (right) at Felix
Both seen at Felix, these two works epitomize mythical, transportive landscape painting. On the left, seen at Harper’s Gallery (which has locations in East Hampton and Los Angeles) is the morphed linear perspective of self-taught artist Eliot Greenwald‘s “monument/sand” (2022); On the right, a detail of one of Brooklyn-based artist Robert Zehnder‘s warm, wondrous works, “They Row and They Spiral” (2021), composed of oil on canvas, was discovered on the walls of Queens, New York-based Mrs.
Dylan Solomon Kraus at Felix
Though NYC-based visual artist Dylan Solomon Kraus named this brilliant, blue oil and pigment on linen work “Interior” (2022), the power of the image comes from the implication of a cloudy exterior. Displayed by Berlin-based Peres Projects, the painting balances structure and imagination.
Roger White at Felix
Seen at LA-based Grice Bench, within the Felix fair, NYC-based artist Roger White‘s “Picnic, Shiba Park” (2021) sets the unexpected—a sperm whale—amidst what would otherwise be a landscape populated by picnickers (mathematician Yutaka Taniyama and his fiancee). It’s the tone of this oil on canvas creation that makes it so surprising.
Ayako Rokkaku at Frieze
Within Frieze, a solo presentation of Ayako Rokkaku by Berlin’s König Galerie contained six continuous canvases, altogether linking one luscious, floating landscape fit for dreams. The magnitude of the artist’s work is only surpassed by her colorful attention to detail.
Images of respective works by David Graver, hero image a detail of Robert Zehnder‘s “They Row and They Spiral” (2021)
