Review: LA Art Show 2023

By

  Leticia Marie Sanchez

Filled with an abundance of inspiring art from all over the world, LA Art Show 2023 was one of the best shows in recent memory.

Here are my Top 3 favorite discoveries from the show:

1. Tsuyu Bridwell “Santocho”

Art can serve as a balm for the soul. “Santocho,” comprised of thousands of paper butterflies, did just that. This uplifting work provided an ethereal refuge from the world outside. Contemplating this metaphorical shrine, I forgot the whirl of traffic downtown and the serpentine freeways leading to the galleries. The butterflies provided a burst of beauty and repose.

2. Lorenzo Marini’s “Raintype” stopped me in my tracks.

Marini is one of the founders of the “Type Art” movement in Milan, a movement which seeks to elevate letters to the artistic status of portrait and landscape. His whimsical work made letters magical, subconsciously flashing back to the malleable mind of an infant, looking up at alphabet mobiles, in the days when every moment was filled with curiosity and wonder.

3) Phil Shaw

Humor is one of the virtues of Contemporary Art, and Phil Shaw takes the cake for visual wit. The marriage between literature and visual art spoke to my inner bookworm. Two of his works, in particular, caught my eye.

One, entitled “Pulp Fiction” cleverly narrated a story using the titles on the books spines on a shelf to tell a whole story. If you read through the first titles on these spines, it blends into “It was a dark and stormy night on Broadway, the boulevard of broken dreams.”

Another of Shaw’s work that caught my eye was “Big Fiction,” that included puns on well-known literary works. Some of the cheeky titles include “All’s Well That Ends Swell,” “Madame Beavery,” and “Room For a Few.”

Kudos to the all the artists at LA Art Show 2023 for infusing our lives with wonder and wit!